striving after the good or self-realisation-the Soul is conscious of its own freedom. This consciousness of "freedom," involved in the consciousness of "Virtue," is better evidence for the reality of freedom than the inability of the logical faculty to understand freedom is against its reality. As Butler says, "The notion of necessity is not applicable to practical subjects, i.e. with respect to them is as if it were not true. Though it were admitted that this opinion of necessity were speculatively true, yet with regard to practice it is as if it were false." One other point and I have done with the Myth of Er: The momentary prenatal act of choice which Plato describes in this Myth is the pattern of like acts which have to be performed in a man's natural life. Great decisions have to be made in life, which, once made, are irrevocable, and dominate the man's whole career and conduct afterwards. The chief use of education is to prepare a man for these crises in his life, so that he may decide rightly. The preparation does not consist in a rehearsal, as it were, of the very thing to be done when the crisis comes,-for the nature of the crisis cannot be anticipated, but in a training of the will and judgment by which they become trustworthy in any difficulty which may be presented to them. The education given to the φύλακες of Plato's Καλλίπολις is a training of this kind. Its aim is to cultivate faculties rather than to impart special knowledge. It is a "liberal education" suitable to free men of the governing class, as distinguished from technical instruction by which workmen are fitted for the routine of which they are, so to speak, the slaves. 1 Analogy, i. 6. THE POLITICUS MYTH INTRODUCTORY REMARKS We have now done with the three purely Eschatological Myths, and enter on a series of Myths which are mainly Aetiological. We begin with the Myth of the Alternating World-periods in the Politicus. The Cosmos has alternating periods, according as God either goes round with and controls its revolution, or lets go the helm and retires to his watch-tower. When God lets go the helm, the Cosmos, being a Cov with its own σúμpuтos Ovμía, and subject, like all creatures, to eiμapμévn, begins to revolve in its own direction, which is opposite to God's direction. The change of direction-the least possible change if there is to be change at all-we must ascribe to the changeable nature of the material Cosmos, and not either to God, who is unchangeable, imparting now one motion and then its contrary, or to the agency of another God. When God, then, lets go the helm, the Cosmos begins of itself to revolve backwards; and since all events on Earth are produced by the revolution of the Cosmos, the events which happened in one cosmic period are reproduced backwards in the next. Thus the dead of one period rise from their graves in the next as grey-haired men, who gradually become black-haired and beardless, till at last, as infants, they vanish away. This is the account of the fabled ynyeveîs. They were men who died and were buried in the cosmic period immediately preceding that of Cronus-the Golden Age of Cronus, when the Earth brought forth food plenteously for all her children, and men and beasts, her common children, talked together, and Saíuoves, not mortal men, were kings (cf. Laws, 713). But at last the stock of earthen men ran out—τὸ γήϊνον ἤδη πᾶν ἀνήλωτο yévos (Pol. 272 D)—and the age of Cronus came to an end: God let go the helm, and the Cosmos changed the direction of its revolution, the change being accompanied by great earthquakes which destroyed all but a few men and animals. Then the Cosmos calmed down, and for a while, though revolving in its own direction, not in God's, yet remembered God, and fared well; but afterwards forgot him, and went from bad to worse; till God, of his goodness, saved struggling men, now no longer earth-born, from destruction by means of the fire of Prometheus and the arts of Athena and Hephaestus. In due time he will close the present period—that of Zeus— by again taking the helm of the Cosinos. Then will be the Resurrection of the Dead. Such, in brief, is the Myth of the Changing World-periods in the Politicus. Like the Myths already examined, this