book. Fourthly, the virtues are affirmed to be inseparable from one
another, even if not absolutely one; this, too, is a principle which he
reasserts at the conclusion of the work. As in the beginnings of Plato's
other writings, we have here several 'notes' struck, which form the
preludes of longer discussions, although the hint is less ingeniously
given, and the promise more imperfectly fulfilled than in the earlier
dialogues.

The distinction between ethics and politics has not yet dawned upon
Plato's mind. To him, law is still floating in a region between the two.
He would have desired that all the acts and laws of a state should have
regard to all virtue. But he did not see that politics and law are subject
to their own conditions, and are distinguished from ethics by natural
differences. The actions of which politics take cognisance are necessarily
collective or representative; and law is limited to external acts which
affect others as well as the agents. Ethics, on the other hand, include
the whole duty of man in relation both to himself and others. But Plato
has never reflected on these differences. He fancies that the life of the
state can be as easily fashioned as that of the individual. He is
favourable to a balance of power, but never seems to have considered that
power might be so balanced as to produce an absolute immobility in the
state. Nor is he alive to the evils of confounding vice and crime; or to
the necessity of governments abstaining from excessive interference with
their subjects.

Yet this confusion of ethics and politics has also a better and a truer
side. If unable to grasp some important distinctions, Plato is at any rate
seeking to elevate the lower to the higher; he does not pull down the
principles of men to their practice, or narrow the conception of the state
to the immediate necessities of politics. Political ideals of freedom and