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

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74 ETHICS AND POLITICS: THE GREEKS
say that a State whose affairs are administered by phil-
osophers, in Plato's sense of the word "philosopher",
contains the greatest quantity of good of which an earthly
State is capable. Hence arises Plato's famous prophecy
that not until the philosophers are kings will the perfect
State be realized upon earth. Hence, too, his suggestion,
to which the teleological view of the true nature of a
thing 1 has paved the way, that any State which falls
short in its nature of the perfect State is, in respect of its
deficiency, not fully a State. The development
of this
suggestion leads, as we shall see, in modern political
theory to highly important consequences. 1
Secondly, there is the virtue of the ordinary man. Not
being a philosopher and having, therefore, no knowledge
of reality, the ordinary man has no direct insight into
the Good. He cannot, therefore, by means of his own
unaided vision, recognize manifestations or examples of
the Good in practice, when he experiences them.
Hence the importance of so training and educating him,
that he will hold correct, albeit conventional, beliefs
about morality and politics. And he will hold correct
beliefs not because he knows why what he believes to be
right and good is in fact right and good, but because his
education has prepared him to take his beliefs, as it were,
a framework
upon trust. And since every State requires
of law wherewith to regulate the behaviour of its citizens,
the ordinary man in Plato's State not only believes, but
does what is right, being constrained by the mere process
of obeying the laws to the habit of right conduct.
Thus he achieves such virtue as lies within the compass
of his nature, holding right opinions about moral questions
and acting in accordance with them, because of the
education which has formed his opinions and the social
and legal framework which governs his actions, this
education and this framework having been devised by
die philosopher Guardians with precisely this end in
See Chapter L pp. 30,31, *b*re.
See Chapter XV f pp. 60 1, 6oa,