How can we get the greatest intelligence combined with the
greatest power? The ancient legislator would have found this question more
easy than we do. For he would have required that all persons who had a
share of government should have received their education from the state and
have borne her burdens, and should have served in her fleets and armies.
But though we sometimes hear the cry that we must 'educate the masses, for
they are our masters,' who would listen to a proposal that the franchise
should be confined to the educated or to those who fulfil political duties?
Then again, we know that the masses are not our masters, and that they are
more likely to become so if we educate them. In modern politics so many
interests have to be consulted that we are compelled to do, not what is
best, but what is possible.
d. Law is the first principle of society, but it cannot supply all the
wants of society, and may easily cause more evils than it cures. Plato is
aware of the imperfection of law in failing to meet the varieties of
circumstances: he is also aware that human life would be intolerable if
every detail of it were placed under legal regulation. It may be a great
evil that physicians should kill their patients or captains cast away their
ships, but it would be a far greater evil if each particular in the
practice of medicine or seamanship were regulated by law.
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