Laws: Book IV
Book IV
ATHENIAN: And now, what will this city be? I do not mean to ask what is or
will hereafter be the name of the place; that may be determined by the
accident of locality or of the original settlement--a river or fountain,
or some local deity may give the sanction of a name to the newly-founded
city; but I do want to know what the situation is, whether maritime or
inland.
CLEINIAS: I should imagine, Stranger, that the city of which we are
speaking is about eighty stadia distant from the sea.
ATHENIAN: And are there harbours on the seaboard?
CLEINIAS: Excellent harbours, Stranger; there could not be better.
ATHENIAN: Alas! what a prospect! And is the surrounding country
productive, or in need of importations?
CLEINIAS: Hardly in need of anything.
ATHENIAN: And is there any neighbouring State?
CLEINIAS: None whatever, and that is the reason for selecting the place;
in days of old, there was a migration of the inhabitants, and the region
has been deserted from time immemorial.
ATHENIAN: And has the place a fair proportion of hill, and plain, and
wood?
CLEINIAS: Like the rest of Crete in that.
ATHENIAN: You mean to say that there is more rock than plain?
CLEINIAS: Exactly.
ATHENIAN: Then there is some hope that your citizens may be virtuous: had
you been on the sea, and well provided with harbours, and an importing
rather than a producing country, some mighty saviour would have been
needed, and lawgivers more than mortal, if you were ever to have a chance
of preserving your state from degeneracy and discordance of manners
(compare Ar. Pol.). But there is comfort in the eighty stadia; although
the sea is too near, especially if, as you say, the harbours are so good.
Still we may be content. The sea is pleasant enough as a daily companion,
but has indeed also a bitter and brackish quality; filling the streets
with merchants and shopkeepers, and begetting in the souls of men
uncertain and unfaithful ways--making the state unfriendly and unfaithful
both to her own citizens, and also to other nations. There is a
consolation, therefore, in the country producing all things at home; and
yet, owing to the ruggedness of the soil, not providing anything in great
abundance. Had there been abundance, there might have been a great export
trade, and a great return of gold and silver; which, as we may safely
affirm, has the most fatal results on a State whose aim is the attainment
of just and noble sentiments: this was said by us, if you remember, in the
previous discussion.
CLEINIAS: I remember, and am of opinion that we both were and are in the
right.
ATHENIAN: Well, but let me ask, how is the country supplied with timber
for ship-building?
CLEINIAS: There is no fir of any consequence, nor pine, and not much
cypress; and you will find very little stone-pine or plane-wood, which
shipwrights always require for the interior of ships.
ATHENIAN: These are also natural advantages.
CLEINIAS: Why so?
ATHENIAN: Because no city ought to be easily able to imitate its enemies
in what is mischievous.
CLEINIAS: How does that bear upon any of the matters of which we have been
speaking?
ATHENIAN: Remember, my good friend, what I said at first about the Cretan
laws, that they looked to one thing only, and this, as you both agreed,
was war; and I replied that such laws, in so far as they tended to promote
virtue, were good; but in that they regarded a part only, and not the
whole of virtue, I disapproved of them. And now I hope that you in your
turn will follow and watch me if I legislate with a view to anything but
virtue, or with a view to a part of virtue only. For I consider that the
true lawgiver, like an archer, aims only at that on which some eternal
beauty is always attending, and dismisses everything else, whether wealth
or any other benefit, when separated from virtue. I was saying that the
imitation of enemies was a bad thing; and I was thinking of a case in
which a maritime people are harassed by enemies, as the Athenians were by
Minos (I do not speak from any desire to recall past grievances); but he,
as we know, was a great naval potentate, who compelled the inhabitants of
Attica to pay him a cruel tribute; and in those days they had no ships of
war as they now have, nor was the country filled with ship-timber, and
therefore they could not readily build them. Hence they could not learn
how to imitate their enemy at sea, and in this way, becoming sailors
themselves, directly repel their enemies. Better for them to have lost
many times over the seven youths, than that heavy-armed and stationary
troops should have been turned into sailors, and accustomed to be often
leaping on shore, and again to come running back to their ships; or should
have fancied that there was no disgrace in not awaiting the attack of an
enemy and dying boldly; and that there were good reasons, and plenty of
them, for a man throwing away his arms, and betaking himself to flight,--
which is not dishonourable, as people say, at certain times. This is the
language of naval warfare, and is anything but worthy of extraordinary
praise. For we should not teach bad habits, least of all to the best part
of the citizens. You may learn the evil of such a practice from Homer, by
whom Odysseus is introduced, rebuking Agamemnon, because he desires to
draw down the ships to the sea at a time when the Achaeans are hard
pressed by the Trojans,--he gets angry with him, and says:
'Who, at a time when the battle is in full cry, biddest to drag the well-
benched ships into the sea, that the prayers of the Trojans may be
accomplished yet more, and high ruin fall upon us. For the Achaeans will
not maintain the battle, when the ships are drawn into the sea, but they
will look behind and will cease from strife; in that the counsel which you
give will prove injurious.'
