The divine foundations of a State are to be laid deep in education
(Republic), and at the same time some little violence may be used in
exterminating natures which are incapable of education (compare Laws).
Plato is strongly of opinion that the legislator, like the physician, may
do men good against their will (compare Gorgias). The human bonds of
states are formed by the inter-marriage of dispositions adapted to supply
the defects of each other. As in the Republic, Plato has observed that
there are opposite natures in the world, the strong and the gentle, the
courageous and the temperate, which, borrowing an expression derived from
the image of weaving, he calls the warp and the woof of human society. To
interlace these is the crowning achievement of political science. In the
Protagoras, Socrates was maintaining that there was only one virtue, and
not many: now Plato is inclined to think that there are not only parallel,
but opposite virtues, and seems to see a similar opposition pervading all
art and nature. But he is satisfied with laying down the principle, and
does not inform us by what further steps the union of opposites is to be
effected.
In the loose framework of a single dialogue Plato has thus combined two
distinct subjects--politics and method. Yet they are not so far apart as
they appear: in his own mind there was a secret link of connexion between
them.
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