that they are one, or that they are identical with knowledge. The
dialectic and the idea of good, which even Glaucon in the Republic could
not understand, would be out of place in a less ideal work. There may
also be a change in his own mind, the purely intellectual aspect of
philosophy having a diminishing interest to him in his old age.

Some confusion occurs in the passage in which Plato speaks of the
Republic, occasioned by his reference to a third state, which he
proposes (D.V.) hereafter to expound. Like many other thoughts in the
Laws, the allusion is obscure from not being worked out. Aristotle
(Polit.) speaks of a state which is neither the best absolutely, nor
the best under existing conditions, but an imaginary state, inferior
to either, destitute, as he supposes, of the necessaries of
life--apparently such a beginning of primitive society as is described
in Laws iii. But it is not clear that by this the third state of Plato
is intended. It is possible that Plato may have meant by his third state
an historical sketch, bearing the same relation to the Laws which the
unfinished Critias would have borne to the Republic; or he may, perhaps,
have intended to describe a state more nearly approximating than the
Laws to existing Greek states.

The Statesman is a mere fragment when compared with the Laws, yet
combining a second interest of dialectic as well as politics, which is
wanting in the larger work. Several points of similarity and contrast
may be observed between them. In some respects the Statesman is
even more ideal than the Republic, looking back to a former state of
paradisiacal life, in which the Gods ruled over mankind, as the Republic
looks forward to a coming kingdom of philosophers. Of this kingdom of
Cronos there is also mention in the Laws. Again, in the Statesman, the
Eleatic Stranger rises above law to the conception of the living voice
of the lawgiver, who is able to provide for individual cases. A similar
thought is repeated in the Laws: 'If in the order of nature, and by
divine destiny, a man were able to apprehend the truth about these
things, he would have no need of laws to rule over him; for there is no
law or order above knowledge, nor can mind without impiety be deemed
the subject or slave of any, but rather the lord of all.' The union of
opposite natures, who form the warp and the woof of the political web,
is a favourite thought which occurs in both dialogues (Laws; Statesman).

The