The actions of which politics take cognisance are necessarily collective or representative; and law is limited to external acts which affect others as well as the agents.

Ethics, on the other hand, include the whole duty of man in relation both to himself and others.

But Plato has never reflected on these differences.

He fancies that the life of the state can be as easily fashioned as that of the individual.

He is favourable to a balance of power, but never seems to have considered that power might be so balanced as to produce an absolute immobility in the state.