Complete Works (78 page)

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: But who are the people you mean?

V
ISITOR
: Some very odd people indeed.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: How, exactly?

V
ISITOR
: It’s a class mixed out of all sorts, or so it seems to me as I look [b] at it just now. For many of the men resemble lions and centaurs and other such things, and very many resemble satyrs and those animals that are weak but versatile; and they quickly exchange their shapes and capacity for action for each other’s. And yet
now
, Socrates, I think I have identified the men in question.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Please explain; you seem to have something odd in view.

V
ISITOR
: Yes; it’s a universal experience that not recognizing something makes it odd. And this is exactly what happened to me just now: at the moment when I first saw the chorus of those concerned with the affairs [c] of cities I failed to recognize them.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What chorus?

V
ISITOR
: That of the greatest magician of all the sophists, and the most versed in their expertise. Although removing him from among those who really are in possession of the art of statesmanship and kingship is a very difficult thing to do, remove him we must if we are going to see plainly what we are looking for.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: We must certainly not let this slip.

V
ISITOR
: Certainly not, if you ask my view. So tell me this.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What?

V
ISITOR
: We recognize monarchy, don’t we, as one of the varieties of [d] rule in cities?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Yes.

V
ISITOR
: After monarchy one would, I think, list the holding of power by the few.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Of course.

V
ISITOR
: And isn’t a third type of constitution rule by the mass of the people, called by the name of ‘democracy’?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Most certainly.

V
ISITOR
: So there are three of them—but don’t they in a certain way become five, giving birth from among them to two other names in addition to themselves?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What are these?

V
ISITOR
: I think that as things are people refer to the aspects of force [e] and consent, poverty and wealth, and law and lawlessness as they occur in them, and use these to divide each of the first two types into two. So they call monarchy by two names, on the grounds that it exhibits two forms, the one ‘tyrannical’, the other ‘kingly’ monarchy.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Of course.

V
ISITOR
: And any city which has come to be controlled by a few people they call by the names of ‘aristocracy’ and ‘oligarchy’.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Most certainly.

V
ISITOR
: With democracy, on the other hand, whether in fact it’s by force or with their consent that the mass rules over those who possess the wealth,
[292]
and whether by accurately preserving the laws or not, in all these cases no one is in the habit of changing its name.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: True.

V
ISITOR
: What then? Do we suppose that any of these constitutions is correct, when it is defined by these criteria—one, few and many, wealth and poverty, force and consent, and whether it turns out to be accompanied by written laws or without laws?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Why, what actually prevents it?

V
ISITOR
: Look at it more clearly, following this way. [b]

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Which?

V
ISITOR
: Shall we abide by what we said when we first began, or shall we be in discord with it?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What was that?

V
ISITOR
: We said, I think, that kingly rule was one of the sorts of expert knowledge.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Yes.

V
ISITOR
: And not just one of them all, but we chose out from the rest particularly one that was concerned in a sense with making judgments and controlling.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Yes.

[c] V
ISITOR
: And then from the controlling sort, we took one that was set over inanimate products, and one set over living creatures; and it’s by splitting things up in just this way that we have been progressing all the time to the point where we are now. We haven’t forgotten that it’s knowledge, but as for what sort of knowledge it is, we’re not yet able to give a sufficiently accurate answer.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Your account is correct.

V
ISITOR
: Then do we see just this very point, that the criterion in the things in question must not be few, nor many, nor consent nor the lack of it, nor poverty nor wealth, but some sort of knowledge, if indeed we are going to be consistent with what we said before?

[d] Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: But
that
we can’t possibly fail to do.

V
ISITOR
: Necessarily, then, we must now consider in which, if any, of these types of rule expert knowledge about ruling human beings turns out to occur—practically the most difficult and the most important thing of which to acquire knowledge. For we must catch sight of it, in order to consider which people we must remove from the wise king’s company, who pretend to possess of the art of statesmanship, and persuade many people that they do, but in fact do not have it at all.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Yes, we must indeed do this, as our argument has already told us.

[e] V
ISITOR
: Well, does it seem that a mass of people in the city are capable of acquiring this expertise?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: How could they?

V
ISITOR
: But in a city of a thousand men, is it possible for a hundred or so, or again fifty, to acquire it adequately?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: In that case, it would be quite the easiest of all the sorts of expertise there are; for we know that among a thousand men there would never be so many top
petteia
-players
⁵⁴
in relation to those among the rest of the Greeks, let alone kings. For it is that man who actually possesses the expert knowledge of kingship, whether he rules or not, who
[293]
must in any case be called an expert in kingship, according to what we said before.
⁵⁵

V
ISITOR
: You’ve remembered well. As a consequence of this, I think, we must look for correct rule in relation to some one person, or two, or altogether few—when it
is
correct.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: We certainly must.