You see that he quite knew triremes on the sea, in the neighbourhood of
fighting men, to be an evil;--lions might be trained in that way to fly
from a herd of deer. Moreover, naval powers which owe their safety to
ships, do not give honour to that sort of warlike excellence which is most
deserving of it. For he who owes his safety to the pilot and the captain,
and the oarsman, and all sorts of rather inferior persons, cannot rightly
give honour to whom honour is due. But how can a state be in a right
condition which cannot justly award honour?
CLEINIAS: It is hardly possible, I admit; and yet, Stranger, we Cretans
are in the habit of saying that the battle of Salamis was the salvation of
Hellas.
ATHENIAN: Why, yes; and that is an opinion which is widely spread both
among Hellenes and barbarians. But Megillus and I say rather, that the
battle of Marathon was the beginning, and the battle of Plataea the
completion, of the great deliverance, and that these battles by land made
the Hellenes better; whereas the sea-fights of Salamis and Artemisium--for
I may as well put them both together--made them no better, if I may say so
without offence about the battles which helped to save us. And in
estimating the goodness of a state, we regard both the situation of the
country and the order of the laws, considering that the mere preservation
and continuance of life is not the most honourable thing for men, as the
vulgar think, but the continuance of the best life, while we live; and
that again, if I am not mistaken, is a remark which has been made already.
CLEINIAS: Yes.
ATHENIAN: Then we have only to ask, whether we are taking the course which
we acknowledge to be the best for the settlement and legislation of
states.
CLEINIAS: The best by far.
ATHENIAN: And now let me proceed to another question: Who are to be the
colonists? May any one come out of all Crete; and is the idea that the
population in the several states is too numerous for the means of
subsistence? For I suppose that you are not going to send out a general
invitation to any Hellene who likes to come. And yet I observe that to
your country settlers have come from Argos and Aegina and other parts of
Hellas. Tell me, then, whence do you draw your recruits in the present
enterprise?
CLEINIAS: They will come from all Crete; and of other Hellenes,
Peloponnesians will be most acceptable. For, as you truly observe, there
are Cretans of Argive descent; and the race of Cretans which has the
highest character at the present day is the Gortynian, and this has come
from Gortys in the Peloponnesus.
ATHENIAN: Cities find colonization in some respects easier if the
colonists are one race, which like a swarm of bees is sent out from a
single country, either when friends leave friends, owing to some pressure
of population or other similar necessity, or when a portion of a state is
driven by factions to emigrate. And there have been whole cities which
have taken flight when utterly conquered by a superior power in war. This,
however, which is in one way an advantage to the colonist or legislator,
in another point of view creates a difficulty. There is an element of
friendship in the community of race, and language, and laws, and in common
temples and rites of worship; but colonies which are of this homogeneous
sort are apt to kick against any laws or any form of constitution
differing from that which they had at home; and although the badness of
their own laws may have been the cause of the factions which prevailed
among them, yet from the force of habit they would fain preserve the very
customs which were their ruin, and the leader of the colony, who is their
legislator, finds them troublesome and rebellious. On the other hand, the
conflux of several populations might be more disposed to listen to new
laws; but then, to make them combine and pull together, as they say of
horses, is a most difficult task, and the work of years. And yet there is
nothing which tends more to the improvement of mankind than legislation
and colonization.
