And he himself, in the
building up of his Nephelococcygia, certainly starts with a [Greek
text which cannot be reproduced], making a clean sweep of all
history and all experience; and it was essentially as an A PRIORI
theorist that he is criticised by Aristotle, as we shall see later.
To proceed to closer details regarding the actual scheme of the
laws of political revolutions as drawn out by Plato, we must first
note that the primary cause of the decay of the ideal state is the
general principle, common to the vegetable and animal worlds as
well as to the world of history, that all created things are fated
to decay - a principle which, though expressed in the terms of a
mere metaphysical abstraction, is yet perhaps in its essence
scientific. For we too must hold that a continuous redistribution
of matter and motion is the inevitable result of the nominal
persistence of Force, and that perfect equilibrium is as impossible
in politics as it certainly is in physics.
The secondary causes which mar the perfection of the Platonic 'city
of the sun' are to be found in the intellectual decay of the race
consequent on injudicious marriages and in the Philistine elevation
of physical achievements over mental culture; while the
hierarchical succession of Timocracy and Oligarchy, Democracy and
Tyranny, is dwelt on at great length and its causes analysed in a
very dramatic and psychological manner, if not in that sanctioned
by the actual order of history.
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