V.The rules for breeding and education set forth in the Republic are not intended for the whole community, but only244 for the ruling minority. It was by the corruption of the higher classes that Plato was most distressed, and the salvation of the State depended, according to him, on their reformation. This leads us on to his scheme for the reconstitution of society. It is intimately connected with his method of logical definition and classification. He shows with great force that the collective action of human beings is conditioned by the division of labour; and argues from this that every individual ought, in the interest of the whole, to be restricted to a single occupation. Therefore, the industrial classes, who form the bulk of the population, are to be excluded both from military service and from political power. The Peloponnesian War had led to a general substitution of professional soldiers for the old levies of untrained citizens in Greek warfare. Plato was deeply impressed by the dangers, as well as by the advantages, of this revolution. That each profession should be exercised only by persons trained for it, suited his notions alike as a logician, a teacher, and a practical reformer. But he saw that mercenary fighters might use their power to oppress and plunder the defenceless citizens, or to establish a military despotism. And, holding that government should, like strategy, be exercised only by functionaries naturally fitted and expressly trained for the work, he saw equally that a privileged class would be tempted to abuse their position in order to fill their pockets and to gratify their passions. He proposed to provide against these dangers, first by the new system of education already described, and secondly by pushing the division of labour to its logical conclusion. That they might the better attend to their specific duties, the defenders and the rulers of the State were not to practise the art of money-making; in other words, they were not to possess any property of their own, but were to be supported by the labour of the industrial classes. Furthermore, that they need not quarrel among themselves, he proposed that every private interest should be eliminated245 from their lives, and that they should, as a class, be united by the closest bonds of family affection. This purpose was to be effected by the abolition of marriage and of domesticity. The couples chosen for breeding were to be separated when the object of their union had been attained; children were to be taken from their mothers immediately after birth and brought up at the expense and under the supervision of the State. Sickly and deformed infants were to be destroyed. Those who fell short of the aristocratic standard were to be degraded, and their places filled up by the exceptionally gifted offspring of low-class parents. Members of the military and governing caste were to address each other according to the kinship which might possibly exist between them. In the absence of home-employments, women were to be, so far as possible, assimilated to men; to pass through the same bodily and mental training; to be enrolled in the army; and, if they showed the necessary capacity, to discharge the highest political functions. In this practical dialectic the identifying no less than the differentiating power of logic is displayed, and displayed also in defiance of common ideas, as in the modern classifications of zoology and botany. Plato introduces distinctions where they did not before exist, and annuls those which were already recognised. The sexes were to be assimilated, political life was to be identified with family life, and the whole community was to present an exact parallel with the individual soul. The ruling committee corresponded to reason, the army to passionate spirit, and the industrial classes to the animal desires; and each, in its perfect constitution, represented one of the cardinal virtues as reinterpreted by Plato. Wisdom belonged to the ruling part, courage to the intermediate executive power, and temperance or obedience to the organs of material existence; while justice meant the general harmony resulting from the fulfilment of their appropriate functions by all. We may add that the whole State reproduced the Greek family in a much246 deeper sense than Plato himself was aware of. For his aristocracy represents the man, whose virtue, in the words of Gorgias, was to administer the State; and his industrial class takes the place of the woman, whose duty was to order her house, and keep what is indoors, and obey her husband.146
FORE:"Afterwards, which is much more to the point, my niece saw Leon Lalage here. I had better call him your husband, because really there is no denying that. The man was in your house in the morning room, and Hetty saw him. After the business of the notes came out and the story of the Spanish gipsy was told, I knew perfectly well what had taken place. You had called Bruce in to your drunken husband by means of your new motor, with Balmayne playing the deaf mute. After Bruce was gone you killed the man with a knife you procured at Rosser's, in Regent Street. I find the knife in the dry well behind the house."
When I left I got a lot of addresses of relations in The Netherlands, and undertook to send a postcard to each of these. They also gave me an introduction to the proprietor of an hotel whom they knew, in which they asked him to give me a bed; and thus armed I succeeded at last. It was high time too, for at nine o'clock everyone had to be at home. In the hotel everything was dark, for there was no gas in the town. At last I could lie down on my bed, and had a good rest, although I could not sleep a wink. I was too tired and had seen and experienced too much that day.Yonder it is! Larrys hand gestured ahead and to the side.Bruce put the thing out of his mind for the time being. The next morning was a busy one. When the back of it was broken he drove to Tottenham Court Road, where he managed to secure the old-fashioned furniture which had so taken his fancy. He felt pleased with his bargain, but as he repaired to the Lotus Club to lunch with Gilbert Lawrence nothing remained of the old Dutchman's banknotes."Here rest 10 soldiers, French, I. Reg. 36. fell 22.8. R.I.P."They had come to a better part of the town. They paused at length before Lytton Avenue. The house of many festivities was dark and dismantled. There was no sign of life or movement there.
