This, however, is qualified by the demand for an ideal state, and an ideal governor, by whom alone anything like perfect virtue can be ascertained.
VI .-- The relationship with Theology is also close.

That is to say, Plato was not satisfied to construct a science of good and evil, without conjoining the sentiments towards the Gods.

His Theology, however, was of his own invention, and adapted to his ethical theory.
It was necessary to suppose that the gods were the authors of good, in order to give countenance to virtue.
Plato was the ally of the Stoics, as against the Epicureans, and of such modern theorists as Butler, who make virtue, and not happiness, the highest end of man.

With him, discipline was an end in itself, and not a means; and he endeavoured to soften its rigour by his poetical and elevated Idealism.
Although he did not preach the good of mankind, or direct beneficence, he undoubtedly prepared the way for it, by urging self-denial, which has no issue or relevance, except either by realizing greater happiness to Self (mere exalted Prudence, approved of by all sects), or by promoting the welfare of others.
THE CYNICS AND THE CYRENAICS.
These opposing sects sprang from Sokrates, and passed, with little modification, the one into the Stoics, the other into the Epicureans.
Both ANTISTHENES, the founder of the Cynics, and ARISTIPPUS, the founder of the Cyrenaics, were disciples of Sokrates.
Their doctrines chiefly referred to the Summum Bonum--the Art of Living, or of Happiness.
The CYNICS were most closely allied to Sokrates; they, in fact, carried out to the full his chosen mode of life.

His favourite maxim--that the gods had no wants, and that the most godlike man was he that approached to the same state--was the Cynic Ideal.