the Supreme Being. But whether applied to Divine or to human governors the
conception is faulty for two reasons, neither of which are noticed by
Plato:--first, because all good government supposes a degree of co-
operation in the ruler and his subjects,--an 'education in politics' as
well as in moral virtue; secondly, because government, whether Divine or
human, implies that the subject has a previous knowledge of the rules under
which he is living. There is a fallacy, too, in comparing unchangeable
laws with a personal governor. For the law need not necessarily be an
'ignorant and brutal tyrant,' but gentle and humane, capable of being
altered in the spirit of the legislator, and of being administered so as to
meet the cases of individuals. Not only in fact, but in idea, both
elements must remain--the fixed law and the living will; the written word
and the spirit; the principles of obligation and of freedom; and their
applications whether made by law or equity in particular cases.

There are two sides from which positive laws may be attacked:--either from
the side of nature, which rises up and rebels against them in the spirit of
Callicles in the Gorgias; or from the side of idealism, which attempts to
soar above them,--and this is the spirit of Plato in the Statesman. But he
soon falls, like Icarus, and is content to walk instead of flying; that is,
to accommodate himself to the actual state of human things. Mankind have
long been in despair of finding the true ruler; and therefore are ready to
acquiesce in any of the five or six received forms of government as better
than none. And the best thing which they can do (though only the second
best in reality), is to reduce the ideal state to the conditions of actual
life. Thus in the Statesman, as in the Laws, we have three forms of
government, which we may venture to term, (1) the ideal, (2) the practical,
(3) the sophistical--what ought to be, what might be, what is. And thus
Plato seems to stumble, almost by accident, on the notion of a
constitutional monarchy, or of a monarchy ruling by laws.