We have seen the Athenian creating a vast number of officials, and we may begin to suspect that in Magnesia the administrators will outnumber the administered. Why then does he take the trouble to establish yet another authority?1 He does so for three connected reasons. (i) The state officials have to administer laws which like all written regulations will need not only to be supplemented but also interpreted and even altered in the light of changing circumstances, or perhaps because the first legislator drafted them badly. The Athenian wishes to ensure that these later amendments are made in the same spirit as the original laws. This suggests a need for a council of legal studies, charged with the duty of studying the problems of drafting and clarifying legislation, and studying its relation to the wider issues of jurisprudence. (2) As the Athenian remarks at 962d–e, a state’s legislation will reflect its moral aims. Now if we have no clearly formulated moral aim, we shall tend to think of morality as adherence to a given set of laws; and then if for some reason we change these laws, we may find we have changed our moral standards too. It is not enough to recognize by instinct that this law is good and that bad. We must also know what goodness and badness are in themselves, so as to be able to measure our laws against a real and unchanging moral standard. This is the point of the Athenian’s insistence on an ability to understand the nature not only of each of the four individual virtues, but of Virtue itself – or, as he puts it, the sense in which the four are ‘one’. This suggests a need for a council of philosophical studies, charged with the duty of research into moral standards, so as to have firm criteria for the laws of the state. (3) However, such philosophical knowledge is useless if it is not explained and applied, and this suggests a need for a council of propaganda, charged with the duty of seeing that the correct moral standards are (however imperfectly) understood in the state at large. These three functions – legal, philosophical and didactic – are combined in the Nocturnal Council. The ‘higher education’ of the Council also includes theology and cosmology and various other studies relevant to morality. In short, the Council keeps the laws and customs of the state under permanent review; it is a device for the subordination of legislation and government to philosophy.
How, in practice, will the Council carry out its duties? Its course of studies is described somewhat allusively and we cannot be sure of the order in which the various subjects will be taken. The closing pages of the dialogue imply, perhaps, that the Academy would take the infant Council under its wing and arrange a curriculum. But we can get a fairly clear picture of the way in which the Council would perform its other duties. It would receive information about foreign legal codes from the ‘observers’ (see 951d–952b), about developments in philosophy from the visiting philosophers to whom its members give hospitality (see 953c–d), and about activities and opinions in Magnesia from the young men co-opted (its ‘eyes’: see 964e), as well as from its regular members, most of whom hold or have held high office in the state. There is no doubt that the Council would be well informed. And for these reasons it would be well placed to have a pervasive influence on the life of Magnesia. The young men would gain status from their very membership, and would be natural candidates for office later. The other members would belong to various other bodies and would obviously be consulted on matters of policy and the drafting of rules and regulations.
A modern reader will have mixed feelings about the Nocturnal Council. On the one hand he will recognize Plato’s wisdom and originality in providing for a permanent body, with few routine responsibilities but not wholly divorced from day-to-day affairs, to review and improve legislation in the light of legal and philosophical research; on the other hand, he will question the fundamental assumption on which the Council is based, namely that there exist fixed moral standards, ascertainable by inquiry and study, which should be reflected in a virtually immutable legal code. Whatever our final judgement on it, the Nocturnal Council must be recognized as one of Plato’s most far-reaching and far-sighted institutions.
HOW CAN THE STATE BE PRESERVED INTACT?
ATHENIAN: However, even when you have achieved or gained or founded something, you have never quite finished. Only when you have ensured complete and perpetual security for your creation can you reckon to have done everything that ought to have been done. Until then, it’s a case of ‘unfinished [c] business’.
CLEINIAS: Well said, sir – but what’s the particular point you had in mind in saying that? Could you be a little clearer?
ATHENIAN: Well, you know, Cleinias, a lot of old expressions are extraordinarily apt. I’m thinking particularly of the names of the Fates.
CLEINIAS: What names?
ATHENIAN: Lachesis2 for the first, Clotho3 for the second and Atropos4 for the third fulfiller of destiny – the last so called from her likeness to a woman making the threads on her spindle irreversible. That is precisely the situation we want to [d] see in our state and its citizens – not merely physical health and soundness, but the rule of law in their souls and (more important than all that) the preservation of the laws themselves. In fact, it seems to me that the service we’ve still not done for the laws is to discover how to build into them a resistance to being reversed.
