Plato Republic 6.501

τὸ φύσει δίκαιον is assuredly the Idea of Justice, as opposed to τὸ νόμῳ δίκαιον ‘conventional justice’: cf. 500 C and (for φύσει) V 476 B. See also on X 598 A. Bosanquet ignores the most essential and characteristic feature of Plato's teaching when he remarks that “the ‘natural’ principles of justice and other moral qualities are no doubt those which Plato believes himself to have found present, in various degrees, throughout inorganic and organic nature and the animal world, and culminating in the life of man.” It is better to let Plato soar where we cannot follow him than thus to clip his wings. See the Appendix to Book VII On Plato's Dialectic.

καὶ πρὸς ἐκεῖνο κτλ. The legislative painter looks now at his model (the φύσει δίκαιον etc.), now at his picture (the δίκαιον etc. which he is implanting among men), rubbing out one part and painting another in again ( τὸ μὲν—ἐγγράφοιεν), till he is satisfied with the result. He combines and mixes various ἐπιτηδεύματα or institutions, till he produces the true ἀνδρείκελον or ‘colour and likeness of true Manhood’; just as the painter mixes various colours to produce his ἀνδρείκελον or flesh-tint. ἀνδρείκελον in painting was a sort of flesh-colour, made by mixing various colours together: see Crat. 424 E , Xen. Oec. 10. 5, Arist. de gen. an. I 18. 725^{a} 26 and Ruhnken on Timaeus Lex. s.v. To this Plato of course alludes, but he intends us also to take the word in its etymological signification, as is clear from θεοείκελον below. The stress in ἀνδρείκελον, as in θεοειδές and θεοείκελον, is on the first part of the compound: it is not the mere ἀνθρωποειδές, but the Man-like, at which the legislator aims: cf. the force of ἄνδρα in 498 E. ἀνδρείκελον might be translated by ‘the human form divine,’ except that ‘form’ suggests a wrong notion. For other views on this passage see App. V.

θεοείκελον . Il. I 131 et al. It is pleasing to meet with so cordial and spontaneous an acknowledgment of Homer as a kindred spirit in a passage so full of Plato's characteristic idealism. There is more than a grain of truth in Longinus' observation: μόνος Ἡρόδοτος Ὁμηρικώτατος ἐγένετο; Στησίχορος ἔτι πρότερον ὅ τε Ἀρχίλοχος, πάντων δὲ τούτων μάλιστα ὁ Πλάτων ἀπὸ τοῦ Ὁμηρικοῦ κείνου νάματος εἰς αὑτὸν μυρίας ὅσας παρατροπὰς ἀποχετευσάμενος ( περὶ ὕψους 13. 3). By the words τὸ ἀνδρείκελον—θεοείκελον Plato means to suggest that Man is then most manlike when he most resembles God: and (as Tennyson says) “then most godlike being most a man.” Cf. IX 589 D note This sure and abiding conviction of the presence of a divine element within us, rendering our nature essentially and truly human, makes itself felt in nearly all the dialogues of Plato. It is the ultimate source of all his idealism, religious and metaphysical, no less than moral and political, and may well be considered the most precious and enduring inheritance which he has bequeathed to posterity.