Plato's ideal state offends the thought of conservative men more than all else in his writings, but it was conceived in view of the highest ideas of virtue and justice. It was simply bad psychology. He enumerates and describes five kinds of states and the corresponding five types of individual character. Indeed he studies justice first in the ideal state, and then in the individual. The three impulses of the soul are compared with the three classes of citizens in the state, and to each he ascribes its excellence, thus forming his list of virtues. But we cannot dwell upon this phase of Plato's teachings. We may, however, refer to his caricature of extreme democracy; it has a useful modern application.
In this state the father descends to his son and fears him, and the son is on a level with his father and does not fear him. The alien is equal to the citizen, and the slave to the master. The master fears and flatters his scholars, and the scholars despise their masters. The young man is on a level with the old, and old men, for fear of seeming morose and authoritative, condescend to the young and are full of pleasantry and gayety. Even the animals in the democracy show the spirit of equality, and the horses and asses march along the streets with all the rights and dignities of freemen, and will run at you if you do not get out of their way, and everything is just ready to burst with liberty. The citizens become sensitive and chafe at authority, and cease to care for the laws. Surely the statesman can turn to Plato for wisdom, for out of this condition grows tyranny.
And, correspondingly, the democratical young man, a kind of fin de siècle type, is described. Insolence