CLEINIAS: No doubt; but I should like to know why you say so.
ATHENIAN: My good friend, I am afraid that the course of my speculations
is leading me to say something depreciatory of legislators; but if the
word be to the purpose, there can be no harm. And yet, why am I
disquieted, for I believe that the same principle applies equally to all
human things?
CLEINIAS: To what are you referring?
ATHENIAN: I was going to say that man never legislates, but accidents of
all sorts, which legislate for us in all sorts of ways. The violence of
war and the hard necessity of poverty are constantly overturning
governments and changing laws. And the power of disease has often caused
innovations in the state, when there have been pestilences, or when there
has been a succession of bad seasons continuing during many years. Any one
who sees all this, naturally rushes to the conclusion of which I was
speaking, that no mortal legislates in anything, but that in human affairs
chance is almost everything. And this may be said of the arts of the
sailor, and the pilot, and the physician, and the general, and may seem to
be well said; and yet there is another thing which may be said with equal
truth of all of them.
CLEINIAS: What is it?
ATHENIAN: That God governs all things, and that chance and opportunity co-
operate with Him in the government of human affairs. There is, however, a
third and less extreme view, that art should be there also; for I should
say that in a storm there must surely be a great advantage in having the
aid of the pilot's art. You would agree?
CLEINIAS: Yes.
ATHENIAN: And does not a like principle apply to legislation as well as to
other things: even supposing all the conditions to be favourable which are
needed for the happiness of the state, yet the true legislator must from
time to time appear on the scene?
CLEINIAS: Most true.
ATHENIAN: In each case the artist would be able to pray rightly for
certain conditions, and if these were granted by fortune, he would then
only require to exercise his art?
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: And all the other artists just now mentioned, if they were
bidden to offer up each their special prayer, would do so?
CLEINIAS: Of course.
ATHENIAN: And the legislator would do likewise?
CLEINIAS: I believe that he would.
ATHENIAN: 'Come, legislator,' we will say to him; 'what are the conditions
which you require in a state before you can organize it?' How ought he to
answer this question? Shall I give his answer?
CLEINIAS: Yes.
ATHENIAN: He will say--'Give me a state which is governed by a tyrant, and
let the tyrant be young and have a good memory; let him be quick at
learning, and of a courageous and noble nature; let him have that quality
which, as I said before, is the inseparable companion of all the other
parts of virtue, if there is to be any good in them.'
CLEINIAS: I suppose, Megillus, that this companion virtue of which the
Stranger speaks, must be temperance?
ATHENIAN: Yes, Cleinias, temperance in the vulgar sense; not that which in
the forced and exaggerated language of some philosophers is called
prudence, but that which is the natural gift of children and animals, of
whom some live continently and others incontinently, but when isolated,
was, as we said, hardly worth reckoning in the catalogue of goods. I think
that you must understand my meaning.
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: Then our tyrant must have this as well as the other qualities,
if the state is to acquire in the best manner and in the shortest time the
form of government which is most conducive to happiness; for there neither
is nor ever will be a better or speedier way of establishing a polity than
by a tyranny.
CLEINIAS: By what possible arguments, Stranger, can any man persuade
himself of such a monstrous doctrine?
ATHENIAN: There is surely no difficulty in seeing, Cleinias, what is in
accordance with the order of nature?
CLEINIAS: You would assume, as you say, a tyrant who was young, temperate,
quick at learning, having a good memory, courageous, of a noble nature?
ATHENIAN: Yes; and you must add fortunate; and his good fortune must be
that he is the contemporary of a great legislator, and that some happy
chance brings them together. When this has been accomplished, God has done
all that he ever does for a state which he desires to be eminently
prosperous; He has done second best for a state in which there are two
such rulers, and third best for a state in which there are three. The
difficulty increases with the increase, and diminishes with the diminution
of the number.
