358 THE REIGN OF LAW. 



considered, the most odious conceptions of Human 

 Society which the world has ever seen, were the con- 

 ceptions of an intellect certainly among the loftiest 

 which has ever exercised its powers in speculative 

 thought. Plato's Republic is an Ideal State, founded 

 on abstract conceptions of the mind, and one of its 

 leading ideas is the destruction of Family Life, and 

 the annihilation of the family affections. And yet 

 this result, odious and irrational as it is, was arrived 

 at from reasoning which is not in itself odious, but 

 which is false, chiefly because it takes no account 

 of the facts of Nature. The welfare of the State was 

 to be the one object of desire in every mind. All 

 separate interests and affections were to be sup- 

 pressed, and amongst these the very idea of special 

 property in Wife or Child. The highest type of 

 man was to be bred by the Republic as the highest 

 type of dogs and horses is bred by an intelligent 

 owner.* Such are the humiliating results of ab- 

 stract reasoning, pursued in ignorance of the great 

 Law, that no purpose can be attained in Nature 

 except by legitimate use of the means which Nature 



* " The breeding is regulated, like that of noble horses or dogs, 

 by an intelligent proprietor." — Grotc's Plato, vol. iii. p. 203. 



