The search after the Statesman, which is carried on, like that for the
Sophist, by the method of dichotomy, gives an opportunity for many humorous
and satirical remarks. Several of the jests are mannered and laboured:
for example, the turn of words with which the dialogue opens; or the clumsy
joke about man being an animal, who has a power of two-feet--both which are
suggested by the presence of Theodorus, the geometrician. There is
political as well as logical insight in refusing to admit the division of
mankind into Hellenes and Barbarians: 'if a crane could speak, he would in
like manner oppose men and all other animals to cranes.' The pride of the
Hellene is further humbled, by being compared to a Phrygian or Lydian.
Plato glories in this impartiality of the dialectical method, which places
birds in juxtaposition with men, and the king side by side with the bird-
catcher; king or vermin-destroyer are objects of equal interest to science
(compare Parmen.). There are other passages which show that the irony of
Socrates was a lesson which Plato was not slow in learning--as, for
example, the passing remark, that 'the kings and statesmen of our day are
in their breeding and education very like their subjects;' or the
anticipation that the rivals of the king will be found in the class of
servants; or the imposing attitude of the priests, who are the established
interpreters of the will of heaven, authorized by law. Nothing is more
bitter in all his writings than his comparison of the contemporary
politicians to lions, centaurs, satyrs, and other animals of a feebler
sort, who are ever changing their forms and natures. But, as in the later
dialogues generally, the play of humour and the charm of poetry have
departed, never to return.

Still the Politicus contains a higher and more ideal conception of politics
than any other of Plato's writings. The city of which there is a pattern
in heaven (Republic), is here described as a Paradisiacal state of human