In politics the hero does
not live happily ever after, or end his life perfectly. There is no
concluding chapter, because the hero in politics has more future
before him than there is recorded history behind him. The last chapter
is merely a place where the writer imagines that the polite reader has
begun to look furtively at his watch.
2
When Plato came to the point where it was fitting that he should sum
up, his assurance turned into stage-fright as he thought how absurd it
would sound to say what was in him about the place of reason in
politics. Those sentences in book five of the Republic were hard even
for Plato to speak; they are so sheer and so stark that men can
neither forget them nor live by them. So he makes Socrates say to
Glaucon that he will be broken and drowned in laughter for telling
"what is the least change which will enable a state to pass into the
truer form," [Footnote: _Republic_, Bk. V, 473. Jowett transl.]
because the thought he "would fain have uttered if it had not seemed
too extravagant" was that "until philosophers are kings, or the kings
and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and
political greatness and wisdom meet in one... cities will never cease
from ill,--no, nor the human race..."
Hardly had he said these awful words, when he realized they were a
counsel of perfection, and felt embarrassed at the unapproachable
grandeur of his idea.
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