CLEINIAS: You mean to say, I suppose, that the best government is produced
from a tyranny, and originates in a good lawgiver and an orderly tyrant,
and that the change from such a tyranny into a perfect form of government
takes place most easily; less easily when from an oligarchy; and, in the
third degree, from a democracy: is not that your meaning?
ATHENIAN: Not so; I mean rather to say that the change is best made out of
a tyranny; and secondly, out of a monarchy; and thirdly, out of some sort
of democracy: fourth, in the capacity for improvement, comes oligarchy,
which has the greatest difficulty in admitting of such a change, because
the government is in the hands of a number of potentates. I am supposing
that the legislator is by nature of the true sort, and that his strength
is united with that of the chief men of the state; and when the ruling
element is numerically small, and at the same time very strong, as in a
tyranny, there the change is likely to be easiest and most rapid.
CLEINIAS: How? I do not understand.
ATHENIAN: And yet I have repeated what I am saying a good many times; but
I suppose that you have never seen a city which is under a tyranny?
CLEINIAS: No, and I cannot say that I have any great desire to see one.
ATHENIAN: And yet, where there is a tyranny, you might certainly see that
of which I am now speaking.
CLEINIAS: What do you mean?
ATHENIAN: I mean that you might see how, without trouble and in no very
long period of time, the tyrant, if he wishes, can change the manners of a
state: he has only to go in the direction of virtue or of vice, whichever
he prefers, he himself indicating by his example the lines of conduct,
praising and rewarding some actions and reproving others, and degrading
those who disobey.
CLEINIAS: But how can we imagine that the citizens in general will at once
follow the example set to them; and how can he have this power both of
persuading and of compelling them?
ATHENIAN: Let no one, my friends, persuade us that there is any quicker
and easier way in which states change their laws than when the rulers
lead: such changes never have, nor ever will, come to pass in any other
way. The real impossibility or difficulty is of another sort, and is
rarely surmounted in the course of ages; but when once it is surmounted,
ten thousand or rather all blessings follow.
CLEINIAS: Of what are you speaking?
ATHENIAN: The difficulty is to find the divine love of temperate and just
institutions existing in any powerful forms of government, whether in a
monarchy or oligarchy of wealth or of birth. You might as well hope to
reproduce the character of Nestor, who is said to have excelled all men in
the power of speech, and yet more in his temperance. This, however,
according to the tradition, was in the times of Troy; in our own days
there is nothing of the sort; but if such an one either has or ever shall
come into being, or is now among us, blessed is he and blessed are they
who hear the wise words that flow from his lips. And this may be said of
power in general: When the supreme power in man coincides with the
greatest wisdom and temperance, then the best laws and the best
constitution come into being; but in no other way. And let what I have
been saying be regarded as a kind of sacred legend or oracle, and let this
be our proof that, in one point of view, there may be a difficulty for a
city to have good laws, but that there is another point of view in which
nothing can be easier or sooner effected, granting our supposition.
CLEINIAS: How do you mean?
ATHENIAN: Let us try to amuse ourselves, old boys as we are, by moulding
in words the laws which are suitable to your state.
CLEINIAS: Let us proceed without delay.
ATHENIAN: Then let us invoke God at the settlement of our state; may He
hear and be propitious to us, and come and set in order the State and the
laws!
CLEINIAS: May He come!
ATHENIAN: But what form of polity are we going to give the city?
CLEINIAS: Tell us what you mean a little more clearly. Do you mean some
form of democracy, or oligarchy, or aristocracy, or monarchy? For we
cannot suppose that you would include tyranny.
ATHENIAN: Which of you will first tell me to which of these classes his
own government is to be referred?
MEGILLUS: Ought I to answer first, since I am the elder?
CLEINIAS: Perhaps you should.
