GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

34 ETHICS AND POLITICS: THE GREEKS
self-sacrifice not as transformations of animal desires, but
as intimations of the divine in man struggling for fuller
expression. What is more, you will extend this mode of
interpretation to all human psychological experiences,
seeing even in our most elementary physical desires some
traces, however faint, of aspirations
to higher things. As
opposed to those of an animal they are never, you will say,
purely physical. Secondly, it is only in so far as human
beings act tdeologicalfy, seeking by a distinctively human
form of activity to achieve the ends appropriate to man,
that they realise their full nature; that they become, in
other words, entirely human*
With this clue to guide us, let us turn again to the
problem raised by Glaucon and AdeUnantus, and endeavour
to answer the questions they raise in the spirit rather than
according to the letter of what Socrates actually says in
the early books of Plato's Republic.
Conclusions in regard to Man in Society. Pint, the
whole conception of a pre-social state of man is misleading
and irrelevant. For if the nature of a thing can only be
determined by reference to its highest development,
human nature can only be fully realised in a society.
Whether there ever was a pre-sodal state of man we need
not at this stage of the enquiry pause to consider. It is
enough to point out that, if there was, it was die state of
a being not fully human, for, it is obvious, the full potentialities
of a man can only be realized in friendly and co-
operative contact with his fellows. A race of congenital
Robinson Crusoe* would not be a race of human beings.
They would, for example, be undeveloped morally. If I
have nobody to lie to, nobody to steal fun, nobody to
betray and nobody to be unkind to, no Wttfljfrfrffff for the
toting and training of my moral character arise. If I
have nobody to protect, nobody to love, nobody to tep
faith with, nobody to make sacrifices for, I am lacking
\^ 0nS for *" morml !*