also have been an Assyrian empire, which had a similar hostility;
and not only the fable of the island of Atlantis, but the Trojan war,
in Plato's mind derived some features from the Persian struggle. So
Herodotus makes the Nile answer to the Ister, and the valley of the Nile
to the Red Sea. In the Republic, Plato is flying in the air regardless
of fact and possibility--in the Laws, he is making history by analogy.
In the former, he appears to be like some modern philosophers,
absolutely devoid of historical sense; in the latter, he is on a level,
not with Thucydides, or the critical historians of Greece, but with
Herodotus, or even with Ctesias.

The chief object of Plato in tracing the origin of society is to show
the point at which regular government superseded the patriarchical
authority, and the separate customs of different families were
systematized by legislators, and took the form of laws consented to
by them all. According to Plato, the only sound principle on which any
government could be based was a mixture or balance of power. The balance
of power saved Sparta, when the two other Heraclid states fell into
disorder. Here is probably the first trace of a political idea, which
has exercised a vast influence both in ancient and modern times. And
yet we might fairly ask, a little parodying the language of Plato--O
legislator, is unanimity only 'the struggle for existence'; or is the
balance of powers in a state better than the harmony of them?

In the fourth book we approach the realities of politics, and Plato
begins to ascend to the height of his great argument. The reign of
Cronos has passed away, and various forms of government have succeeded,
which are all based on self-interest and self-preservation. Right and
wrong, instead of being measured by the will of God, are created by
the law of the state. The strongest assertions are made of the purely
spiritual nature of religion--'Without holiness no man is accepted of
God'; and of the duty of filial obedience,--'Honour thy parents.' The
legislator must teach these precepts as well as command them. He is to
be the educator as well as the lawgiver of future ages, and his laws
are themselves to form a part of the education of the state. Unlike the
poet, he must be definite and rational; he cannot be allowed to say one
thing at one time, and another thing at another--he must know what he
is about. And yet legislation has a poetical or rhetorical element, and
mus