MEGILLUS: And yet, Stranger, I perceive that I cannot say, without more
thought, what I should call the government of Lacedaemon, for it seems to
me to be like a tyranny,--the power of our Ephors is marvellously
tyrannical; and sometimes it appears to me to be of all cities the most
democratical; and who can reasonably deny that it is an aristocracy
(compare Ar. Pol.)? We have also a monarchy which is held for life, and is
said by all mankind, and not by ourselves only, to be the most ancient of
all monarchies; and, therefore, when asked on a sudden, I cannot precisely
say which form of government the Spartan is.
CLEINIAS: I am in the same difficulty, Megillus; for I do not feel
confident that the polity of Cnosus is any of these.
ATHENIAN: The reason is, my excellent friends, that you really have
polities, but the states of which we were just now speaking are merely
aggregations of men dwelling in cities who are the subjects and servants
of a part of their own state, and each of them is named after the dominant
power; they are not polities at all. But if states are to be named after
their rulers, the true state ought to be called by the name of the God who
rules over wise men.
CLEINIAS: And who is this God?
ATHENIAN: May I still make use of fable to some extent, in the hope that I
may be better able to answer your question: shall I?
CLEINIAS: By all means.
ATHENIAN: In the primeval world, and a long while before the cities came
into being whose settlements we have described, there is said to have been
in the time of Cronos a blessed rule and life, of which the best-ordered
of existing states is a copy (compare Statesman).
CLEINIAS: It will be very necessary to hear about that.
ATHENIAN: I quite agree with you; and therefore I have introduced the
subject.
CLEINIAS: Most appropriately; and since the tale is to the point, you will
do well in giving us the whole story.
ATHENIAN: I will do as you suggest. There is a tradition of the happy life
of mankind in days when all things were spontaneous and abundant. And of
this the reason is said to have been as follows:--Cronos knew what we
ourselves were declaring, that no human nature invested with supreme power
is able to order human affairs and not overflow with insolence and wrong.
Which reflection led him to appoint not men but demigods, who are of a
higher and more divine race, to be the kings and rulers of our cities; he
did as we do with flocks of sheep and other tame animals. For we do not
appoint oxen to be the lords of oxen, or goats of goats; but we ourselves
are a superior race, and rule over them. In like manner God, in His love
of mankind, placed over us the demons, who are a superior race, and they
with great ease and pleasure to themselves, and no less to us, taking care
of us and giving us peace and reverence and order and justice never
failing, made the tribes of men happy and united. And this tradition,
which is true, declares that cities of which some mortal man and not God
is the ruler, have no escape from evils and toils. Still we must do all
that we can to imitate the life which is said to have existed in the days
of Cronos, and, as far as the principle of immortality dwells in us, to
that we must hearken, both in private and public life, and regulate our
cities and houses according to law, meaning by the very term 'law,' the
distribution of mind. But if either a single person or an oligarchy or a
democracy has a soul eager after pleasures and desires--wanting to be
filled with them, yet retaining none of them, and perpetually afflicted
with an endless and insatiable disorder; and this evil spirit, having
first trampled the laws under foot, becomes the master either of a state
or of an individual,--then, as I was saying, salvation is hopeless. And
now, Cleinias, we have to consider whether you will or will not accept
this tale of mine.
CLEINIAS: Certainly we will.
ATHENIAN: You are aware,--are you not?--that there are often said to be as
many forms of laws as there are of governments, and of the latter we have
already mentioned all those which are commonly recognized. Now you must
regard this as a matter of first-rate importance. For what is to be the
standard of just and unjust, is once more the point at issue. Men say that
the law ought not to regard either military virtue, or virtue in general,
but only the interests and power and preservation of the established form
of government; this is thought by them to be the best way of expressing
the natural definition of justice.
CLEINIAS: How?
ATHENIAN: Justice is said by them to be the interest of the stronger
(Republic).
CLEINIAS: Speak plainer.
ATHENIAN: I will:--'Surely,' they say, 'the governing power makes whatever
laws have authority in any state'?
CLEINIAS: True.
