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

80 ETHICS AND POLITICS! THE GREEKS
to t the laws; nor could there be any sense of injustice
among persons deprived of the power to choose die legis-
lature, since Plato's State is the embodiment of the principle
of justice and the principle of justice consists, as we have
seen, in not meddling.
Given Plato's premises, this is an effective answer. But
to admit that on Plato's premises it is effective, is only
to reveal more clearly than we have hitherto done the
extent of Plato's subordination of the individual to the
State. It is difficult for the modern mind or, perhaps I
should say, for the pre-war mind, for post-war developments
in government have embodied many of Plato's
proposals, albeit without the vision of the Good, which
alone justifies his proposals not to feel that Plato is too
prone to sacrifice, or at least to subordinate, the happiness
of the individual to that of the social organism; too ready
to replace waywardness of mind, idiosyncracy of taste, the
pride of personal possessions, and the love of family by
abstract devotion to the State, and to hold as of no account
the thousand and one little pleasures and interests playing
games and making love, eating and drinking, going on
journeys, and cultivating hobbies of which in all ages
the ordinary man's life has been made up, and which confer
upon most of us such enjoyment as we are likely to know.
Variety is the spice of life and Plato !s State might, to say
the least of it, have struck the inhabitants of a twentieth
century democracy as a little dull. As John Stuart Mill
was later to observe, "It is not by wearing down into
uniformity all that is individual in themselves, but by
cultivating it and calling it forth, within the limits imposed
by the rights and interests of others, that human beings
become a noble and beautiful object of contemplation;
and as the works partake of the character of those who do
them, by the same process human life also becomes rich,
diversified and animating, furnishing more abundant
aliment to high thoughts and elevating feelings, and
strengthening the tie which binds every individual to
the race by making the race infinitely better worth