This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 Excerpt: ... seems to me, is partly given by Plato in Ids "Republic," Rook YIIJ, T4G, R-l), which contains the famous " Number of Plato,"1 "notoriously the most difficult passage in his writings." According to James Adam, to whom we owe the latest thorough discussion of the entire passage,2 accompanied by the necessary references to the immense literature written on the subject, "the difficulty lies in the (Jreek, and not in the calculations." The number occurs in the following context: There are four leading varieties of States and individuals (1. Timarchy, or the Cretan and Laconian State; 2. Oligarchy; 3. Democracy; 4. Tyranny) in addition to the perfect polity and perfect man. Inasmuch as the specific character of States is determined by that of individuals, there will be five leading types of individual character, embodied respectively in 1. the aristocratic, 2. the timarchical, 3. the oligarchical, 4. the democratical, 5. the tyrannical man. The commonwealths will be examined first and afterwards the individuals. How does Timarchy arise out of Aristocracy? Tt may belaid down as a universal rule that constitutional change is originated by dissension within the governing class. The Muses are invoked to tell " how first sedition entered." Everything that has a beginning has also an end. Even the ideal city, therefore, will in time perish and come to dissolution. Rut the cause of decay, not being contained in the ideal city itself, must come from without. What is this cause? How does this degeneration start? By wrong or inopportune marriages and births (yvvvr.aovai naihdg norf ov &W). Having indicated this cause and described the manner in which degeneration begins to take place, Plato proceeds to construct a &quo...