ATHENIAN: 'Well,' they would add, 'and do you suppose that tyranny or
democracy, or any other conquering power, does not make the continuance of
the power which is possessed by them the first or principal object of
their laws'?
CLEINIAS: How can they have any other?
ATHENIAN: 'And whoever transgresses these laws is punished as an evil-doer
by the legislator, who calls the laws just'?
CLEINIAS: Naturally.
ATHENIAN: 'This, then, is always the mode and fashion in which justice
exists.'
CLEINIAS: Certainly, if they are correct in their view.
ATHENIAN: Why, yes, this is one of those false principles of government to
which we were referring.
CLEINIAS: Which do you mean?
ATHENIAN: Those which we were examining when we spoke of who ought to
govern whom. Did we not arrive at the conclusion that parents ought to
govern their children, and the elder the younger, and the noble the
ignoble? And there were many other principles, if you remember, and they
were not always consistent. One principle was this very principle of
might, and we said that Pindar considered violence natural and justified
it.
CLEINIAS: Yes; I remember.
ATHENIAN: Consider, then, to whom our state is to be entrusted. For there
is a thing which has occurred times without number in states--
CLEINIAS: What thing?
ATHENIAN: That when there has been a contest for power, those who gain the
upper hand so entirely monopolize the government, as to refuse all share
to the defeated party and their descendants--they live watching one
another, the ruling class being in perpetual fear that some one who has a
recollection of former wrongs will come into power and rise up against
them. Now, according to our view, such governments are not polities at
all, nor are laws right which are passed for the good of particular
classes and not for the good of the whole state. States which have such
laws are not polities but parties, and their notions of justice are simply
unmeaning. I say this, because I am going to assert that we must not
entrust the government in your state to any one because he is rich, or
because he possesses any other advantage, such as strength, or stature, or
again birth: but he who is most obedient to the laws of the state, he
shall win the palm; and to him who is victorious in the first degree shall
be given the highest office and chief ministry of the gods; and the second
to him who bears the second palm; and on a similar principle shall all the
other offices be assigned to those who come next in order. And when I call
the rulers servants or ministers of the law, I give them this name not for
the sake of novelty, but because I certainly believe that upon such
service or ministry depends the well- or ill-being of the state. For that
state in which the law is subject and has no authority, I perceive to be
on the highway to ruin; but I see that the state in which the law is above
the rulers, and the rulers are the inferiors of the law, has salvation,
and every blessing which the Gods can confer.
CLEINIAS: Truly, Stranger, you see with the keen vision of age.
ATHENIAN: Why, yes; every man when he is young has that sort of vision
dullest, and when he is old keenest.
CLEINIAS: Very true.
ATHENIAN: And now, what is to be the next step? May we not suppose the
colonists to have arrived, and proceed to make our speech to them?
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: 'Friends,' we say to them,--'God, as the old tradition declares,
holding in his hand the beginning, middle, and end of all that is, travels
according to His nature in a straight line towards the accomplishment of
His end. Justice always accompanies Him, and is the punisher of those who
fall short of the divine law. To justice, he who would be happy holds
fast, and follows in her company with all humility and order; but he who
is lifted up with pride, or elated by wealth or rank, or beauty, who is
young and foolish, and has a soul hot with insolence, and thinks that he
has no need of any guide or ruler, but is able himself to be the guide of
others, he, I say, is left deserted of God; and being thus deserted, he
takes to him others who are like himself, and dances about, throwing all
things into confusion, and many think that he is a great man, but in a
short time he pays a penalty which justice cannot but approve, and is
utterly destroyed, and his family and city with him. Wherefore, seeing
that human things are thus ordered, what should a wise man do or think, or
not do or think'?
CLEINIAS: Every man ought to make up his mind that he will be one of the
followers of God; there can be no doubt of that.
