64 GKEEK PHILOSOPHY. 



way of illustration ; and the several deviations from that perfect form, 

 as exhibited in a tyranny, an oligarchy, and a democracy, though 

 displayed at great length, and with admirable graphical effect, are, in 

 reality, only larger exemplars brought in to evince the disproportions 

 and confusion which must ensue, from allowing an ascendency either 

 to the appetite for pleasure, or to the irritable propensities, in that 

 microcosm, the human mind. The dialogue, in short, is throughout 

 of a moral cast, and the political details are merely auxiliary and sub- 

 sidiary to the moral end. The author shows that Reason must be 

 the sovereign legislator, and that the inferior faculties of the mind 

 must be regulated by the mandates of their Queen ; and that happiness 

 is secured to the individual in proportion as the higher faculty is well 

 exercised and enlightened, and as the subject-propensities maintain 

 their due and orderly allegiance. 



Independently then of external circumstances, a certain regularity 

 of conduct is required for the peace and harmony of the system within 

 us ; but the 1 author proceeds to show that virtue, besides bearing its 

 own reward here, in the content and self-complacency and happiness 

 which it inspires, has, as far as tradition or conjecture may reach, the 

 fairest chance of a continuance of happiness when this life is closed. 

 In illustration of which a very beautiful fable is introduced. 



Whilst Plato considered morality to be founded in the governance 

 of Reason, and government to have its grand aim in the promotion of 

 morality, it is not to be wondered at, that he thought the nature of 

 man and of public societies would mutually illustrate one another; 

 but we think the remark of a learned foreign critic 1 (in a work which 

 is the best commentary that has yet been published on the design and 

 conduct of this dialogue of Plato) particularly just, that the excursive 

 and illustrative portions of the dialogue have in a manner overtopped 

 those devoted to the principal and direct subject of discussion, partly 

 from the disproportionate extent of those excursive portions, arid more 

 particularly from the singularity of some of the theories adopted in 

 them. It is agreed by all, that Plato had great merit in forming 

 to himself the notion of a perfect commonwealth ; and in considering 

 not merely existing institutions, but in endeavouring to create some 

 form of ideal excellence, which might serve as a model, and as a con- 

 stant example not of the practicable but of the desirable. It has, 

 however, been the misfortune of his system to be judged of, not in 

 the view with which it was formed, but to have its particular parts 

 anatomized without reference to the whole, but as detached principles ; 

 and when so taken, their un suitableness to society, as it exists, has 

 been proved with much dexterity, and, indeed, by conclusive argu- 

 piato's idea rnents. But the object of Plato was to conceive one perfect model to 

 monweaith. which human institutions might in some remote degree approximate. 

 If the perfection of human nature is the annihilation of every selfish 

 feeling, and the entire ascendency of a sense of duty, it is to be con- 

 1 Carol! Morgenstein, De Platonis Republica Commentationes tres. 



