234 DANTE S TREATISE OX GOVERNMENT. 



Was the king-, then, to turn schoolmaster or University pro- 

 fessor? By no means. Intellect meant a good deal more than; 

 this to the men of the thirteenth century. The acquisition of mere 

 knowledg-e and speculation were considered important parts of 

 our mental activity, but they were only parts after all. Man being- 

 a reasonable being, his whole activity in every branch (art, science, 

 politics, mechanics, etc.) must be controlled and ennobled by the 

 mind, if it was to be worthy of him. Thus every province of 

 man's empire over matter became a department of his intellectual 

 development. It became the highest duty of the State to contri- 

 bute in the best way it could, to the development of all its subjects 

 along these lines. 



An admirable but impossible scheme ! someone may say. And' 

 such jt would be, if Dante gave any encouragement to the idea of 

 grandmotherly legislation, to make people healthy, wealthy and' 

 wise ; as this programme would seem to entail at first sight. But 

 no one knew better than the author of Divina Commedia that 

 men's highest development should have its germ within. For 

 when \^ergil (the symbol of human wisdom and its devices in 

 government or elsewhere) leads the poet to the threshold of the 

 earthly paradise he leaves him with these words : 



Non aspettar mio dir piu, ne mio senno. 

 Libero, dritto e sano e tuo arbitrio, 

 E fallo fora non fare a suo senno ; 

 Perch' io te sopra te corono e mitrio. * 



But up to that point in the poet's journey through the lower 

 regions, \'ergil had performed a very useful function. He had" 

 cleared away many an otherwise insurmountable obstacle frnni 

 the path of this traveller in the regions of the soul. An analogous 

 function in the development of nations is ascribed by Dante to the 

 operation of the State. The eovernment cannot turn out the 

 finished product of the perfect man ; but it can give all its subjects 

 a fair chance of perfecting themselves according to their station- 

 and other circumstances. 



It discharges this function best when it maintains a peace 

 founded on freedom and justice. Peace throughout the world is, 

 he holds, the best thing that can be secured for us by govern- 

 ment.! Under the favourable conditions which it creates man will' 

 find his best opportunity for the noblest progress of every kind. 

 When we find him attaching this high importance to the benefits 

 of peace, we do not wonder that the well-known cJ?iuse of the 

 Lord's Prayer becomes in his verse : 



"Vegna ver noi la pace del tuo regno. 



Given peace and justice between man, he believed that it was 

 for indiv^iduals to carry on the highest work of the race. As long 

 as the States policed the world and kept order, he believed that 

 there was enough in man, to make actual every development of 

 which his mind was capable. 



* Purg. XXVII. 139-42. 



t Pax universalis est optimum eorum quae ad nostram beatitudinenx- 

 ordinantur (Mon. 1.5.). 