ATHENIAN: Then what life is agreeable to God, and becoming in His
followers? One only, expressed once for all in the old saying that 'like
agrees with like, with measure measure,' but things which have no measure
agree neither with themselves nor with the things which have. Now God
ought to be to us the measure of all things, and not man (compare Crat.;
Theaet.), as men commonly say (Protagoras): the words are far more true of
Him. And he who would be dear to God must, as far as is possible, be like
Him and such as He is. Wherefore the temperate man is the friend of God,
for he is like Him; and the intemperate man is unlike Him, and different
from Him, and unjust. And the same applies to other things; and this is
the conclusion, which is also the noblest and truest of all sayings,--that
for the good man to offer sacrifice to the Gods, and hold converse with
them by means of prayers and offerings and every kind of service, is the
noblest and best of all things, and also the most conducive to a happy
life, and very fit and meet. But with the bad man, the opposite of this is
true: for the bad man has an impure soul, whereas the good is pure; and
from one who is polluted, neither a good man nor God can without
impropriety receive gifts. Wherefore the unholy do only waste their much
service upon the Gods, but when offered by any holy man, such service is
most acceptable to them. This is the mark at which we ought to aim. But
what weapons shall we use, and how shall we direct them? In the first
place, we affirm that next after the Olympian Gods and the Gods of the
State, honour should be given to the Gods below; they should receive
everything in even numbers, and of the second choice, and ill omen, while
the odd numbers, and the first choice, and the things of lucky omen, are
given to the Gods above, by him who would rightly hit the mark of piety.
Next to these Gods, a wise man will do service to the demons or spirits,
and then to the heroes, and after them will follow the private and
ancestral Gods, who are worshipped as the law prescribes in the places
which are sacred to them. Next comes the honour of living parents, to
whom, as is meet, we have to pay the first and greatest and oldest of all
debts, considering that all which a man has belongs to those who gave him
birth and brought him up, and that he must do all that he can to minister
to them, first, in his property, secondly, in his person, and thirdly, in
his soul, in return for the endless care and travail which they bestowed
upon him of old, in the days of his infancy, and which he is now to pay
back to them when they are old and in the extremity of their need. And all
his life long he ought never to utter, or to have uttered, an unbecoming
word to them; for of light and fleeting words the penalty is most severe;
Nemesis, the messenger of justice, is appointed to watch over all such
matters. When they are angry and want to satisfy their feelings in word or
deed, he should give way to them; for a father who thinks that he has been
wronged by his son may be reasonably expected to be very angry. At their
death, the most moderate funeral is best, neither exceeding the customary
expense, nor yet falling short of the honour which has been usually shown
by the former generation to their parents. And let a man not forget to pay
the yearly tribute of respect to the dead, honouring them chiefly by
omitting nothing that conduces to a perpetual remembrance of them, and
giving a reasonable portion of his fortune to the dead. Doing this, and
living after this manner, we shall receive our reward from the Gods and
those who are above us (i.e. the demons); and we shall spend our days for
the most part in good hope. And how a man ought to order what relates to
his descendants and his kindred and friends and fellow-citizens, and the
rites of hospitality taught by Heaven, and the intercourse which arises
out of all these duties, with a view to the embellishment and orderly
regulation of his own life--these things, I say, the laws, as we proceed
with them, will accomplish, partly persuading, and partly when natures do
not yield to the persuasion of custom, chastising them by might and right,
and will thus render our state, if the Gods co-operate with us, prosperous
and happy. But of what has to be said, and must be said by the legislator
who is of my way of thinking, and yet, if said in the form of law, would
be out of place--of this I think that he may give a sample for the
instruction of himself and of those for whom he is legislating; and then
when, as far as he is able, he has gone through all the preliminaries, he
may proceed to the work of legislation. Now, what will be the form of such
prefaces? There may be a difficulty in including or describing them all
under a single form, but I think that we may get some notion of them if we
can guarantee one thing.
CLEINIAS: What is that?
ATHENIAN: I should wish the citizens to be as readily persuaded to virtue
as possible; this will surely be the aim of the legislator in all his
laws.
