Timaeus — Plato

When I take a country walk, he said, I often experience what you describe. You and I have dreamed the same thing. And above all, I said, and as the result of all, see how sensitive the citizens become ; they chafe impatiently at the least touch of authority, and at length, as you know, they cease to care even for the laws, written or unwritten ; they will have no one over them. Yes, he said, I know it too well.

Such, my friend, I said, is the fair and glorious beginning out of which springs tyranny. Glorious indeed, he said. But what is the next step?

The ruin of oligarchy is the ruin of democracy ; the same disease magnified and intensified by liberty overmasters democracy — the truth being that the excessive increase of anything often causes a reaction in the opposite direction; 564 and this is the case not only in the seasons and in vegetable and animal life, but above all in forms of government. True.

The excess of liberty, whether in States or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery. Yes, the natural order. And so tyranny naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme form of liberty? As we might expect.

That, however, was not, as I believe, your question — you rather desired to know what is that disorder which is generated alike in ohgarchy and democracy, and is the ruin of both? Just so, he rephed. Well, I said, I meant to refer to the class of idle spendthrifts, of whom the more courageous are the leaders and the more timid the followers, the same whom we were comparing to drones, some stingless, and others having stings.

A very just comparison. These two classes are the plagues of every city in which they are generated, being what phlegm and bile are to the body. And the good physician and lawgiver of the State 2ought, like the wise bee-master, to keep them at a distance and prevent, if possible, their ever coming in ; and if they have anyhow found a way in, then he should have them and their cells cut out as speedily as possible. Yes, by all means, he said.

Then, in order that we may see clearly what we are doing, let us imagine democracy to be divided, as indeed it is, into three classes ; for in the first place freedom creates rather more drones in the democratic than there were in the oligarchical State. That is true. And in the democracy they are certainly more intensified. How so?

Because in the oligarchical State they are disqualified and driven from office, and therefore they cannot train or gather strength ; whereas in a democracy they are almost the entire ruling power, and while the keener sort speak and act, the rest keep buzzing about the bema and do not suffer a word to be said on the other side ; hence in democracies almost everything is managed by the drones. Very true, he said.

Then there is another class which is always being severed from the mass. What is that? They are the orderly class, which in a nation of traders is sure to be the richest. Naturally so. They are the most squeezable persons and yield the largest amount of honey to the drones. Why, he said, there is httle to be squeezed out of people who have little. And this is called the wealthy class, and the drones feed upon them.

That is pretty much the case, he said. The people are a third class, c(5nsisting of those who work with their own hands ; they are not politicians, and have not much to live upon. This, when assembled, is the largest and most powerful class in a democracy. True, he said ; but then the multitude is seldom willing to congregate unless they get a Htde honey. VOL. III. T^T^