PLATO. -65 



sidered, what in existing states of society are the causes that impede 

 that perfection, that men may at least learn not to abandon themselves 

 to those propensities, whatever they may be, the indulgence of which 

 is so adverse to their real interests. If free devotion to general good 

 is impeded by the love of lucre, and by the partialities of families 

 and kindred; if avarice is admitted to be vicious, and favour and 

 personal regards mischievous to the public, it seems to result, that in 

 a perfect state all property should belong to the state, and that indi- 

 viduals should rather be members of the great family of the state than 

 of private households. On these grounds, amongst other regulations 

 for citizens educated in a particular manner, brought up in a strict 

 discipline of the passions, Plato modified rather than invented institu- 

 tions, which had subsisted in some degree among the Cretans and 

 Spartans, 1 and projected a community of property and of wives. 

 Marriages were to be performed with due ceremonies at seasons to be 

 appointed by the public functionaries; but the nuptials, instead of 

 effecting an appropriation for life, only sanctioned a temporary coha- 

 bitation ; so that the offspring might not be claimed as the exclusive 

 property of its individual father, but as the offspring of the state. 

 Indeed the remark of Lucian is very just, that Plato's community of 

 wives was quoted as a justification for the vilest prostitution and pro- 

 fligacy, by many persons who never suspected the real meaning of the 

 author, or observed the particular guards and regulations with which 

 Plato had encompassed this rule, even in a state of beings supposed 

 to be exalted by every opportunity and preparation for moral and 

 intellectual excellence. 



Connected with this dialogue are two others, ' The Timseus ' and 

 ' The Critias,' the latter of which is left unfinished. * The Timseus* 

 contains a singular history of the Cosmogony. In this dialogue His Cosmo- 

 Timasus is introduced, first making the usual distinction between gon y' 

 essences, which are the subject of knowledge, and accidents which are 

 the subjects of opinion, and then stating that the divinity found a 

 mass of inordinate and turbulent materials, which he organized and 

 reduced to system. The opposite elements of fire and earth, he con- 

 sorted by the media of air and water, and a proper temperament was 

 produced by mixing them together in harmonious proportions. One 

 world was the result; which, as it comprehended in itself all the 

 ingredients in existence, and could therefore be subject to no external 

 attrition or concussion, must remain undecaying and imperishable; 

 and, as it comprehended all living beings, must be of that figure 

 which is most perfect, and comprehends within itself all other figures, 

 namely, a sphere. A soul or principle of motion was also created by 

 the eternal intelligent Divinity, with which he caused the universal 

 mass to be pervaded and invested. But Timseus expressly observes, 

 that though in the order of our notions, this soul is conceived as pro 



1 See on this head Cardinal Bessarion's work, Contra Calumniatorem Platonis, 

 lib. iv. c. 2; Venet. 1516, p. 69; and Morgenstein's Commentatio. 

 [G. K. P.] F 