CLEINIAS: That’s serious, because I don’t suppose there’s a way of giving anything that sort of property.
ATHENIAN: But there is. I see that quite clearly now. [e]
CLEINIAS: Well then, we mustn’t abandon our task till we’ve achieved this for the legal code we’ve expounded. It would be silly to waste our labour on something by failing to construct it on a firm foundation.
ATHENIAN: You’re right to encourage me, and you’ll find me as keen as you are.
CLEINIAS: Splendid! So what is this safety-device for our political system and legal code going to be, according to you? And how can we construct it?
MEMBERSHIP AND FUNCTIONS OF THE COUNCIL
[961a] ATHENIAN: We said5 that we ought to have in the state a council with the following range of membership. The ten Guardians of the Laws who are currently the eldest were to convene together with all persons who had won awards of distinction and the travellers who had gone abroad to see if they could discover any special method of keeping a legal code intact. When these observers got back safe and sound, they were to be accepted as suitable associates of the council, provided they had first passed the scrutiny of its members. In [b] addition, each member had to bring a young man of at least thirty years of age, but only after selecting him as particularly well qualified by natural abilities and education; on these terms the young man was to be introduced to the other members of the council, and if they approved of him, he was to join them; if not, they were not to breathe a word to anyone about the fact that he was considered, least of all to the rejected candidate himself. The council was to meet before dawn, when people are least beset by other business, public or private. That was more or less the description we gave [c] earlier, wasn’t it?
CLEINIAS: Certainly it was.
ATHENIAN: So I’m going to resume the subject of this council, and here’s the point I want to make about it. I maintain that if one were to lower it as a sort of ‘anchor’ for the whole state, then provided conditions were suitable, it would keep safe everything we wanted it to.
CLEINIAS: How so?
ATHENIAN: Now at this crucial moment, we must strain every muscle to get things right.
CLEINIAS: That’s a fine sentiment. Now do what you have in mind.
ATHENIAN: The question we have to ask about anything, Clein [d] ias, is this: what is it that has the special power of keeping it safe in each of its activities? In a living creature, for instance, this is the natural function of the soul and the head, in particular.
CLEINIAS: Again, what’s your point?
ATHENIAN: Well, when these two are functioning satisfactorily, they ensure the animal’s safety, don’t they?
CLEINIAS: How so?
ATHENIAN: Because no matter what else is true of either, the soul is the seat of reason and the head enjoys the faculties of sight and hearing. In short, the combination of reason with the highest senses constitutes a single faculty that would have every right to be called the salvation of the animal concerned.
CLEINIAS: That’s likely enough, I suppose.
ATHENIAN: Of course it is. But how do reason and the senses [e] combine to ensure the safety of a ship, in fair weather or foul? Isn’t it because captain and crew interpret sense-data by reason, as embodied in the expertise captains have, that they keep themselves and the whole ship safe?
CLEINIAS: Naturally.
ATHENIAN: We’ve no need to multiply examples, but take a general in command of his army, or any doctor tending a human body. What will they each aim at, on the assumption that they intend, as they should, to preserve their charges safe [962a] and sound? Won’t the general aim at victory and control over the enemy, and won’t doctors and their attendants aim to keep the body in a healthy condition?
CLEINIAS: Of course.
ATHENIAN: Now consider a doctor who can’t recognize the state of the body we’ve just called ‘health’, or a general who doesn’t know what’s meant by ‘victory’ and the other terms we reviewed. Could either of them possibly be judged to have a rational knowledge of his field?
CLEINIAS: Of course not.
ATHENIAN: And if the ruler of a state were obviously ignorant of the target at which a statesman should aim, would he really [b] deserve his title ‘ruler’? Would he be capable of ensuring the safety of an institution whose purpose he entirely failed to appreciate?
CLEINIAS: Certainly not.
