On moral ignorance in high places
by Plutarch
when plato was invited by the syrians to draw up a code of laws for their use and
to organize their constitution he begged to be excused on the ground that it was difficult to
legislate for so prosperous people for not so arrogant nor so impracticable and headstrong
as humankind when prosperity or what is so considered lies within its grasp no less difficult
is the task of advising a ruler how to rule to admit reason he fears is to admit a ruler whose
law of duty will make a slave of him and curtail the advantage he derives from power he has yet
to learn a lesson from theo pompous the spartan king who was the first to modify the powers of
the throne by means of that of the efforts when his wife reproached him for proposing to leave to
his children less authority than he had inherited he replied nay greater because more assured by
relaxing its excessive absolutism he escaped the consequent ill feeling and there with its dangers
but note theo pompous in diverting into other channels a portion of the full stream of power
deprived himself of just so much as he gave away but when philosophic reason becomes the
established colleague and protector of a ruler it merely removes the perilous
element and leaves the healthy a process is necessary to power us to sound health
in most cases however monarchs or rulers show as little wisdom as a tasteless sculptor
who fancies that to represent a figure with a huge stride strained muscles and gaping mouth
is to make it appear massive and imposing they imagine that an arrogant tone
harsh looks short temper and exclusiveness give them the true regal air of ore and majesty
in reality they are not a bit better than a colossal statue with the outward shape and
form of a god or demigod while the inside is a mass of earth stone or lead indeed in the case of
the statue these heavy materials serve to keep it erect and prevent it from warping whereas with an
unschooled governor or chief the unreason within is often the cause of instability and collapse his
foundation being out of plum the lofty power which he builds upon it is correspondingly unstable
now it is only when the builder's square is itself faultless in line and angle that it can make
other things true to line by adjustment to and comparison with itself so a ruler must begin by
acquiring rule within himself let him set his own soul straight and make his own character firm and
then begin adjusting his subjects there too you cannot sit upright when you are falling teach when
you are ignorant discipline when unruly command when disobedient govern when ungoverned and yet
it is a common error to suppose that the chief blessing of authority is to be above authority
to the king of persia everyone was a slave except his own wife the very person whose master he ought
to have been by whom then is the ruler to be ruled by the law sovereign of mortals and immortals all
as pinder says not a law written outwardly in books or on wooden tables but a living law of
reason in himself abiding with him watching him and never leaving his sole destitute of guidance
the king of persia kept one chamberlain whose special function was to enter in the morning
and say to him rise sire and attend to matters which great orimage this meant for your concern
the ruler who has learned wisdom and self-control hears the same voice of exhortation from within
it was a saying of palemo that love is serving the gods in the care and protection of the young
with more truth it might be said that a ruler serves god in the care and protection of men
by dispensing or safeguarding the blessings which god gives to mankind sees it thou yon boundless
sky and air aloft how in soft arms it clasts the world about from it descend the first principles
of seeds in due kind earth brings them forth their growth is fostered by rains or winds or the warmth
of moon and stars while the sun brings everything to beauty and tinctures all creation with that
peculiar love spell which is his but though the gods may lavish these great boons and blessings
who can enjoy or use them rightly if there be no law justice or ruler justice is the end of law
law is the work of the ruler and a ruler is an image of the god who orders all things
he needs no fear dice or polycleitis or myro to fashion him but brings himself into likeness
with deity by means of virtue and so creates the fairest and most divine of effigies in the heavens
the sun and moon were set by god as his own beauteous image and in a state the same shining
embodiment is to be found in the ruler god fearing who justice upholdeth that is to say when he holds
not a scepter but a mind which is the reason of god not when he holds the thunderbolt or trident
with which some represent themselves in statue or picture rendering their folly odious to heaven
by such impossible assertion for god visits with righteous roth him who makes pretense of thunder
or thunderbolt or darting sun ray but when a man studies to emulate his goodness and to take a
pattern by his virtue and benevolence he delights in furthering him and bestowing a portion of his
own righteousness justice truth and mercy not fire or light not the course of the sun the risings
and settings of the stars everlastingness and immortality are more divine than these attributes
for it is not by reason of length of life that god is happy but by reason of the virtue which rules
this is divine noble however is the virtue whose part it is only to obey a false and
pernicious cell for his repentance at his sin this encouragement to repeat it if we are to use such
figures of speech right is no assessor of zeus but he himself is right and justice the oldest
and most consummate law what the ancients tell and write and teach is that without justice not
even zeus can properly rule according to hesiod a virgin is she the incorruptable partner of feeling
self-control and beneficence hence a king's called merciful for mercy best becomes those
