Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/485

POLITICAL GOVERNMENT. 4G to the state of the internal associations as contrasted nith the effect of external causes, as well as the pains taken to make it appear how much the latter depend upon the former for their power of conferring happiness, and how sufficient is moderate good fortune in respect to externals, provided the internal man be properly disciplined, is a vein of thought which pervades both Sokrates and Plato, and which passed from them, under various modifications, to most of the subsequent schools of ethical philoso- phy. It is probable that Protagoras or Prodikus, training rich youth for active life, without altogether leaving out such internal element of happiness, would yet dwell upon it less ; a point of decided superiority in Sokrates. The political opinions of Sokrates were much akin to his ethical, and deserve especial notice, as having in part contributed to his condemnation by the dikastery. He thought that the functions of government belonged legitimately to those who knew best how to exercise them for the advantage of the governed. " The legitimate king or governor was not the man who held the sceptre, nor the man elected by some vulgar persons, nor he who had got the post by lot, nor he who had thrust himself in by force or by fraud, but he alone who knew how to govern well." ' Just as the pilot governed on shipboard, the surgeon in a sick man's house, the trainer in a palaestra ; every one else being eager to obey these professional superiors, and even thanking and recompensing them for their directions, simply because their greater knowledge was an admitted fact. It was absurd, Sokrates used to contend, to choose public officers by lot, when no one tvould trust himself on shipboard under the care of a pilot selected by hazard, 2 nor would any one pick out a carpenter or a musician in like manner. We do not know what provision Sokrates suggested for apply- ing his principle to practice, for discovering who was the fittest man in point of knowledge, or for superseding him in case of his becoming unfit, or in case another fitter than he should arise. The analogies of the pilot, the surgeon, and professional men generally, would mturally conduct him to election by the people, renewable after temporary periods ; since no one of these profes Xc-n. Mn iii, *, '0, 11 * Xcn. Mem. i, 2, 9.