of what pertains to nature; and justice, as in external matters it consists in each doing his own duty, so, in the inner life, it consists in each moment of the mind obtaining its right, and not interfering in the affairs of the others, but leaving them to do as they will.[69] We have thus the deduction of three moments, where the middle place between universality and particularity is filled by anger in its independence and as directed against the objective: it is the freedom which turns back within itself and acts negatively. Even here, where Plato has no consciousness of his abstract ideas, as he has in the Timæus, this of a truth is inwardly present to him, and everything is moulded thereby. This is given as the plan according to which Plato draws up the great whole. To fill up the outlines is a mere detail, which in itself has no further interest. b. In the second place Plato indicates the means of maintaining the state. As, speaking generally, the whole commonwealth rests on common morality as the minds of individuals grown into nature, this question is asked: How does Plato arrange that everyone takes as his own that form of activity for which he is specially marked out, and that it presents itself as the moral acting and willing of the individual,—that everyone, in harmony with temperance, submits to filling this his post? The main point is to train the individuals thereto. Plato would produce this ethical quality directly in the individuals, and first and foremost in the guardians, whose education is therefore the most important part of the whole, and constitutes the very foundation. For as it is to the guardians themselves that the care is committed of producing this ethical quality through maintenance of the laws, in these laws special attention must be given to the guardians’ education; after that also to the education of the warriors. The condition of affairs in the industrial class causes the state but little anxiety, “for though cobblers should prove poor and worthless, and should be only in appearance what they ought to be, that is no great misfortune for the state.”[70] The education of the presidents should, however, be carried on chiefly by means of philosophic science, which is the knowledge of the universal and absolute. Plato in this passes over the particular means of education, religion, art, science. Further on he speaks again and more in detail on the question of how far music and gymnastic are to be permitted as means. But the poets Homer and Hesiod he banishes from his state, because he thinks their representations of God unworthy.[71] For then began in real earnest an inquiry into the belief in Jupiter and the stories told by Homer, inasmuch as such particular representations had been taken as universal maxims and divine laws. At a certain stage of education childish tales do no harm; but were they to be made the foundation of the truth of morality, as present law, the case would be different. The extermination of