Leges close, without describing the education proper for the Nocturnal Counsellors. Epinomis — supplying this defect.

Here closes the dialogue called Leges: somewhat prematurely, since the peculiar training indispensable for these Nocturnal Counsellors has not yet been declared. The short dialogue called Epinomis supplies this defect. It purports to be a second day’s conversation between the same trio.

The Athenian declares his plan of education — Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy.

The Athenian — adverting to the circumstances of human life generally, as full of toil and suffering, with few and transient moments of happiness — remarks that none except the wise have any chance of happiness; and that few can understand what real wisdom is, though every one presumes that there must be something of the kind discoverable.483 He first enumerates what it is not. It is not any of the useful arts — husbandry, house-building, metallurgy, weaving, pottery, hunting, &c.: nor is it prophecy, or the understanding of omens: nor any of the elegant arts — music, poetry, painting: nor the art of war, or navigation, or medicine, or forensic eloquence: nor does it consist in the natural endowments of quick wit and good memory.484 True wisdom is something different from all these. It consists in arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, leading to a full comprehension of the regular movements of the Kosmos — combined with a correct religious creed as to the divine attributes of the Kosmos and its planetary bodies which are all pervaded and kept in harmonious rotation by divine, in-dwelling, soul or mind.485 It is the God Uranus (or Olympus, or Kosmos), with the visible Gods included therein, who furnishes to us not only the gifts of the seasons and the growth of food, but also varied intelligence, especially the knowledge of number, without which no other knowledge would be attainable.486 Number and proportion are essential conditions of every variety of art. The regular succession of night and day, and the regularly changing phases of the moon — the comparison of months with the year — first taught us to count, and to observe the proportions of numbers to each other.487

Theological view of Astronomy — Divine Kosmos — Soul more ancient and more sovereign than Body.

The Athenian now enters upon the directly theological point of view, and re-asserts the three articles of orthodoxy which he had laid down in the tenth book of Leges: together with the other point of faith also — That Soul or Mind is older than body: soul is active and ruling — body, passive and subject. An animal is a compound of both. There are five elementary bodies — fire, air, Æther, water, earth488 — which the kosmical soul moulded, in varying proportions, so as to form different animals and plants. Man, animals, and plants were moulded chiefly of earth, yet with some intermixture of the other elements: the stars were moulded chiefly from fire, having the most beautiful bodies, endowed with divine and happy souls, and immortal, or very long-lived.489 Next to the stars were moulded the DÆmons, out of Æther, and inhabitants of that element: after them, the animals inhabiting air, and Nymphs inhabiting water. These three occupy intermediate place between the stars above and man below.490 They serve as media of communication between man and the Gods: and also for the diffusion of thought and intelligence among all parts of the Kosmos.491 The Gods of the ordinary faith — Zeus, HÊrÊ, and others — must be left to each person’s disposition, if he be inclined to worship them: but the great visible Kosmos, and the sidereal Gods, must be solemnly exalted and sanctified, with prayer and the holiest rites.492 Those astronomers who ignore this divine nature, and profess to explain their movements by physical or mechanical forces, are guilty of grave impiety. The regularity of their movements is a proof of their divine nature, not a proof of the contrary, as some misguided persons affirm.493

Improving effects of the study of Astronomy in this spirit.

Next, the Athenian intimates that the Greeks have obtained their astronomical knowledge, in the first instance, from Egypt and Assyria, but have much improved upon what they learnt (p. 987): that the Greeks at first were acquainted only with the three f??a? — the outer or sidereal sphere (?p?a???), the Sun, and the Moon — but unacquainted with the other five or planetary f??a?, which they first learned from these foreigners, though not the names of the planets (p. 986): that all these eight were alike divine, fraternal agents, partakers in the same rational nature, and making up altogether the divine ??s??: that those who did not recognise all the eight as divine, consummately rational, and revolving with perfectly uniform movement, were guilty of impiety (p. 985 E): that these kosmical, divine, rational agents taught to mankind arithmetic and the art of numeration (p. 988 B): that soul, or plastic, demiurgic, cognitive force (p. 981 C), was an older and more powerful agent in the universe than body — but that there were two varieties of soul, a good and bad, of which the good variety was the stronger: the good variety of soul produced all the good movements, the bad variety produced all the bad movements (p. 988 D, E): that in studying astronomy, a man submitted himself to the teaching of this good soul and these divine agents, from whom alone he could learn true wisdom and piety (pp. 989 B-990 A): that this study, however, must be conducted not with a view to know the times of rising and setting of different stars (like Hesiod) but to be able to understand and follow the eight pe??f???? (p. 990 B).Study of arithmetic and geometry: varieties of proportion.

