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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: long been in despair of finding the true ruler; and therefore are ready to
acquiesce in any of the five or six received forms of government as better
than none. And the best thing which they can do (though only the second
best in reality), is to reduce the ideal state to the conditions of actual
life. Thus in the Statesman, as in the Laws, we have three forms of
government, which we may venture to term, (1) the ideal, (2) the practical,
(3) the sophistical--what ought to be, what might be, what is. And thus
Plato seems to stumble, almost by accident, on the notion of a
constitutional monarchy, or of a monarchy ruling by laws.
The divine foundations of a State are to be laid deep in education
(Republic), and at the same time some little violence may be used in
Statesman |