ATHENIAN: Well then, in the present circumstances, if our settlement of this territory is to be finished off properly, it looks as if we shall have to provide it with some constituent that understands (a) this target we have mentioned – the target, whatever we find it is, of the statesman, (b) how to hit it, and (c) which laws (above all) and which persons have helpful advice to give and which not. If a state lacks some [c] such constituent, no one will be surprised to see it staggering from one irrational and senseless expedient to another in all its affairs.
CLEINIAS: That’s true.
ATHENIAN: So is there any institution or constituent part of our state qualified and prepared to function as an organ of protection? Can we name one?
CLEINIAS: No, sir, not with much assurance, anyway. But if guess I must, I think your remarks point to the Council you said just now had to convene during the night.
[d] ATHENIAN: You’ve caught my meaning splendidly, Cleinias. As the drift of our present argument shows, that body must possess virtue in all its completeness, which means above all that it will not take erratic aim at one target after another but keep its eye on one single target and shoot all its arrows at that.
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: Now we can see why it is hardly surprising that rules and regulations fluctuate so much from state to state: it is because legislation has a different aim in each. Nor is it surprising that in most cases you find that some people think of justice as nothing but the subjection of the state to the rule [e] of this or that type of person without regard to their vice or virtue, while others think of it as the opportunity to become rich, no matter whether they are thereby enslaved or not; others again are bent hell for leather on a life of ‘freedom’. Some legislators keep both ends in view, and their laws have the dual purpose of securing control over other states and freedom for their own. The cleverest legislators of all (as they like to think of themselves), so far from aiming at one single end, look not only to these but all others like them, simply because they cannot identify any supremely valuable end to which all others ought, in their view, to contribute.
THE UNITY AND PLURALITY OF VIRTUE
CLEINIAS: Well then, sir, the line we took so long ago was the [963a] right one.6 We said that every detail of our legislation ought to have a single end in view, and the proper name to call it was, I think we agreed, ‘virtue’.
ATHENIAN: Yes.
CLEINIAS: And I think we maintained that the virtues were four.
ATHENIAN: Indeed we did.
CLEINIAS: The leading one, to which not only the other three but everything else should be orientated, was reason.
ATHENIAN: You take the point admirably, Cleinias. Now follow the rest of the argument. As far as the captain, doctor and general are concerned, we have already indicated that [b] their intellect aims at some appropriate single end. Now it is the turn of the statesman’s reason to be investigated. Let’s personify it and ask it the following question: ‘My good sir, what aim do you have in view? What’s your single overriding purpose? The intelligent doctor can identify his accurately enough, so can’t you, with all your superior wisdom (as I suppose you’d claim), identify yours?’ Or can you two, Cleinias and Megillus, answer for him and tell me precisely what your notion of his aim is, just as I’ve often given you [c] detailed accounts of the notions of many other people on their behalf?
CLEINIAS: No, sir, we certainly cannot.
ATHENIAN: What about replying, ‘I think he should make every effort to get an overall understanding of his aim, as well as see it in its various contexts’?
CLEINIAS: What contexts, for example?
ATHENIAN: Well, when we said there were four species of virtue, obviously the very fact that there were four meant that each had to be thought of as somehow distinct from the others.
CLEINIAS: Surely.
ATHENIAN: Yet in fact we call them all by a single name. We say courage is virtue, wisdom is virtue, and the other two [d] similarly, on the ground that really they are not several things but just one – virtue.
CLEINIAS: Very true.
ATHENIAN: It’s not hard to explain how these two ‘virtues’ and the rest differ from each other and how each has acquired a different name. The real problem is this: why, precisely, have we described both of them (as well as the others) by this common term ‘virtue’?
CLEINIAS: What do you mean?
ATHENIAN: My point is perfectly easy to explain. Shall we let one of us ask the questions, and the other answer them?
CLEINIAS: Again, what do you mean?
[e] ATHENIAN: Here’s the question for you to put to me: ‘Why is it that after calling both by the single term “virtue”, in the next breath we speak of two “virtues”, courage and wisdom?’ I’ll tell you why. One of them, courage, copes with fear, and is found in wild animals as well as human beings, notably in the characters of very young children. The soul, you see, becomes courageous by a purely natural process, without the aid of reason. By contrast, in this absence of reason a wise and sensible soul is out of the question. That is true now, has always been true, and always will be true; the two processes are fundamentally different.