V
ISITOR
: Yes, but these people, whether they rule over willing or unwilling subjects, whether according to written laws or without them, and whether they rule as rich men or poor, we must suppose—as is now our view—to be carrying out whatever sort of rule they do on the basis of [b] expertise. Doctors provide the clearest parallel. We believe in them whether they cure us with our consent or without it, by cutting or burning or applying some other painful treatment, and whether they do so according to written rules or apart from written rules, and whether as poor men or rich. In all these cases we are no less inclined at all to say they are doctors, so long as they are in charge of us on the basis of expertise, purging or otherwise reducing us, or else building us up—it is no matter, if only each and every one of those who care for our bodies acts for our bodies’ good, making them better than they were, and so preserves what is in their care. [c] It’s in this way, as I think, and in no other that we’ll lay down the criterion of medicine and of any other sort of rule whatsoever; it is the only correct criterion.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Yes, just so.

V
ISITOR
: It must then be the case, it seems, that of constitutions too the one that is correct in comparison with the rest, and alone a constitution, is the one in which the rulers would be found truly possessing expert knowledge, and not merely seeming to do so, whether they rule according to laws or without laws, over willing or unwilling subjects, and whether the [d] rulers are poor or wealthy—there is no principle of correctness according to which any of these must be taken into any account at all.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Right.

V
ISITOR
: And whether they purge the city for its benefit by putting some people to death or else by exiling them, or whether again they make it smaller by sending out colonies somewhere like swarms of bees, or build it up by introducing people from somewhere outside and making them citizens—so long as they act to preserve it on the basis of expert knowledge and what is just, making it better than it was so far as they can,
this
is the [e] constitution which alone we must say is correct, under these conditions and in accordance with criteria of this sort. All the others that we generally say are constitutions we must say are not genuine, and not really constitutions at all, but imitations of this one; those we say are ‘law-abiding’ have imitated
⁵⁶
it for the better, the others for the worse.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: The rest of it, visitor, seems to have been said in due measure; but that ideal rule may exist even without laws was something harder for a hearer to accept.

V
ISITOR
: You got in just a little before me with your question, Socrates.
[294]
For I was about to ask you whether you accept all of this, or whether in fact you find any of the things we have said difficult to take. But as it is it’s already apparent that we’ll want a discussion of this matter of the correctness of those who rule without laws.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Quite.

V
ISITOR
: Now in a certain sense
⁵⁷
it is clear that the art of the legislator belongs to that of the king; but the best thing is not that the laws should prevail, but rather the kingly man who possesses wisdom. Do you know why?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What then is the reason?

[b] V
ISITOR
: That law could never accurately embrace what is best and most just for all at the same time, and so prescribe what is best. For the dissimilarities between human beings and their actions, and the fact that practically nothing in human affairs ever remains stable, prevent any sort of expertise whatsoever from making any simple decision in any sphere that covers all cases and will last for all time. I suppose this is something we agree about?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Certainly.

[c] V
ISITOR
: But we see law bending itself more or less towards this very thing; it resembles some self-willed and ignorant person, who allows no one to do anything contrary to what he orders, nor to ask any questions about it, not even if, after all, something new turns out for someone which is better, contrary to the prescription which he himself has laid down.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: True; the law does absolutely as you have just said with regard to each and every one of us.

V
ISITOR
: Then it is impossible for what is perpetually simple to be useful in relation to what is never simple?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Very likely.

[d] V
ISITOR
: Why then is it ever necessary to make laws, given that law is not something completely correct? We must find out the cause of this.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Certainly.

V
ISITOR
: Now with you, too, people train in groups in the way they do in other cities, whether for running or for anything else, for competitive purposes?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Yes, very frequently.

V
ISITOR
: Well, now let’s recall to mind the instructions that expert trainers give when they’re in charge of people in such circumstances.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What are you thinking of?

V
ISITOR
: That they don’t suppose there is room for them to make their prescriptions piece by piece to suit each individual, giving the instruction [e] appropriate to the physical condition of each; they regard it as necessary to make rougher prescriptions about what will bring physical benefit, as suits the majority of cases and a large number of people.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Right.

V
ISITOR
: And it’s just for this reason that, as it is, they give equally heavy exercises to the group as a whole, starting them off together and stopping them together in their running, wrestling, and the rest of their physical exercises.