one deals with God's government of man as a creature at once free to do good and evil, and determined by cosmic influences over which he and even God the Creator himself, whether from lack or non-use of power hardly matters-have no control. The Myth differs from those which we have examined in not being told by Socrates himself. It is told by an Eleatic Stranger, who says that the younger Socrates, who is present with the elder, will appreciate a μulos, or story. Similarly, Protagoras prefaces the Myth which he tells (Prot. 320 c) by saying that it will suit Socrates and the others-younger men than himself. The Eleatic Stranger in the Politicus tells his Myth ostensibly in order to bring it home to the company that they have defined "kingship" too absolutely—as if the king were a god, and not a human being. Gods directly appointed by the great God were kings on this Earth in a former period; but in the period in which we now live men are the only kings. Kingship must now be conceived "naturalistically" as a product of human society; and human society itself, like the whole Cosmos of which it is a part, must be conceived naturalistically" as following its own intrinsic law without divine guidance ab extra. To enforce a "naturalistic" estimate of kingship is the ostensible object of the Myth; but it soars high, as we shall see, above the argument which it is ostensibly introduced to serve. CONTEXT The subject of the Politicus is the True Statesman. The best form of government, if we could get it, would be the rule of one eminently good and wise man, who knew and desired the Chief Good of his People, and possessed the art of securing it for them. His unlimited personal initiative would be far better than the best administration of “laws" made only because he could not be found, and because such rulers as were actually available could not be trusted with unlimited initiative. But before we try to determine exactly the nature of the True Statesman-the man whom we should like to make King, if we could find him; and before we try to define his Art, and distinguish it from all other arts—and we must try to do this, in order that we may get a standard by which to judge the work-a-day rulers, good and bad, whose administration of the "laws" we are obliged to accept as substitute for the personal initiative of the True Statesman, before we try to formulate this standard, let us raise our eyes to an even higher standard: God is the True Ruler of men; and in the Golden Age he ruled men, not through the instrumentality of human rulers, but Gods were his lieutenants on Earth, and lived among men, and were their Kings. It is with this Golden Age, and the great difference between it and the present age, and the cause of the difference, that the Myth told to the elder and the younger Socrates, and to Theodorus the mathematician, by the Stranger from Elea, is concerned. 268 E 269 B Politicus, 268 E-274 E ΞΕ. ̓Αλλὰ δὴ τῷ μύθῳ μου πάνυ πρόσεχε τὸν νοῦν, καθάπερ οἱ παῖδες· πάντως οὐ πολλὰ ἐκφεύγεις παιδιᾶς ἔτη. ΝΕ. ΣΩ. Λέγοις ἄν. ΞΕ. Ἦν τοίνυν καὶ ἔτι ἔσται τῶν πάλαι λεχθέντων πολλά τε ἄλλα καὶ δὴ καὶ τὸ περὶ τὴν ̓Ατρέως τε καὶ Θυέστου λεχθεῖσαν ἔριν φάσμα. ἀκήκοας γάρ που καὶ ἀπομνημονεύεις ὅ φασι γενέσθαι τότε. ΝΕ. ΣΩ. Τὸ περὶ τῆς χρυσῆς ἀρνὸς ἴσως σημείον φράζεις. ΞΕ. Οὐδαμῶς, ἀλλὰ τὸ περὶ τῆς μεταβολῆς δύσεώς τε καὶ ἀνατολῆς ἡλίου καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἄστρων, ὡς ἄρα ὅθεν μὲν ἀνατέλλει νῦν, εἰς τοῦτον τότε τὸν τόπον ἐδύετο, ἀνέτελλε δ ̓ ἐκ τοῦ ἐναντίου, τότε δὲ δὴ μαρτυρήσας ἄρα ὁ θεὸς ̓Ατρεῖ μετέβαλεν αὐτὸ ἐπὶ τὸ νῦν σχῆμα. ΝΕ. ΣΩ. Λέγεται γὰρ οὖν δὴ καὶ τοῦτο. ΞΕ. Καὶ μὴν αὖ καὶ τήν γε βασιλείαν, ἣν ἦρξε Κρόνος, πολλῶν ἀκηκόαμεν. ΝΕ. ΣΩ. Πλείστων μὲν οὖν. ΞΕ. Τί δέ; Τί δέ; τὸ τοὺς ἔμπροσθεν φύεσθαι γηγενεῖς καὶ μὴ ἐξ ἀλλήλων γεννᾶσθαι ; ΝΕ. ΣΩ. Καὶ τοῦτο ἓν τῶν πάλαι λεχθέντων. ΞΕ. Ταῦτα τοίνυν ἔστι μὲν ξύμπαντα ἐκ ταὐτοῦ πάθους, καὶ πρὸς τούτοις ἕτερα μυρία καὶ τούτων ἔτι θαυμαστότερα, διὰ δὲ χρόνου πλῆθος τὰ μὲν αὐτῶν ἀπέσβηκε, τὰ δὲ διεσπαρμένα εἴρηται χωρὶς ἕκαστα ἀπ ̓ ο ἀλλήλων. ὁ δ ̓ ἐστὶ πᾶσι τούτοις αἴτιον τὸ πάθος, οὐδεὶς εἴρηκε, νῦν δὲ δὴ λεκτέον· εἰς γὰρ τὴν τοῦ βασιλέως ἀπόδειξιν πρέψει ῥηθέν. ΝΕ. ΣΩ. Κάλλιστ ̓ εἶπες, καὶ λέγε μηδὲν ἐλλείπων. |