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

76 ETHICS AND POLITICS: THE GREEKS
do not exert any influence upon the government which is
carried on, albeit unwillingly, exclusively by members of
the first. Because, hoWever, of the cast of mind induced
in them by their training and education, the member* of
the second and third orders are not conscious of what
-we should call their diifrandrisement, nor do they feel
a sense of grievance. For the fact that the State is the
embodiment of the principle of justice precludes them
from wishing to meddle with matters which do not concern
their own particular order, the core of justice being found
in the principle of non-meddling.
(3) Ilie virtue of the State so conceived is not other
than the virtue of the individual soul. In the soul as well
as in the State excellence is to be found in a right relation
between harmonious parts; the State is, indeed, merely
the soul writ large.
(4) The State so conceived is static. Its laws and institutions
are an embodiment of the principle of the Good
manifested in the world. They are, therefore, presumably
incapable of improvement.
Since each order is content with
its status and function the relations between the orders
cannot alter except for the worse. The perfect State is,
therefore, an unchanging State.
COMMENT AND CRITICISM
(i) That there is No Equality of Opportunity.
To attempt to criticize Plato's scheme at length would be
to embark upon an undertaking which would carry me
beyond the projected confines of this book, whose main
purpose is exposition. Moreover, most of the criticism*
which will occur to the contemporary, reader presuppose
as their basis the acceptance of certain assumptions in
regard to politics and ethics, which will be revealed later
in the course of the exposition of the theories which
embody them. There is, for example, the criticism which
is based upon the democratic assumption, that every
citizen has a right to an equal opportunity to the full