ms to have recognized that Trade is one of the great motive
powers of the State and of the world. He would make retail traders
only of the inferior sort of citizens (Rep., Laws), though he remarks,
quaintly enough (Laws), that 'if only the best men and the best women
everywhere were compelled to keep taverns for a time or to carry on
retail trade, etc., then we should knew how pleasant and agreeable all
these things are.'

The disappointment of Glaucon at the 'city of pigs,' the ludicrous
description of the ministers of luxury in the more refined State, and
the afterthought of the necessity of doctors, the illustration of the
nature of the guardian taken from the dog, the desirableness of
offering some almost unprocurable victim when impure mysteries are to be
celebrated, the behaviour of Zeus to his father and of Hephaestus to
his mother, are touches of humour which have also a serious meaning. In
speaking of education Plato rather startles us by affirming that a child
must be trained in falsehood first and in truth afterwards. Yet this is
not very different from saying that children must be taught through
the medium of imagination as well as reason; that their minds can only
develope gradually, and that there is much which they must learn without
understanding. This is also the substance of Plato's view, though he
must be acknowledged to have drawn the line somewhat differently from
modern ethical writers, respecting truth and falsehood. To us, economies
or accommodations would not be allowable unless they were required by
the human faculties or necessary for the communication of knowledge to
the simple and ignorant. We should insist that the word was inseparable
from the intention, and that we must not be 'falsely true,' i.e. speak
or act falsely in support of what was right or true. But Plato would
limit the use of fictions only by requiring that they should have a good
moral effect, and that such a dangerous weapon as falsehood should be
employed by the rulers alone and for great objects.

A Greek in the age of Plato attached no importance to the question
whether his religion was an historical fact. He was just beginning to be
conscious that the past had a history; but he could see nothing beyond
Homer and Hesiod. Whether their narratives were true or false did not
seriously affect the political or social life of Hellas. Men only began
to suspect that they were fictions when they recognised them to be
immoral. And