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Strauss’s Machiavelli and Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor1 2 7to the philosopher as well. If “reason and argument are incapable of supplyingpeople with the minimum of mutual understanding required forliving together,” 18 the political philosopher, or the wise statesman, must thenappeal to the authority of myths which must be put to use as “noble lies.” 19Compelled by necessity to return to the city/cave, on which his life and thephilosophical exercise ultimately depend, and to take care of its affairs, thephilosopher, like Dostoyevsky’s Inquisitor, will have to put on a mask. On thesurface, the writings of the philosophers will leave the impression of conformityto the city’s religious beliefs. But the educated reader, who knows howto read between the lines, can discover, beyond the exoteric appearance, theesoteric, hidden meaning of the text, which reveals the radical and dangerousskepticism of philosophy. 20Reconciled to the impossibility of refuting revelation, classical philosophy,according to Strauss, is also reconciled to the fact that, although notimpossible, the “actualization” of “the best regime” is nevertheless “extremelyimprobable.” 21 For Plato, Aristotle, and the other classical philosophers, thebest regime remains “a virtuous city in speech” or an imagined “utopia” that“serves as a standard by which to judge actual political regimes.” 22 But whilethe philosophical exercise is by definition radical, the political exercise mustbe moderate. Prudently reconciled with the gap between theory and practiceand with his limited possibilities, in practice, the philosopher seeks to influencethe political life of the city in ways that will “humanize” it “within thelimits of the possible.” 23 This influence is exerted through education whichnecessitates leisure. But under the conditions of a premodern economy, onlyan aristocratic minority can benefit from leisure, and that is why the classicsrejected democracy and universal education, the ideals that distinguish18Leo Strauss, “The Living Issues of German Postwar Philosophy,” in Leo Strauss and the Theologico-Political Problem, 127.19Plato, The Republic, trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1991), 93.20Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 18, 24.21Strauss, Natural Right and History, 139.22Tanguay, Leo Strauss, 87.23Ibid., 86. The question of the possibility of the best regime nevertheless remains ambiguous inStrauss’s thought. In The City and Man, Strauss returns to this problem, arguing that “the just city” isultimately impossible given the intrinsic evil in human nature, which determines it to resist absolutejustice that takes the form of “absolute communism.” But “the Republic never abandons the fictionthat the just city…is possible,” because the pursuit of this fiction/utopia, moderated by the awarenessof dependency on chance, is the process through which, in practice, the city can be brought as closeas possible to the ideal city (Strauss, The City and Man [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964],126–29).