Even in the very first outlines it is impossible not to recognise a great coincidence between the two existing parts of this trilogy. For in the Statesman, as well as the preceding part, the object of the whole problem is a delineation, and it is to be discovered in like manner by subdivision of the whole province of art, though proceeding upon a different principle of separation. Only, as in the case of the Sophist, the whole process was not seriously meant, so also neither is it true. For scarcely, had this been an essential part of the whole, could we have attributed to Plato such errors as are here committed. For instance, under the department of Command, in so far as it is a part of the province of knowledge; the office of the mere publisher of commands is comprehended, in the exercise of which no knowledge, properly speaking, is necessary, and which we accordingly find afterwards numbered among the merely serving arts. Again, at the end of the whole subdividing process, swine are made to stand in closer and more direct relation to man than to horned cattle, whereupon Plato himself exhibits a little pleasantry, and afterwards tells us more seriously that man is related to other beasts as the nature of dæmons

to that of man. Similarly also in the repetition of the panegyric upon the subdividing method, where it is said that this method does not concern itself with great and small, there is in what is said seriously a touch also of jest; if that were not the case, Plato would have been justly censured by that well-known bad joke of Diogenes with the plucked hen, which bears accurately enough upon one of the subdividing processes here pursued. And after the delineation has

been discovered, it turns out not to be suitable, but more adapted to the dæmonic protectors of mankind in an earlier period, than to the real statesman of an historical time. For as regards the latter, much that belongs to the province of other arts must be separated from the character comprehended under that explanation, in order thus to obtain that of the art of the statesman properly so called. This separation now, because, as is clear enough from a digression upon the nature and the use of examples, and which can only be introduced in this place to defend the method employed in the Statesman and Sophist, because, I say, it is a new process, as that of subdivision itself was in the Sophist, is tried, as that method was in the preceding dialogue; first, in an insignificant instance, namely, that of the art of weaving, with which at last the statesman's art turns out to stand in the same relation as the practice of the sophist does with that of the angler and several others. The art of weaving, however, is itself explained by the former method of subdivision, and as the explanation discovers itself to be one that might have been far more easily found by immediate inspection, a digression is here subjoined upon the method of measuring great and small, and upon the measure which every thing has in itself. And upon this, every thing is separated, first from the art of weaving, and then conformably to this example, from that of statesmanship also, which is merely subservient to it, or is connected with its province, as remotely cooperating to the end and object of the art. And in this, the argument is visibly progressing as to its proper point, to the separation of the false statesman from the true, though there is nothing analogous to the former

in the art of weaving, and he is, therefore, notwithstanding all artificial preparation, by means of a discussion upon the various forms in the constitutions of states, somewhat hardly, it might seem, attached to that class which is only subservient to the state. And the connection, which does not appear very clearly, is properly this; that governors of such states as are governed according to existing laws, if they remain true to the supposition, that such laws are the work of a really skilful statesman, are only servants and instruments of such a master; but, as soon as they presume to throw off this character of servants, and imitate the freedom of the legislator, they then become that great and fundamentally corrupting evil, the false and counterfeit statesman, who again, as an imitator, and a bad imitator, corresponds accurately to the sophist, and is, therefore, described also as the greatest sophist and quack. We see manifestly, how the whole of that description of the different forms of states, with the exception perhaps, of the few passages relative to their unequal value, is only treated as a means of discovering the false statesman; for as soon as that character has exhibited himself with sufficient clearness, the work of separation is continued, in order to separate from the statesman those officers who, according to the exercise of their respective duties come next in the general description, so that at last, the statesman's art remains as that which is supreme over all others, and assigns to men all their duties, and then again by a harsh transition, and without any natural connection being apparent, returning to the example of the weaving art, as in the Sophist, the philosopher was incidentally described as a separating and analysing artist, so here

the statesman is described as a combining one, upon whom it is incumbent as his chiefest and almost only duty to connect together different, and therefore reciprocally repugnant, natures.

If now we look only to what forms the chief thread of the whole, and to the last result, these may certainly appear scanty enough. And that indeed, not only to the great mass of modern politicians, whose highest problem is ever only how they may increase the public wealth;-for how little Plato has to do with this, must at once be clear enough to these men from the beginning of that process of separation, when agriculture, as well as trade, is treated very contemptuously with reference to the state. But they also who bring with them more exalted moral and scientific views might look upon the result arrived at as barren, and this last, and only object of the statesman, although to a certain degree an important one, might still not satisfy their expectations, and the less, as it does not appear even once to be immediately mentioned to what particular end this combination of nature and that dominion over the business and affairs of the state is to refer; or under what form, whether always the same, or varying according to circumstances, the two are to be exercised. And the persons in question might next suspect, that as in the former dialogue the description of the sophist is manifestly drawn up with an eye to the then state of science, so also here, that of the statesman may be given with reference to the political relations at that time existing among the Hellenes; inasmuch as in this, the most profound as well as the noblest views are taken of the confusion and madness of parties, and certainly to relieve the state

from these, or preserve it free from them, must be represented as the highest exercise of the statesman's art. Chiefly however, they might observe that in the present dialogue, exactly the same complication and composition obtain as in the one preceding, and that therefore it may not be in vain to look for the most important conclusions on points which they miss in that immediately connected main-thread, in matter which is given merely as digressive and incidental. For instance, as regards the form of the state, first of all, Plato gives us clearly enough to understand, that from the rarity of political wisdom the real state can scarcely admit of any other than the monarchical form; but if we, as he also does, leave the real state completely out of the question, and only regard the Statesman as prescribing his laws to another state which is to be an imitation, Plato then allows all three forms named to obtain as such; but from the statesman's business of combining natures or regulating duties alone, it cannot appear under what circumstances he will give to any one state any one of those forms; or when he would prefer to charge one individual, or the few, or the many, with the imitation of it. And we have therefore that digression upon the merits of the different forms, which clearly enough gives us to understand that in proportion as courage and discretion are combined in one, or in a few, power also must be concentrated in him or them; while, in proportion as the two are separated, the power also must be loose and disunited, and the state consequently weak in the same proportion as that main object of the statesman is still imperfectly accomplished in it. Again, the whole view of the statesman's art is greatly illustrated by that