Why,
I said, the father habitually tries to resemble the child and is afraid of his sons, and the son likens himself to the father and feels no awe or fear of his parents, Footnote 1A common conservative complaint. Cf. Isoc. Areop. 49, Aristoph. Clouds, 998, 1321 ff., Xen. Rep. Ath. 1. 10, Mem. iii. 5. 15; Newman i. pp. 174 and 339-340. Cf. also Renan, Souvenirs, xviii.-xx., on American vulgarity and liberty; Harold Lasswell, quoting Bryce,
Modern Democracies,
in Methods of Social Science, ed. by Stuart A. Rice, p. 376: The spirit of equality is alleged to have diminished the respect children owe to parents, and the young to the old. This was noted by Plato in Athens. But surely the family relations depend much more on the social, structural and religious ideas of a race than on forms of government
; Whitman, Where the men and women think lightly of the laws . . . where children are taught to be laws to themselves . . . there the great city stands.
so that he may be forsooth a free man. Footnote 2For the ironical ἵνα δή cf. on 561 B. Cf. Laws 962 E ἐλεύθερον δή
, Meno 86 and Aristoph. Clouds 1414. And the resident alien feels himself equal to the citizen and the citizen to him, and the foreigner likewise.Yes, these things do happen,
he said. They do,
said I, and such other trifles as these. The teacher in such case fears and fawns upon the pupils, and the pupils pay no heed to the teacher or to their overseers either. And in general the young ape their elders and vie with them in speech and action, while the old, accommodating Footnote 3Cf. Protag. 336 A, Theaet. 174 A, 168 B. themselves to the young, are full of pleasantry Footnote 4For εὐτραπελίας cf. Isoc. xv. 296, vii. 49, Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 1108 a 23. In Rhet. 1389 b 11 he defnes it as πεπαιδευμένη ὕβρις. Arnold once addressed the Eton boys on the word. and graciousness, imitating the young for fear they may be thought disagreeable and authoritative.
By all means,
he said. And the climax of popular liberty, my friend,
I said, is attained in such a city when the purchased slaves, male and female, are no less free Footnote 5Cf. Xen. Rep. Ath. 1. 10.
τῶν δούλων δ’ αὖ καὶ τῶν μετοίκων πλείστη ἐστὶν Ἀθήνησιν ἀκολασία
, Aristoph. Clouds init., and on slavery Laws 777 E, p. 249, note g on 547 C and 549 A. than the owners who paid for them. And I almost forgot to mention the spirit of freedom and equal rights in the relation of men to women and women to men.Shall we not, then,
said he, in Aeschylean phrase, Footnote 6Nauck fr. 351. Cf. Plut. Amat. 763 C, Themist. Orat. iv. p. 52 B; also Otto, p. 39, and Adam ad loc. say
whatever rises to our lips
?Certainly,
I said, so I will. Without experience of it no one would believe how much freer the very beasts Footnote 7Cf. 562 E, Julian, Misopogon, 355 B . . . μέχρι τῶν ὄνων ἐστὶν ἐλευθερία παρ’ αὐτοῖς καὶ τῶν καμήλων; ἄγουσί τοι καὶ ταύτας οἱ μισθωτοὶ διὰ τῶν στοῶν ὥσπερ τὰς νύμφας
. . . what great independence exists among the citizens, even down to the very asses and camels? The men who hire them out lead even these animals through the porticoes as though they were brides.
(Loeb tr.) Cf. Porphyry, Vit. Pythag.Teubner, p. 22, 23 μέχρι καὶ τῶν ἀλόγων ζῴων διικνεῖτο αὐτοῦ ἡ νουθέτησις
subject to men are in such a city than elsewhere. The dogs literally verify the adage Footnote 8Otto, p. 119. Cf. Like mistress, like maid.
and like their mistresses become.
And likewise the horses and asses are wont to hold on their way with the utmost freedom and dignity, bumping into everyone who meets them and who does not step aside. Footnote 9Eurip. Ion 635-637 mentions being jostled off the street by a worse person as one of the indignities of Athenian city life. And so all things everywhere are just bursting with the spirit of liberty. Footnote 10Cf. the reflections in Laws 698 f., 701 A-C, Epist. viii. 354 D, Gorg. 461 E; Isoc. Areop. 20, Panath. 131, Eurip. Cyclops 120 ἀκούει δ’ οὐδὲν οὐδεὶς οὐδενός
, Aristot. Pol. 1295 b 15 f. Plato, by reaction against the excesses of the ultimate democracy, always satirizes the shibboleth liberty
in the style of Arnold, Ruskin and Carlyle. He would agree with Goethe (Eckermann i. 219, Jan. 18, ) Nicht das macht frei, das vir nichts über uns erkennen wollen, sondern eben, dass wir etwas verehren, das über uns ist.
Libby, Introd. to Hist. of Science, p. 273, not understanding the irony of the passage, thinks much of it the unwilling tribute of a hostile critic. In Gorg. 484 A Callicles sneers at equality from the point of view of the superman. Cf. also on 558 C, p. 291, note f; Hobbes, Leviathan xxi. and Theopompus’s account of democracy in Byzantium, fr. 65. Similar phenomena may be observed in an American city street or Pullman club car. It is my own dream Footnote 11Cf Callimachus, Anth. Pal. vi. 310, and xii. 148
he said; μὴ λέγε . . . τοὐμὸν ὄνειρον ἐμοί
, Cic. Att. vi. 9. 3, Lucian, Somnium seu Gallus 7 ὥσπερ γὰρ τοὐμὸν ἐνύπνιον ἰδών
, Tennyson, Lucretius
: That was mine, my dream, I knew it.
you are telling me,for it often happens to me when I go to the country.
And do you note that the sum total of all these items when footed up is that they render the souls of the citizens so sensitive Footnote 12This sensitiveness, on which Grote remarks with approval, is characteristic of present-day American democracy. Cf. also Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, p. 51
And so if he is stopped from making Hyde Park a bear garden or the streets impassable he says he is being butchered by the aristocracy.
that they chafe at the slightest suggestion of servitude Footnote 13Cf. Gorg. 491 E δουλεύων ὁτῳοῦν
, Laws 890 A. and will not endure it? For you are aware that they finally pay no heed even to the laws Footnote 14Cf. Laws 701 B νόμων ζητεῖν μὴ ὑπηκόοις εἶναι
written or unwritten, Footnote 15For unwritten law Cf. What Plato Said, p. 637, on Laws 793 A. so that forsooth they may have no master anywhere over them.I know it very well,
said he.
This, then, my friend,
said I, is the fine and vigorous root from which tyranny grows, in my opinion.
Vigorous indeed,
he said; but what next?
Book 8