us in an Athenian ear. But
although he is aware that there are some things which are not so well
among 'the children of the Nile,' he is deeply struck with the stability
of Egyptian institutions. Both in politics and in art Plato seems to
have seen no way of bringing order out of disorder, except by taking a
step backwards. Antiquity, compared with the world in which he lived,
had a sacredness and authority for him: the men of a former age were
supposed by him to have had a sense of reverence which was wanting among
his contemporaries. He could imagine the early stages of civilization;
he never thought of what the future might bring forth. His experience
is confined to two or three centuries, to a few Greek states, and to an
uncertain report of Egypt and the East. There are many ways in which
the limitations of their knowledge affected the genius of the Greeks.
In criticism they were like children, having an acute vision of things
which were near to them, blind to possibilities which were in the
distance.

The colony is to receive from the mother-country her original
constitution, and some of the first guardians of the law. The guardians
of the law are to be ministers of justice, and the president of
education is to take precedence of them all. They are to keep the
registers of property, to make regulations for trade, and they are to
be superannuated at seventy years of age. Several questions of modern
politics, such as the limitation of property, the enforcement of
education, the relations of classes, are anticipated by Plato. He hopes
that in his state will be found neither poverty nor riches; every
man having the necessaries of life, he need not go fortune-hunting in
marriage. Almost in the spirit of the Gospel he would say, 'How hardly
can a rich man dwell in a perfect state.' For he cannot be a good man
who is always gaining too much and spending too little (Laws; compare
Arist. Eth. Nic.). Plato, though he admits wealth as a political
element, would deny that material prosperity can be the foundation of
a really great community. A man's soul, as he often says, is more to be
esteemed than his body; and his body than external goods. He repeats the
complaint which has been made in all ages, that the love of money is the
corruption of states. He has a sympathy with thieves and burglars, 'many
of whom are men of ability and greatly to be pitied, because their souls
are hungering and thirsting all their lives long;' but