are to be proportioned to this.  The constitution in the Laws is a timocracy of wealth, modified by an aristocracy of merit.  Yet the political philosopher will observe that the first of these two principles is fixed and permanent, while the latter is uncertain and dependent on the opinion of the multitude.  Wealth, after all, plays a great part in the Second Republic of Plato.  Like other politicians, he deems that a property qualification will contribute stability to the state.  The four classes are derived from the constitution of Athens, just as the form of the city, which is clustered around a citadel set on a hill, is suggested by the Acropolis at Athens.  Plato, writing under Pythagorean influences, seems really to have supposed that the well-being of the city depended almost as much on the number 5040 as on justice and moderation.  But he is not prevented by Pythagoreanism from observing the effects which climate and soil exercise on the characters of nations.

He was doubtful in the Republic whether the ideal or communistic state could be realized, but was at the same time prepared to maintain that whether it existed or not made no difference to the philosopher, who will in any case regulate his life by it (Republic).  He has now lost faith in the practicability of his scheme—­he is speaking to ’men, and not to Gods or sons of Gods’ (Laws).  Yet he still maintains it to be the true pattern of the state, which we must approach as nearly as possible:  as Aristotle says, ’After having created a more general form of state, he gradually brings it round to the other’ (Pol.).  He does not observe, either here or in the Republic, that in such a commonwealth there would be little room for the development of individual character.  In several respects the second state is an improvement on the first, especially in being based more distinctly on the dignity of the soul.  The standard of truth, justice, temperance, is as high as in the Republic;—­in one respect higher, for temperance is now regarded, not as a virtue, but as the condition of all virtue.  It is finally acknowledged that the virtues are all one and connected, and that if they are separated, courage is the lowest of them.  The treatment of moral questions is less speculative but more human.  The idea of good has disappeared; the excellences of individuals—­of him who is faithful in a civil broil, of the examiner who is incorruptible, are the patterns to which the lives of the citizens are to conform.  Plato is never weary of speaking of the honour of the soul, which can only be honoured truly by being improved.  To make the soul as good as possible, and to prepare her for communion with the Gods in another world by communion with divine virtue in this, is the end of life.  If the Republic is far superior to the Laws in form and style, and perhaps in reach of thought, the Laws leave on the mind of the modern reader much more strongly the impression of a struggle against evil, and an enthusiasm for human improvement.  When Plato says that he must carry out that part of his ideal which is practicable, he does not appear to have reflected that part of an ideal cannot be detached from the whole.