For they ought to have perished long ago, if they had depended
on the wisdom of their rulers. The mingled pathos and satire of this
remark is characteristic of Plato's later style.
The king is the personification of political science. And yet he is
something more than this,--the perfectly good and wise tyrant of the Laws,
whose will is better than any law. He is the special providence who is
always interfering with and regulating all things. Such a conception has
sometimes been entertained by modern theologians, and by Plato himself, of
the Supreme Being. But whether applied to Divine or to human governors the
conception is faulty for two reasons, neither of which are noticed by
Plato:--first, because all good government supposes a degree of co-
operation in the ruler and his subjects,--an 'education in politics' as
well as in moral virtue; secondly, because government, whether Divine or
human, implies that the subject has a previous knowledge of the rules under
which he is living. There is a fallacy, too, in comparing unchangeable
laws with a personal governor. For the law need not necessarily be an
'ignorant and brutal tyrant,' but gentle and humane, capable of being
altered in the spirit of the legislator, and of being administered so as to
meet the cases of individuals.
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