The Republic | Page 4

we forget that the Republic is but the third part of a still larger design which
was to have included an ideal history of Athens, as well as a political and physical
philosophy. The fragment of the Critias has given birth to a world-famous fiction, second
only in importance to the tale of Troy and the legend of Arthur; and is said as a fact to
have inspired some of the early navigators of the sixteenth century. This mythical tale, of
which the subject was a history of the wars of the Athenians against the Island of Atlantis,
is supposed to be founded upon an unfinished poem of Solon, to which it would have
stood in the same relation as the writings of the logographers to the poems of Homer. It
would have told of a struggle for Liberty (cp. Tim.), intended to represent the conflict of
Persia and Hellas. We may judge from the noble commencement of the Timaeus, from
the fragment of the Critias itself, and from the third book of the Laws, in what manner
Plato would have treated this high argument. We can only guess why the great design
was abandoned; perhaps because Plato became sensible of some incongruity in a
fictitious history, or because he had lost his interest in it, or because advancing years
forbade the completion of it; and we may please ourselves with the fancy that had this
imaginary narrative ever been finished, we should have found Plato himself sympathising
with the struggle for Hellenic independence (cp. Laws), singing a hymn of triumph over
Marathon and Salamis, perhaps making the reflection of Herodotus where he
contemplates the growth of the Athenian empire--'How brave a thing is freedom of
speech, which has made the Athenians so far exceed every other state of Hellas in
greatness!' or, more probably, attributing the victory to the ancient good order of Athens
and to the favor of Apollo and Athene (cp. Introd. to Critias).
Again, Plato may be regarded as the 'captain' ('arhchegoz') or leader of a goodly band of
followers; for in the Republic is to be found the original of Cicero's De Republica, of St.
Augustine's City of God, of the Utopia of Sir Thomas More, and of the numerous other
imaginary States which are framed upon the same model. The extent to which Aristotle
or the Aristotelian school were indebted to him in the Politics has been little recognised,
and the recognition is the more necessary because it is not made by Aristotle himself. The
two philosophers had more in common than they were conscious of; and probably some
elements of Plato remain still undetected in Aristotle. In English philosophy too, many
affinities may be traced, not only in the works of the Cambridge Platonists, but in great
original writers like Berkeley or Coleridge, to Plato and his ideas. That there is a truth
higher than experience, of which the mind bears witness to herself, is a conviction which
in our own generation has been enthusiastically asserted, and is perhaps gaining ground.
Of the Greek authors who at the Renaissance brought a new life into the world Plato has
had the greatest influence. The Republic of Plato is also the first treatise upon education,

of which the writings of Milton and Locke, Rousseau, Jean Paul, and Goethe are the
legitimate descendants. Like Dante or Bunyan, he has a revelation of another life; like
Bacon, he is profoundly impressed with the unity of knowledge; in the early Church he
exercised a real influence on theology, and at the Revival of Literature on politics. Even
the fragments of his words when 'repeated at second-hand' (Symp.) have in all ages
ravished the hearts of men, who have seen reflected in them their own higher nature. He
is the father of idealism in philosophy, in politics, in literature. And many of the latest
conceptions of modern thinkers and statesmen, such as the unity of knowledge, the reign
of law, and the equality of the sexes, have been anticipated in a dream by him.
The argument of the Republic is the search after Justice, the nature of which is first
hinted at by Cephalus, the just and blameless old man--then discussed on the basis of
proverbial morality by Socrates and Polemarchus-- then caricatured by Thrasymachus
and partially explained by Socrates-- reduced to an abstraction by Glaucon and
Adeimantus, and having become invisible in the individual reappears at length in the
ideal State which is constructed by Socrates. The first care of the rulers is to be education,
of which an outline is drawn after the old Hellenic model, providing only for an improved
religion and morality, and more simplicity in music and gymnastic, a manlier strain of
poetry, and greater harmony of the individual and the State. We are thus