صفحة 218 من 1391

Well, then, we were led to form our ideal polity in the search

after justice, and the just man answered to the just State. Is

this ideal at all the worse for being impracticable? Would the

picture of a perfectly beautiful man be any the worse because no

such man ever lived? Can any reality come up to the idea? Nature

will not allow words to be fully realized; but if I am to try and

realize the ideal of the State in a measure, I think that an

approach may be made to the perfection of which I dream by one or

two, I do not say slight, but possible changes in the present

constitution of States. I would reduce them to a single one-the

great wave, as I call it. Until, then, kings are philosophers, or

philosophers are kings, cities will never cease from ill: no, nor

the human race; nor will our ideal polity ever come into being. I

know that this is a hard saying, which few will be able to

receive.