STRANGER: Or again, when an individual rules tives of the imitation, may not such an one be called according to law in imitation of him who knows, a tyrant?
we call him a king; and if he rules according to law, we give him the same name, whether he rules with YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
opinion or with knowledge.
STRANGER: And this we believe to be the origin YOUNG SOCRATES: To be sure.
of the tyrant and the king, of oligarchies, and aristocracies, and democracies,—because men are of-STRANGER: And when an individual truly pos-fended at the one monarch, and can never be made sessing knowledge rules, his name will surely be the to believe that any one can be worthy of such au-same—he will be called a king; and thus the five thority, or is able and willing in the spirit of virtue names of governments, as they are now reckoned, and knowledge to act justly and holily to all; they become one.
fancy that he will be a despot who will wrong and harm and slay whom he pleases of us; for if there YOUNG SOCRATES: That is true.
could be such a despot as we describe, they would acknowledge that we ought to be too glad to have STRANGER: And when an individual ruler gov-him, and that he alone would be the happy ruler of erns neither by law nor by custom, but following in a true and perfect State.
the steps of the true man of science pretends that he can only act for the best by violating the laws, YOUNG SOCRATES: To be sure.
while in reality appetite and ignorance are the mo-123
Statesman
STRANGER: But then, as the State is not like a after perish, through the badness of their pilots and beehive, and has no natural head who is at once crews, who have the worst sort of ignorance of the recognized to be the superior both in body and in highest truths—I mean to say, that they are wholly mind, mankind are obliged to meet and make laws, unaquainted with politics, of which, above all other and endeavour to approach as nearly as they can to sciences, they believe themselves to have acquired the true form of government.
the most perfect knowledge.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: And when the foundation of politics STRANGER: Then the question arises:—which of is in the letter only and in custom, and knowledge these untrue forms of government is the least op-is divorced from action, can we wonder, Socrates, pressive to their subjects, though they are all op-at the miseries which there are, and always will be, pressive; and which is the worst of them? Here is a in States? Any other art, built on such a founda-consideration which is beside our present purpose, tion and thus conducted, would ruin all that it and yet having regard to the whole it seems to in-touched. Ought we not rather to wonder at the natu-fluence all our actions: we must examine it.
ral strength of the political bond? For States have endured all this, time out of mind, and yet some of YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, we must.
them still remain and are not overthrown, though many of them, like ships at sea, founder from time STRANGER: You may say that of the three forms, to time, and perish and have perished and will here-the same is at once the hardest and the easiest.