THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY2 The Lives and Opinions

1 8 THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY
first he does not meet it at all. He points out that justice is a relation
among individuals, depending on social organization; and that in consequence
it can be studied better as part of the structure of a community
than as a quality of personal conduct. If, he suggests, we can picture a
just state, we shall be in a better position to describe a just individual.
Plato excuses himself for this digression on the score that in testing a man's
vision we make him read first large type, then smaller; so, he argues, it is
easier to analyze justice on a large scale than on the small scale of indi-
vidual behavior. But we need not be deceived: in truth the Master is
patching two books together, and uses the argument as a seam. He wishes
not only to discuss the problems of personal morality, but the problems
of social and political reconstruction as well. He has a Utopia up his
sleeve, and is resolved to it. produce It is easy to forgive him, for the digression
forms the core and value of his book.
V. THE POLITICAL PROBLEM
Justice would be a simple matter, says Plato, if men were simple; an
anarchist communism would suffice. For a moment he gives his imagina-
tion reign:
First, then, let us consider what will be their way of life. . . . Will they
not produce corn, and wine, and clothes, and shoes, and build houses for
themselves? And when they are housed they will work in summer commonly
stripped and barefoot, but in winter substantially clothed and shod. They
will feed on barley and wheat, baking the wheat and kneading the flour,
making noble puddings and loaves; these they will serve up on a mat of reed
or clean leaves, themselves reclining the while upon beds of yew or myrtle
boughs. And they and their children will feast, drinking of the wine which
they have made, wearing garlands on their heads, and having the praises of
the gods on their lips, living in sweet society, and having a care that their
families do not exceed their means; for they will have an eye to poverty or
war. ... Of course they will have a relish salt, and olives, and cheese,
and onions, and cabbages or other country herbs which are fit for boiling;
and we shall give them a dessert of figs, and pulse, and beans, and myrtleberries,
and beechnuts, which they will roast at the fire, drinking in modera-
tion. And with such a diet they may be expected to live in peace to a good
old age, and bequeath a similar life to their children after them (372).
Observe here the passing reference to the control of population (by
infanticide, presumably) , to vegetarianism, and to a "return to nature/'
to the primitive simplicity which Hebrew legend pictures in the Garden
of Eden. The whole has the sound of Diogenes the "Cynic," who, as the
epithet implied, thought we should "turn and live with the animals, they
are so placid and self-contained"; and for a moment we are likely to
classify Plato with St. Simon and Fourier and William Morris and Toktoi,