CLEINIAS: That’s true.
ATHENIAN: So there’s your explanation of why there are two [964a] different virtues. Now it’s your turn: you tell me why they are one and the same thing. Your job, you understand, is to tell me why the four of them nevertheless form a unity; and when you have demonstrated that unity, ask me to show you again in what sense they are four.
THE COUNCIL’S DUTY TO TEACH
Next after that we ought to ask ourselves what constitutes adequate knowledge of any object that has a name and a definition: is it enough to know only the name and not the definition? On the contrary, if a man is worth his salt, wouldn’t it be a disgrace in him not to understand all these [b] points about a topic so grand and so important?
CLEINIAS: Presumably it would.
ATHENIAN: And as for a giver or guardian of laws, and indeed anyone who thinks of his own virtue as superior to the rest of the world’s, and has won awards for his achievement, is there anything more important than the qualities we are now discussing – courage, restraint, justice and wisdom?
CLEINIAS: Of course not.
ATHENIAN: So in such circumstances what role should the expounders, teachers and lawgivers – the guardians of the rest of the community – play when a criminal needs enlightenment [c] and instruction, or perhaps correction and punishment? Should they not prove better than anyone else at giving him a full explanation and description of the effects of virtue and vice? Or is some poet-visitor to the state, or some self-styled ‘educationalist’, going to put up a better show than the winner of the palm for every kind of virtue? Where there are no efficient and articulate guardians with an adequate understanding of virtue, it will be hardly surprising if the state, precisely because it is unguarded, meets the fate of so many [d] states nowadays.
CLEINIAS: No, hardly surprising at all, I suppose.
ATHENIAN: Well then, shall we carry out these proposals, or what? Shall we make sure our guardians are more highly qualified than the man in the street to explain what virtue is, and to put it into practice? How else could our state function like the head and senses of a wise man, now that it possesses within itself something analogous to protect it?
CLEINIAS: Where is this resemblance, sir? How do we draw such a comparison?
[e] ATHENIAN: Obviously the state itself corresponds to the trunk, and the junior guardians, chosen for their natural gifts and the acuteness of their mental vision, live as it were at the summit and survey the whole state; they store up in their memory all the sensations they receive while on guard, and act as reporters for their elder colleagues of everything that [965a] takes place in the state; and the old men – we could compare them to the intellect, for their high wisdom in so many vital questions – take advantage of the assistance and advice of their juniors in debating policy, so that the joint efforts of both ranks effectively ensure the safety of the entire state. Now is this the sort of organization we want to see, or some other? Should the state, in fact, keep all its citizens on the same level, without giving some a more specialized training and education than others?
CLEINIAS: My dear sir! That’s quite impracticable.
THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF THE COUNCIL
[b] ATHENIAN: Then we have to pass on to a more advanced education than the one we described earlier.
CLEINIAS: Perhaps so.
ATHENIAN: What about the education we touched on a moment ago?7 Would that answer our needs?
CLEINIAS: Certainly it would.
ATHENIAN: Didn’t we say8 that a really skilled craftsman or guardian in any field must be able not merely to see the many individual instances of a thing, but also to win through to a knowledge of the single central concept, and when he’s understood that, put the various details in their proper place in the overall picture?
CLEINIAS: We did, and rightly.
ATHENIAN: So what better tool can there be for a penetrating [c] investigation of a concept than an ability to look beyond the many dissimilar instances to the single notion?
CLEINIAS: Probably none.
ATHENIAN: ‘Probably’! No, my dear fellow, this is most certainly the surest method we can follow, no matter who we are.
CLEINIAS: I trust you, sir, and I agree, so let’s carry on with the discussion on that basis.
