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THE ETHICS OF SOCRATES AND PLATO 65
the inevitable question, what, then, does the rule of reason
in this connection prescribe, the reader is referred to
Aristotle's doctrine of The Mean 1 discussed in Chapter IV.
Summary and Recapitulation. Before I pass to an
account of Plato's political views, it will be useful to sum
up the ethical doctrines which have emerged from the
theory of the soul and the right relationship between its
parts. The summary may conveniently begin with a
metaphor of which Plato himself makes use. The soul is
likened to a chariot drawn by a number of unruly horses.
Each horse is concerned only to follow his own impulses,
and, as first one and now another exerts the stronger
pull, the chariot is drawn hither and thither, pursuing a
zigzag course and unable to follow any consistent direction.
In the end it is dragged away from the track altogether
and overturned, or dashed to pieces against the obstacles
which it is powerless to avoid. Such is a man's soul which
is dominated by its third part, that is to say, by the
separate self-regarding desires which, oblivious of the good
of the whole, impel it first this way and then that, so that
instead of directing its own course and moulding its own
destiny, it goes through life like a cork, bobbing on the
waves df its own emotions. There is, however, another
chariot in the seat of which sits a charioteer who holds
the reins of the horses, controls them, and allows to each
one only so much of his own way
as will not interfere
with the satisfaction of the others, dovetailing their different
urgings into a single harmonious pull, and driving the
chariot along its appointed course to a predestined goal.
Such is the soul of which the reasoning part is in control.
In the light of this metaphor we may summarize Plato's
ethical doctrine as follows:
i. The reasoning part of the soul which knows reality
and knows, therefore, the pattern of the Good should
dominate the other parts.
a. The other parts of the soul should be content to
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*See Chapter IV, pp. 97-104.