who are least afraid a ruler's fear should be of doing harm rather than of suffering it for the
former action is the cause of the latter and this kind of fear on the part of a ruler is creditable
to humanity there is nothing ignoble in a fear for his subjects and of possible injury to them
such rulers alike dogs that keep ward over the sheep in the farmstead anxiously watching
it sound of a fierce wild beast their anxiety being not for themselves but for their
charges once when the thebans had recklessly abandoned themselves to feasting and carousel
epamine unders went the round of the walls and the military posts all by himself remarking that he
was keeping sober and wakeful so that the rest might be drunk and asleep when cato after the
defeat at utica gave orders that everyone else should be sent to sea saw them on board prayed
that they might have a prosperous voyage and then went back home and stabbed himself it was a
lesson on the text for whose sake should a ruler feel fear and for what should he feel contempt
on the other hand cleekus despot of pontus used at bedtime to crawl like a snake into a chest
similarly aristodemus of argos crept into an upper room entered by a trapdoor
over this he would put the couch upon which he passed the night with his mistress meanwhile her
mother dragged away the ladder from below bringing it back and putting it in place in the morning
how think you must he have shuddered at the theater at the government offices at
the senate house at the banquet when he turned his own bedchamber into a prison
yes kings are afraid for their subjects despots are afraid of them it follows that as they add
to their power they add to their alarms the more people they rule the more people they fear
it is an improbable and unworthy view to hold of god as some philosophers do that he exists
is an element in matter to which all sorts of things may happen and in entities which are
subject to innumerable accidents chances and changes in reality he is established
somewhere aloft on holy pedestal as plato puts it in the realm of nature uniform and constant
and that moves according to nature in a straight line towards the accomplishment of his end
and as in heaven the sun his beauteous counterfeit shows itself as his reflection in a mirror to
those who have the power to see him through it so in the justice and reason which shine
in a state he sets up a likeness of that which is in himself and by copying that likeness men
whom philosophy has gifted and chase and model themselves after the highest pattern
this condition of mind nothing can implant except reason acquired from philosophy otherwise we are
in the position of alexander when he went to see diogenes at corinth in delight at his talent and
in admiration of his proud and lofty spirit he exclaimed if i had not been alexander i would
have been diogenes and what did this virtually mean that he was vexed at his own high fortune
splendor and power because they were an obstacle to the virtue for which he could find no time
and that he envied the cloak and the wallet which made diogenes as invincible and unassailable as he
himself was made by armor and horses and spears and yet by the practice of philosophy he might
have secured the moral character of a diogenes while retaining the position of an alexander
nay he should have become all the more a diogenes for being an alexander since his high fortune so
liable to be tossed by stormy winds required ample ballast and a master hand at the helm
in the case of private men without strength or standing folly is so qualified by impotence that
in the end no mischief is done it is is with a bad dream in which though the mind is excited with
passion no harm results in as much as it is unable to rise and act in accordance with the desires
when on the other hand vice is adopted by power the passions acquire sinew and strength
dionysius spoke truly when he said that the highest advantage of power was to give speedy
effect to a wish a most powerless thing if you can give effect to a wish and yet wish what is wrong
no sooner the word had been uttered then straightway the deed was accomplished
vice when enabled by power to run rapid course forces every passion interaction converting
anger into murder love into adultery greed into confiscation no sooner the word hath been uttered
then your opponent has met his doom no sooner a suspicion than the victim of slander is a dead man
scientists tell us that whereas lightning really follows and issues from thunderlike
blood from a wound it is perceived first because while the hearing waits for the
sound the vision goes out to meet the light so with rulers the punishment outstrips the charge
the condemnation does not wait for the proof for forthwith anger slips and loses hold like anchor's
tooth in sand when seas swell high unless reason with all its weight puts a heavy drag on power
unless that is the ruler acts like the sun whose motion is leased when its height is greatest
namely at the time of its northern altitude its course being steadied by the diminished speed
vice in high places cannot be hid when an epileptic is placed upon a height and made
to turn round he is seized with giddiness and begins to totter his malady being betrayed thereby
so with an unschooled and ignorant person after a brief uplifting by wealth or fame or place
the same fortune which raised him up immediately reveals how ready he is to fall
to put it another way when a vessel is empty you cannot detect the crack or floor but when you
begin to fill it the leak appears so with a mind which is too unsound to hold power and authority
its leaks are to be seen in its exhibitions of lust anger pretentiousness and ignorance
yet why speak of this when hulls are picked in eminent and distinguished men for the merest
peccadillos simon was reproached for his addiction to wine scipio for his addiction
to sleep and lucullus for his extravagance at table alas the rest of this essay is lost
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