very unsatisfactory results, in respect to the structure and organization of government.

An eminent author, the Abbe Barthelemi, better known as Anacharsis,* has observed that "two great questions employ the attention of the philosophers of Greece; the one concerning the manner in which the universe is governed, the other on the mode in which men ought to be governed." It is to this latter question that the Social Philosophy of the Greeks addressed itself almost exclusively. It considered with great particularity, and some measure of sagacity, how men ought to be governed, but gave little or no attention to the question how they can be rendered comfortable.

The failure of the Grecian philosophers to consider the latter question resulted partly, no doubt, and in a great measure, from their disposition to depreciate and despise the wants of the body, and to aim chiefly at the elevation of the qualities of the soul. But it resulted, also, to a large extent, from their ignorance of the truth, that good government does not by any means necessarily insure the comfort or general welfare of the community. They did not progress far enough, either experimentally or speculatively, in Social Philosophy, to ascertain that even after good government has been secured, there yet remains a great deal to be done to insure a perfect social state, or one in which every member of the community is in a condition (as to material comfort) fit for the healthful enjoyment of rational existence. They failed, therefore, to discover those great fundamental laws of Sociology which tend at once to secure good government, and the social welfare of the governed, and without which it would be in vain, or at least of little avail, to give to a people the best of governments.

Nor is it to be wondered at that even the greatest philosophers of Greece should have been blinded as to the ulterior and more fundamental causes of social prosperity, and been induced to attach undue importance to governmental causes, in view of the wretched systems of government which prevailed in almost every part of Greece during their times. Political science was then in its infancy; and the Greeks were not a people whose genius was so well adapted as that of the modern Anglo-Saxons to work out the great problem, which so much engaged their attention, what is the best government for a State; which, whatever confused and inaccurate ideas the Grecian philosophers or others may have entertained respecting it, cannot perhaps be more correctly defined than as that government which insures stability and order in the State, with the least sacrifice to the individual liberty of the citizens; or, in other words, as that government which renders a very large share of individual liberty, consistent with order and stability in the industrial as well as the political affairs of the State.

Mankind

This problem, indeed, was not one of very easy solution. arrive at perfection, or rather at proficiency, in government, as they do in the mechanical arts, only by long teaching and rigid discipline in the severe school of experience. From the rude attempt of the Cretan sage to give to his people a model government, some 1,200 years before the Christian era, the struggle for this perfection of government may be traced in

It may be superfluous to remark that the Abbe Barthelemi, a French Jesuit of the eighteenth century, was the author of the work which has attained so much celebrity as "The Travels of Anacharsis," which was first published in 1783.

its onward course, through many nations, and under various circumstances -now advancing, and then retrograding, but on the whole decidedly progressing, in its long career, for the period of some 3,000 years, down to the 4th day of March, A. D., 1789, when the American system of government was established by the inauguration of the federal constitution, and the federal government commenced its operation under the administration of GEORGE WASHINGTON.

In the commencement of this great and protracted struggle, which took its rise in Greece, political ideas were very rude and undigested. Politics in Greece may indeed be said to have been in a state of chaos, even in the most enlightened period of their country. Having thrown off that patriarchal or kingly form of political organization, which prevails in the earlier age of every nation, the States of Greece had not been able to organize government upon the principles of republicanism, at which they aimed, upon any except very rude and disorderly bases. Politics in Greece were in a transition state, which was necessarily, to a great extent, a state of disorder and confusion.

There was

The political systems of Greece, scarcely excepting that of Sparta, which was decidedly the best of them all, were remarkably rude, imperfect, and defective. The principle of representation, indispensable to the operations of the republican system, upon any enlarged plan, was almost wholly unrecognized by them, except in the case of the ordinary magistracy, of foreign ambassadors, and delegates to the Amphyctionic council. The idea of unity in the head of the executive department of government was unappreciated. The highest legislative and judicial authorities of the State were the primary assemblies of the people. no well-defined distinction between the legislative and judicial powers of the State, and still less between the fundamental, organic laws of the State and the ordinary statute laws. Indeed, the republics of Greece were not only without any distinctly recognized organic law, but also, to a great extent, without any well-defined code of jurisprudence; so that the most fundamental questions of State, as well as those common questions which should be entirely referred to ordinary judicial tribunals, were decided, in many cases, by the legislative body, and that, too, the worst of all legislative bodies, the primary assembly of the people. Accordingly, we find Aristotle, in his celebrated treatise on Politics, gravely recommending that the supreme power of the State be lodged in laws duly enacted, rather than left to the caprice of any one man, or a few, or the many, as it the propriety of such a method admitted of the least possible doubt.

