when reason comes, it may find the ground ready prepared.

Socrates had taught that virtue is one. And Plato in his earlier
writings adopted this view. But later on he came to see that every
faculty of man has its place and its function, and the due performance
of its function is a virtue. He did not, however, surrender the unity
of virtue altogether, but believed that its unity is compatible with
its plurality. There are four cardinal virtues. Three of these
correspond to the three parts of the soul, and the fourth is the unity
of the others. The virtue of reason is wisdom, of the noble half of
{224} the mortal soul courage, of the ignoble appetites, temperance or
self-control, in which the passions allow themselves to be governed by
reason. The fourth virtue, justice, arises from the others. Justice
means proportion and harmony, and accrues to the soul when all three
parts perform their functions and co-operate with each other.

Following Zeller, we may add to this account of the virtues some of
Plato's views upon the details of life. And first, his opinion of
women and marriage. Here Plato does not rise above the level of
ordinary Greek morals. He has nothing specially original to say, but
reflects the opinions of his age. Women he regards as essentially
inferior to men. Moreover, the modern view of woman as the complement
of man, as possessing those special virtues of womanliness, which a
man lacks, is quite alien to Plato. The difference between men and
women is, in his view, not one of kind but only of degree. The only
specific difference between the sexes is the physical difference.
Spiritually they are quite the same, except that woman is inferior.
Hence Plato would not exclude women from the same education which man
receives. He would educate them in exactly the same way, but this
involves the imposition upon them of the same burdens. Even military
duties are not outside the sphere of women.

His views of marriage flow from the same principle. Since woman is not
the complement of man, she is in no special sense fitted to be his
companion. Hence the ideal of spiritual companionship is absent from
Plato's view of marriage, the sole object of which, in his opinion, is
the propagation of children. The natural companion {225} of a man is
not a woman, but another man. The ideal of friendship, therefore,
takes the place of the spiritual ideal of marriage in Plato and,
indeed, among the ancients generally.

Slavery