To understand these — especially the five planetary and difficult pe??f???? — arithmetic must also be taught, not in the concrete, but in the abstract (p. 990 C, D), to understand how much the real nature of things is determined by the generative powers and combination of Odd and Even Number. Next, geometry also must be studied, so as to compare numbers with plane and solid figures, and thus to determine proportions between two numbers which are not directly commensurable. The varieties of proportion, which are marvellously combined, must be understood — first arithmetical and geometrical proportions, the arithmetical proportion increasing by equal addition (1 + 1 = 2), or the point into a line — then the geometrical proportion by way of multiplication (2 × 2 = 4; 4 × 2 = 8), or the line raised into a surface, and the surface raised into a cube. Moreover there are two other varieties of proportion (t? ??????? or sesquialterum, and t? ?p?t??t?? or sesquitertium) both of which occur in the numbers between the ratio of 6 to 12 (i.e. 9 is t? ??????? of 6, or 9 = 6 + 6/2; again 8 is, t? ?p?t??t?? of 6, or 8 = 6 + 6/3). This last is harmonic proportion, when there are three terms, of which the third is as much greater than the middle, as the middle is greater than the first (3:4:6) — six is greater than four by one-third of six, while four is greater than three by one-third of three (p. 991 A).

When the general forms of things have thus been learnt, particular individuals in nature must be brought under them.

Lastly, having thus come to comprehend the general forms of things, we must bring under them properly the visible individuals in nature; and in this process interrogation and cross-examination must be applied (p. 991 C). We must learn to note the accurate regularity with which time brings all things to maturity, and we shall find reason to believe that all things are full of Gods (p. 991 D). We shall come to perceive that there is one law of proportion pervading every geometrical figure, every numerical series, every harmonic combination, and all the celestial rotations: one and the same bond of union among all (p. 991 E). These sciences, whether difficult or easy, must be learnt: for without them no happy nature will be ever planted in our cities (p. 992 A). The man who learns all this will be the truly wise and happy man, both in this life and after it; only a few men can possibly arrive at such happiness (p. 992 C). But it is these chosen few who, when they become Elders, will compose our Nocturnal Council, and maintain unimpaired the perpetual purity of the Platonic City.

Question as to education of the Nocturnal Council is answered in the Epinomis.

Such then is the answer given by the Epinomis, to the question left unanswered in the Leges. However unsatisfactory it may appear, to those who look for nothing but what is admirable in Plato — I believe it to represent the latest views of his old age, when dialectic had given place in his mind to the joint ascendancy of theological sentiment and Pythagorean arithmetic.494

Problem which the Nocturnal Council are required to solve, What is the common property of Prudence, Courage, Temperance, Justice, by reason of which each is called Virtue?

Assuming that the magistrates of the Nocturnal Council have gone through the course of education prescribed in the Epinomis, and have proved themselves unimpeachable on the score of orthodoxy — will they be able to solve the main problem which he has imposed upon them at the close of the Leges? There, as elsewhere, he proclaims a problem as indispensable to be solved, but does not himself furnish any solution. What is the common property, or point of similarity between Prudence, Courage, Temperance, Justice — by reason of which each is termed Virtue? What are the characteristic points of difference, by reason of which Virtue sometimes receives one of these names, sometimes another?

The only common property is that all of them are essential to the maintenance of society, and tend to promote human security and happiness.

The proper way of answering this question has been much debated, from Plato’s day down to the present. It is one of the fundamental problems of Ethical Philosophy.

The subjective matter of fact, implied by every one who designates an act or a person as virtuous, is an approving or admiring sentiment which each man knows in his own bosom. But Plato assumes that there is, besides this, an objective connotation: a common object or property to which such sentiment refers. What is that common object? I see no other except that which is indicated by the principle of Utility: I mean that principle which points out Happiness and Unhappiness, not merely of the agent himself, but also of others affected or liable to be affected by his behaviour, as the standard to which these denominations refer. Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice, all tend to prevention and mitigation of unhappiness, and to increase of happiness, as well for the agent himself as for the society surrounding him. The opposite qualities — Timidity, Imprudence, Intemperance, Injustice — tend with equal certainty either to increase positively the unhappiness of the agent and of society, or to remove the means for warding it off or abating it. Indeed there is a certain minimum of all the four — Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice — without which or below which neither society could hold together, nor the life of the individual agent himself could be continued.

Tendency of the four opposite qualities to lessen human happiness.

Here then is one answer at least to the question of Plato. Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice — all of them mental attributes of rational voluntary agents — have also the common property of being, in a certain minimum degree, absolutely essential to the life of the agent and the maintenance of society — and of being, above that degree, tutelary against the suffering, and beneficial to the happiness, of both. This tutelary or beneficent tendency is the common objective property signified by the general term Virtue; and is implicated with the subjective property before mentioned — the sentiment of approbation. The four opposite qualities are designated by the general term Vice or Defect, connoting both maleficent tendency and the sentiment of disapprobation.

A certain measure of all the four virtues is required. In judging of particular acts instigated by each, there is always a tacit reference to the hurt or benefit in the special case.

This proposition will be farther confirmed, if we look at all the four qualities — Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice — in another point of view. Taking them in their reference to Virtue, each of them belongs to Virtue as a part to the whole,495 not as one species contradistinguished from and excluding other species. The same person may have, and ought to have, a certain measure of all: he will not be called virtuous unless he has a measure of all. Excellence in any one will not compensate for the entire absence of the others.

495 Compare Plato, Legg. i. p. 629 B, where he describes t?? ??pasa? ??et?? — d??a??s??? ?a? s?f??s??? ?a? f????s?? e?? ta?t?? ?????sa et’ ??d?e?a?: also pp. 630 C-E, 631 A, where he considers all these as ???a ??et??, but f????s?? as the first of the four and ??d?e?a as the last.

See also iii. pp. 688 B, 696 C-D, iv. p. 705 D.