In such a crude and disorderly condition of Politics, it is obvious that deplorable mismanagement must have prevailed, and frequent disorders arisen. Nor need we wonder that almost every State in Greece was repeatedly the prey of a licentious democracy or a rapacious tyranny.

In view of the many great evils which undoubtedly resulted from the imperfect and positively defective political systems which generally prevailed in Greece, it was natural enough that it should be supposed, even by its wisest men, that were society relieved from these evils entirely, it would be relieved of all its important evils. Such, at least, seems to have been their supposition; and it may be safely asserted that the social philosophers of Greece, if they did not consider government as the essential or most prominent cause of the social ills of humanity, evidently sup

posed that it might be made the instrument for curing those ills, or rather that those ills required no other treatment than the administration of good government.

At any rate, this was the controlling, if not the exclusive, idea of the Social Philosophy of the Greeks. All their speculations on society were directed to the end of devising some plan of government that should constitute a perfect political system, or well-governed State. They were constantly aiming at the improvement of the State, rather than of the individuals composing the State. If indeed they aimed at the improvement of individuals, it was mainly with the view of thereby improving the State; thus sadly mistaking the proper aim of the political and social philosopher-a mistake, by the way, not confined to the Social Philosophy of Greece, though in a distinguished degree characteristic of their speculations, but one which has continued to the present time almost universally prevalent-a mistake, moreover, which, though it has been casually noticed by many, and emphatically denounced by a few, profound thinkers in later times, has never yet received the overwhelming and complete overthrow which a mistake so serious should long ago have received.

These general remarks on the Social Philosophy of the Greeks, and their imperfect political systems, might appear sufficient, in regard to the Sociology of Greece. But the discourses of some of the Grecian philosophers on government, and some of the actual governments of Greece, have acquired so great a celebrity, that some particular notice of them seems to be demanded by the character of our "Review, Historical and Critical, of the different Systems of Social Philosophy."

Of the Grecian philosophers who have written discourses on government, as, indeed, of those who have written upon any other branch of Philosophy, Plato and Aristotle were undoubtedly the most celebrated, and, if we except Polybius, who flourished some two centuries later, the most able and profound. The Republic of Plato, commonly styled "the Ideal Republic," and the Politics of Aristotle, have indeed played such prominent parts in the subsequent discussions of mankind on government, that no one should claim to be well versed in the history of Social or Political Philosophy who has not some general acquaintance with the character and leading doctrines of these two celebrated works.

Plato's Republic, which, like most of his discourses, is written in the dialogue form, (Socrates, as usual, being the chief interlocutor, and uttering what may be regarded more particularly as the peculiar views of Plato,) seems to have for its leading object to ascertain what is justice, essentially considered, and more particularly what is real and essential justice in respect to the organization of society. To establish this principle of justice in a State, is obviously the grand desideratum of Sociology in the estimation of Plato.

After determining what justice is, and defining it, with much more profundity and philosophical precision than is usual, as the habitual practice of one's own proper and special work, he proceeds to inquire how this principle is to be made practically operative in a State. His reasoning on this point, though rather disjointed, and by no means closely connected, may be logically summed up as follows:-As there are, in the human soul, three grand principles, the concupiscant, the irascible, and the rational, or, (as our professional phrenologists would most probably trans

late it,) the acquisitive, combative, and rational, so there are, in every society, three grand classes or orders of men, the money-seeking, the heroic,* and the deliberative; or, in other words, the business class, the warrior class, and the philosophic class. It is the proper function or work of the first of these classes, to follow the various industrial avocations of life; of the second, to follow the honorable profession of arms, acting as the protectors of the State in time of war, and its guardians in peace; and of the third, to act as the magistracy or governors of the State.

