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The Republic by Plato
page 6 of 789 (00%)
fifth, sixth, and seventh books, in which philosophy rather than justice is
the subject of enquiry, and the second State is constructed on principles
of communism and ruled by philosophers, and the contemplation of the idea
of good takes the place of the social and political virtues. In the eighth
and ninth books (4) the perversions of States and of the individuals who
correspond to them are reviewed in succession; and the nature of pleasure
and the principle of tyranny are further analysed in the individual man.
The tenth book (5) is the conclusion of the whole, in which the relations
of philosophy to poetry are finally determined, and the happiness of the
citizens in this life, which has now been assured, is crowned by the vision
of another.

Or a more general division into two parts may be adopted; the first (Books
I - IV) containing the description of a State framed generally in
accordance with Hellenic notions of religion and morality, while in the
second (Books V - X) the Hellenic State is transformed into an ideal
kingdom of philosophy, of which all other governments are the perversions.
These two points of view are really opposed, and the opposition is only
veiled by the genius of Plato. The Republic, like the Phaedrus (see
Introduction to Phaedrus), is an imperfect whole; the higher light of
philosophy breaks through the regularity of the Hellenic temple, which at
last fades away into the heavens. Whether this imperfection of structure
arises from an enlargement of the plan; or from the imperfect reconcilement
in the writer's own mind of the struggling elements of thought which are
now first brought together by him; or, perhaps, from the composition of the
work at different times--are questions, like the similar question about the
Iliad and the Odyssey, which are worth asking, but which cannot have a
distinct answer. In the age of Plato there was no regular mode of
publication, and an author would have the less scruple in altering or
adding to a work which was known only to a few of his friends. There is no
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