ATHENIAN: So it looks as if we have to compel the guardians of our divine foundation to get an exact idea of the common [d] element in all the four virtues – that factor which, though single, is to be found in courage, restraint, justice and wisdom, and thus in our view deserves the general title ‘virtue’. This element, my friends, if only we have the will, is what we must now cling to like leeches, and we must not relax our grip until we can explain adequately the essence of what we have to contemplate, whether it is a single entity, a composite whole, or both, or whatever. If this point eludes us, can we ever expect [e] to attain virtue – when we can’t say whether it comprises a great number of things or just four, or whether it is a unity? Never – not if we believe our own advice, anyway, and we’ll have to ensure the growth of virtue in the state by some other means.9 But if in the circumstances we decide we ought to abandon the attempt entirely, abandon it we must.
CLEINIAS: No, sir, in the name of the gods of hospitality, we must never abandon such a project: you seem to us to be absolutely right. So now then: how is one to tackle the problem?
ATHENIAN: Let’s postpone the question of method. The first [966a] thing we have to settle and decide among ourselves is whether the attempt should be made at all.
CLEINIAS: Indeed it should, if possible.
ATHENIAN: Well then, do we take the same line about goodness and beauty? Should the guardians know no more than that both these terms are a plurality, or should they understand the senses in which they are unities?
CLEINIAS: It looks as if they are more or less obliged to comprehend that too – how they are unities.
[b] ATHENIAN: But what if they understood the point, but couldn’t find the words to demonstrate it?
CLEINIAS: How absurd! That’s the condition of a slave.
ATHENIAN: Well then, isn’t our doctrine going to be the same about all serious questions? If our guardians are going to be genuine guardians of the laws they must have genuine knowledge of their real nature; they must be articulate enough to explain the real difference between good actions and bad, and capable of sticking to the distinction in practice.
CLEINIAS: Naturally.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THEOLOGY
[c] ATHENIAN: And surely one of the finest fields of knowledge is theology, on which we’ve already lavished a great deal of attention. It’s supremely important to appreciate – so far as it’s given to man to know these things – the existence of the gods and the obvious extent of their power. The man in the street may be forgiven if he simply follows the letter of the law, but if any intended guardian fails to work hard to master every theological proof there is, we must certainly not grant him the same indulgence; in other words, we must [d] never choose as a Guardian of the Laws anyone who is not preternaturally gifted or has not worked hard at theology, or allow him to be awarded distinctions for virtue.
CLEINIAS: It’s fair enough, as you say, that the idle or incompetent in this business should never be allowed to get anywhere near such honours.
ATHENIAN: Now we know, don’t we, that among the arguments we’ve already discussed, there are two in particular which encourage belief in the gods?
CLEINIAS: Which two are they?
ATHENIAN: One is the point we made about the soul, when we [e] argued that it is far older and far more divine than all those things whose movements have sprung up and provided the impulse which has plunged it into a perpetual stream of existence.10 Another argument was based on the systematic motion of the heavenly bodies and the other objects under the control of reason, which is responsible for the order in the universe. No one who has contemplated all this with a careful and expert eye has in fact ever degenerated into such ungodliness as to reach the position that most people would expect him to reach. They suppose that if a man goes in [967a] for such things as astronomy and the essential associated disciplines, and sees events apparently happening by necessity rather than because they are directed by the intention of a benevolent will, he’ll turn into an atheist.
CLEINIAS : Well, what would happen, in fact?
ATHENIAN: Today, as I said, the situation is quite different from the time when thinkers regarded these bodies as inanimate. Even then, men were overcome with wonder at them, [b] and those who studied them really closely got an inkling of the accepted doctrines of today, that such remarkably accurate predictions about their behaviour would never have been possible if they were inanimate, and therefore irrational; and even in those days there were some11 who had the hardihood to stick their neck out and assert it was reason that imposed regularity and order on the heavens. However, these same thinkers went sadly astray over the soul’s natural priority to matter: regarding soul as a recent creation, they turned the [c] universe upside down, so to speak, and their own theories to boot. They concluded from the evidence of their eyes that all the bodies that move across the heavens were mere collections of stone and earth and many other kinds of inanimate matter – inanimate matter which nevertheless initiated a chain of causation responsible for all the order in the universe. Such conclusions led to a variety of atheistic and unpopular doctrines taking hold of these philosophers’ minds; poets in particular were inspired to join in the abuse, and among other inanities compared the philosophers to bitches baying at the [d] moon. But today, as I said, the situation is fundamentally different.