For the first of these classes, the industrial or labor class, Plato prescribes no particular regulations, except by indirection, whence we are led to understand that he inhibits them from any participation whatever in the affairs of government, and enjoins their attention exclusively to their own peculiar business, his motto in this respect appearing manifestly to be, ne sutor ultra crepidam. For the second or guardian class he prescribes a system of education and rigid training designed to render them superior to the frailties, the follies, and the vices of humanity, and to exalt them to the character of gods, or at least of demigods. With a view to maintaining the superiority of this class, he enjoins, moreover, great attention to judicious crosses in marriage, and also to the times or seasons during which married persons are to be permitted to come together with a view to the creation of offspring. For the third class, or the magistracy of his republic, he merely prescribes the selection from time to time, and as occasion may require, the most godlike of the demigods of the second class, who, being already trained alike for the purposes of obedience or command, would require, in his estimation, no further training or qualifications for State office. It is in reference mainly to the exalted qualities that Plato proposes to impart (by education and strict attention to the laws of genealogy) to the State guardians of his model republic, or the warrior class, that this celebrated work of his has obtained its great repute as an extravagant and romantic piece of fancy work. It should be obvious, however, that so wise a man as Plato could not have been entirely serious in all that he proposed in this disquisition on government, and that the work was intended rather, like Xenophon's Cyropaedia, and More's Utopia, as a sort of political romance, though written in the didactic, rather than the historic, form. It is not therefore to be compared with such insane productions as Godwin's Political Justice, the author of which was evidently in grim earnestness, even in his most extravagant propositions.

The great leading idea of Plato, that there are three fundamental or primary elements of society, as of the human soul, to each one of which it should be the aim of the statesman to assign its proper function, in the organization of the State, is certainly a very valuable one, though Plato does not perhaps very accurately, or with entire correctness, define those elements, or indicate rightly what they are. Still less does he lay down. any very useful or suggestive rules for giving to each of these fundamental elements of society its appropriate place in the State, as how we are

In using the word "heroic," the author has taken some liberty with the text of Plato as rendered by the translator, Mr. Henry Davis, whom he has followed in making this criticism on the Ideal Republic. But it is a liberty which he feels assured would be sanctioned by Plato himself, were he alive. Mr. Davis almost invariably used the word "auxiliary," in reference to the class of society which the author of this review designates as the "heroic;" and auxiliary undoubtedly they are, when employed for the specific functions indicated for them by Plato. But essentially and independently of any such specific employment, they may clearly be regarded as the heroic or warrior class of mankind.

to determine who are fit for one function and who for another. But his views are liable to this further criticism certainly, that they are too intensely aristocratical, and that they entertain altogether too low an estimate of the character of the great industrial or labor class of mankind. Pre-eminently amenable to criticism, moreover, is he in this, that he does not prescribe any system of education for this class, with a view to their improvement, and seems to disregard all special attention to them, thus committing an oversight not less serious than that of the architect who should neglect all attention to the foundation walls of his edifice, and look only to its upper works. It matters not how much more polished or intrinsically valuable may be the upper materials of society; they can only rest securely upon the solid foundation of an intelligent, contented, and prosperous labor class.

The most objectionable part of Plato's Social Philosophy, however, is that which relates to property and the domestic relations. His views on these points seem to be predicated upon the idea that harmony is one of the most important requisites for the well-being of a State, and that nothing is so conducive to harmony as unity of feeling and interest. Nor should we wonder at it, if a Grecian philosopher did overestimate and attach an overweening importance to harmony and unity, doomed as they were to witness so many of the mischiefs of discord and faction, among the brawling democracies of Greece.

So important did Plato consider harmony, and, with a view to it, unity of interest and feeling, that he prescribed for his republic, or at least for the State guardians of his republic, (for it is quite uncertain whether he meant to restrict it to them, or apply it to the whole State,) nothing less than community of property, and community of wives and children. Not a little astonishing truly is it to find so great a philosopher as Plato indorsing the delusion of communism as to property. But what shall we say when we find him also indorsing it as to women, when we find him virtually indorsing and recommending that promiscuous intercourse between the sexes, which, under the specious name of "free love," has been so unblushingly advocated of late by some restless and discontented spirits. It is difficult, however, to understand clearly what Plato meant by his community of wives, since it is obvious, and must have been so to him, that anything like a general promiscuousness between the sexes would have been fatal to all hopes of offspring, which he clearly never intended, his great object being, as distinctly avowed by him, to prevent every man from knowing his own children, and encouraging him to consider all the children of the State, of a suitable age, as his children. It should seem, however, that this end might be accomplished without any community of wives, and by the same means by which the women should be kept in ignorance of their own children. Nor can we escape the conclusion that the divine Plato, as he is often termed in reference to the exalted purity of his sentiments in general, is justly amenable to severe criticism for the laxity of his ethical code in respect to the sexual relation. All doubt on this score would seem indeed to be removed by the fact that we find him openly recommending that the young men most distinguished in war or other pursuits should have the most ample liberty of intercourse with women allowed them, not only as a reward to their virtues, but as a means of securing the noblest parentage for the largest number of children.*

See Plato's Republic, translated by Henry Davis, book v., chapter 9.