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��728 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., I, 1899
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��principles due to the increasing intelligence of civilized men.
,T With knowledge comes a love of justice that recognizes that
rights may best be secured by the performance of duties. For- ever and forever is this lesson taught by advancing culture. In
% the strife to establish justice through the agency of government
men learn to delegate their power to representative men chosen for their wisdom.
The first presentation of the true nature of representative government is recorded in the literature of Greece. In Plato's
m Republic we find romance dealing with ideal government. The
!* old philosopher dreamed of a state of society in which the con-
duct of government should be relegated to the wisest and best
ft of mankind. Further, he attempted to set forth the conditions
!;} under which the wise men should rule by delineating their mar-
riage relations and their property rights in terms that seem strange and even bizarre to modern thought. Alas, he did not
j;J properly comprehend the method by which the wise men could
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�� ��be selected. His theory of government by the wise and good
,* became the ecclesiastical polity of the two great churches of
- early civilization, the Roman church and the Greek church, which
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��were organized to secure the rule of the wise and good, and by both civil affairs were made subordinate to ecclesiastical affairs.
While Plato thus became potent in founding the policies of these churches, Aristotle was more influential in founding their philosophies. The role which these two great thinkers played in |M the history of early civilization was profound, for they cast the
thought of centuries into molds of learning, and these molds gave figure and structure to philosophy and to church polity which has lasted until modern times, when the molds were broken only by the blows of science.
We have stated that to Plato we owe the earliest compre- hension of the principles of representative government. These principles we must now set forth.
It is an inherent principle in society that the many follow
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