CLEINIAS: How so?
ATHENIAN: No mortal can ever attain a truly religious outlook without risk of relapse unless he grasps the two doctrines we’re now discussing: first, that the soul is far older than any created thing, and that it is immortal and controls the entire world of matter; and second (a doctrine we’ve expounded [e] often enough before) that reason is the supreme power among the heavenly bodies. He also has to master the essential preliminary studies, survey with the eye of a philosopher what they have in common, and use them to frame consistent rules of moral action; and finally, when a reasoned explanation is [968a] possible, he must be able to provide it. No one who is unable to acquire these insights and rise above the level of the ordinary virtues12 will ever be good enough to govern an entire state, but only to assist government carried on by others. And that means, Cleinias and Megillus, that we now have to consider whether we are going to add yet another law to the code we’ve already expounded, to the effect that the Nocturnal Council of the Authorities, duly primed by the course of [b] studies we’ve described, shall be constituted the legal protector of the safety of the state. Or is there some alternative course for us to take?
CLEINIAS: Oh, but my dear sir, there’s no question of refusing to add this law, if we can manage it, even if our success is only partial.
RECRUITMENT OF THE COUNCIL, AND ITS COURSE OF STUDIES
ATHENIAN: Then let’s make every effort to win the struggle. I’ve had a lot of experience of such projects and have studied the field for a long time, so I’ll be more than happy to help you – and perhaps I shall find others to join me.
CLEINIAS: Well, sir, we must certainly stick to the path on which – it is hardly an exaggeration to say – God himself is guiding us. But the question to which we need an answer at [c] the moment is this: what will be the correct procedure on our part?
ATHENIAN: Megillus and Cleinias, it is impossible to lay down the council’s activities until it has been established. Its curriculum must be decided by those who have already mastered the necessary branches of knowledge – and only previous instruction and plenty of intimate discussion will settle successfully such matters as that.13
CLEINIAS: How so? How are we supposed to understand that remark?
ATHENIAN: First of all, of course, we shall have to compile a list of candidates qualified for the office of guardian by age, [d] intellectual attainments, moral character and way of life. Then there’s the question of what they have to learn. It is difficult to find out this for oneself, and it is not easy either to discover somebody else who has already done so and learn from him. Quite apart from that, it will be a waste of time to produce written regulations about the order in which the various subjects should be tackled and how long should be spent on each, because even the students, until they have thoroughly absorbed a subject, won’t realize why it comes at just that [e] point in the curriculum. So although it would be a mistake to treat all these details as inviolable secrets, it would be fair to say that they ought not to be divulged beforehand, because advance disclosure throws no light at all on the questions we’re discussing.
CLOSING REMARKS
CLEINIAS: Well then, sir, if that’s the case, what are we to do?
ATHENIAN: My friends, we must ‘chance our arm’, as the saying is. If we are prepared to stake the whole constitution on a throw of ‘three sixes’ or ‘three ones’, then that’s what we’ll have to do, and I’ll shoulder part of the risk by giving a [969a] full explanation of my views on training and education, which we’ve now started to discuss all over again. However, the risk is enormous and unique. So I bid you, Cleinias, take the business in hand: establish the state of the Magnesians (or whatever other name God adopts for it), and if you’re successful [b] you’ll win enormous fame; at any rate you’ll never lose a reputation for courage that will dwarf all your successors’. And if, my good companions, if this wonderful council of ours can be formed, then the state must be entrusted to it, and practically no modern legislator will want to oppose us. We thought of our combined metaphor of head and intellect, which we mentioned a moment ago, as idealistic dreaming14 – but it will all come true, provided the council members are [c] rigorously selected, properly educated, and after the completion of their studies lodged in the citadel of the country and made into guardians whose powers of protection we have never seen excelled in our lives before.
MEGILLUS: My dear Cleinias, judging from what we’ve heard said, either we’ll have to abandon the project of founding the state or refuse to let our visitor leave us, and by entreaties and every ruse we can think of enrol him as a partner in the foundation of the state.
[d] CLEINIAS: You’re quite right, Megillus. That’s what I’m going to do. May I enlist your help too?
MEGILLUS: You may indeed.