The Southern Review

To the statesman, or the legislator, the most important, the most indispensable, of all the branches of knowledge, is that which relates to the nature of man. No one can indeed begin to comprehend the length, the breadth, or the depth, of either the science or the spirit of laws, without a full, accurate, and profound insight into the wonderful workings of the human heart. Hence the great writers on government usually begin their works, as they had begun their studies, with an examination of the active principles and powers of human nature. The Ethics of Aristotle is the prelude and propedeutic to his Poli

tics.

In like manner, the paper Republic of Plato is prefaced

by, and based on, his views of human nature, or of man as a moral agent. And these two great types of the human mind,-Plato

and Aristotle, standing at the opposite poles of political philosophy, have, in all ages, drawn their respective followers, each to himself, from among those who have the most nearly coincided with the master's views respecting the nature of man. If, indeed, we only know what a man thinks about human nature, we may easily tell, whether he naturally inclines to the political school of Plato, or to that of Aristotle.

Plato called Aristotle 'the mind of his school.' He was, indeed, in the science of morals and politics, the mind of antiquity. Not more certainly was Archimedes the geometer, Hipparchus the astronomer, of the ancient world, than was Aristotle its moral and political philosopher. The divines of the present day, said the late Archbishop Whately, may learn much from the Ethics of Aristotle. The politicians of the present day might learn much more from his Politics. This book is, indeed, a vast storehouse of political wisdom, from which the Bacons, the Montesquieus, and the Burkes of after ages have drawn immense supplies. Yet his method is worth infinitely more than his book, which is merely one of the results of that method.

How different the speculations of Plato! With his rationalistic method, Plato spins an entirely new system of government out of a few abstract notions, which is to banish discord from society,' and to introduce a perfect harmony! Aristotle, on the contrary, pursues the historic method. He examines all the actual forms of government, in all their combinations, and from the experience of the past draws lessons of practical wisdom for the future. The one seeks to change the very course of Nature, even in its purest instincts, and in its holiest affections; the other only aims to fortify, to guide, and to aid in its development. The one is, in short, the great archetype of all the radicalism of the modern world; the other, the great master of political wisdom, both in his method and in his doctrine, for all after ages. The fundamental error of Platonism has, in fact, played a most conspicuous and terrific part in the most awful and bloody tragedies of the modern world.

The Republic of Plato, considered as 'a vision of justice,' contains, no doubt, many admirable things, many sublime and 1Republic, Book V.

beautiful views. But then, it should be remembered that this is a vision of justice in the abstract; it is when he comes, in the fifth book, to organize justice, that he only disorganizes society, and wages a mad war against the very course of Nature, and its irreversible laws. By Rousseau, and by other philosophists of the eighteenth century, it is said, that the Republic is not a scheme of government at all, but the most perfect system of education the world has ever seen. Viewed as a system of education, it likewise contains many admirable things; but, on the other hand, it is based on the radical vice, on the great fundamental error, which pervades Plato's whole scheme of thought. Nor is this all. For precisely the same view, the same error, pervades the thinking of all the philosophers, of all the legislators, and of all the political reformers, of the eighteenth century, both in France and in America; and, caus ing all their proud schemes for the regeneration of the human race to crumble into dust and ashes, has overspread the whole face of society with scenes of carnage, desolation, and death.

Socrates maintained, as is well known, that every man would lead a perfectly virtuous life, if he only knew the right. If this were so, then how easy the work of the philanthropist, or how rapid the progress of man! For if ignorance be the sole source of evil, then is knowledge the universal panacea, the sole and sufficient remedy for all the disorders of society. Then, in the language of Xenophon, the disciple of Socrates,

we should 'furnish ourselves with an inexhaustible fund of virtue, when we treasure up the writings of great men.' Then Would the brightest be always the best of mankind. But is this so? We might, indeed, without further notice, let this error pass, but for the tremendous part it has played in modern The mischief it has wrought in the world, as well as the inherent weakness of its own nature, still remains, so far as we know, to be exposed. We shall, then, show the bitter fruits of this element of Platonism in all ages.

times.

Our business, at present, is with Plato himself, the grand archetype of the political reformer and dreamer. With such a view of human nature as that universally ascribed to Socrates,

In his Emile.

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