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: The proposal appears to me to be of some value; and I think that
a person will listen with more gentleness and good-will to the precepts
addressed to him by the legislator, when his soul is not altogether
unprepared to receive them. Even a little done in the way of conciliation
gains his ear, and is always worth having. For there is no great
inclination or readiness on the part of mankind to be made as good, or as
quickly good, as possible. The case of the many proves the wisdom of
Hesiod, who says that the road to wickedness is smooth and can be
travelled without perspiring, because it is so very short:
'But before virtue the immortal Gods have placed the sweat of labour, and
long and steep is the way thither, and rugged at first; but when you have
reached the top, although difficult before, it is then easy.' (Works and
Days.)
CLEINIAS: Yes; and he certainly speaks well.
ATHENIAN: Very true: and now let me tell you the effect which the
preceding discourse has had upon me.
CLEINIAS: Proceed.
ATHENIAN: Suppose that we have a little conversation with the legislator,
and say to him--'O, legislator, speak; if you know what we ought to say
and do, you can surely tell.'
CLEINIAS: Of course he can.
ATHENIAN: 'Did we not hear you just now saying, that the legislator ought
not to allow the poets to do what they liked? For that they would not know
in which of their words they went against the laws, to the hurt of the
state.'
CLEINIAS: That is true.
ATHENIAN: May we not fairly make answer to him on behalf of the poets?
CLEINIAS: What answer shall we make to him?
ATHENIAN: That the poet, according to the tradition which has ever
prevailed among us, and is accepted of all men, when he sits down on the
tripod of the muse, is not in his right mind; like a fountain, he allows
to flow out freely whatever comes in, and his art being imitative, he is
often compelled to represent men of opposite dispositions, and thus to
contradict himself; neither can he tell whether there is more truth in one
thing that he has said than in another. This is not the case in a law; the
legislator must give not two rules about the same thing, but one only.
Take an example from what you have just been saying. Of three kinds of
funerals, there is one which is too extravagant, another is too niggardly,
the third in a mean; and you choose and approve and order the last without
qualification. But if I had an extremely rich wife, and she bade me bury
her and describe her burial in a poem, I should praise the extravagant
sort; and a poor miserly man, who had not much money to spend, would
approve of the niggardly; and the man of moderate means, who was himself
moderate, would praise a moderate funeral. Now you in the capacity of
legislator must not barely say 'a moderate funeral,' but you must define
what moderation is, and how much; unless you are definite, you must not
suppose that you are speaking a language that can become law.
CLEINIAS: Certainly not.
ATHENIAN: And is our legislator to have no preface to his laws, but to say
at once Do this, avoid that--and then holding the penalty in terrorem, to
go on to another law; offering never a word of advice or exhortation to
those for whom he is legislating, after the manner of some doctors? For of
doctors, as I may remind you, some have a gentler, others a ruder method
of cure; and as children ask the doctor to be gentle with them, so we will
ask the legislator to cure our disorders with the gentlest remedies. What
I mean to say is, that besides doctors there are doctors' servants, who
are also styled doctors.
CLEINIAS: Very true.
ATHENIAN: And whether they are slaves or freemen makes no difference; they
acquire their knowledge of medicine by obeying and observing their
masters; empirically and not according to the natural way of learning, as
the manner of freemen is, who have learned scientifically themselves the
art which they impart scientifically to their pupils. You are aware that
there are these two classes of doctors?
CLEINIAS: To be sure.
ATHENIAN: And did you ever observe that there are two classes of patients
in states, slaves and freemen; and the slave doctors run about and cure
the slaves, or wait for them in the dispensaries--practitioners of this
sort never talk to their patients individually, or let them talk about
their own individual complaints? The slave doctor prescribes what mere
experience suggests, as if he had exact knowledge; and when he has given
his orders, like a tyrant, he rushes off with equal assurance to some
other servant who is ill; and so he relieves the master of the house of
the care of his invalid slaves. But the other doctor, who is a freeman,
attends and practices upon freemen; and he carries his enquiries far back,
and goes into the nature of the disorder; he enters into discourse with
the patient and with his friends, and is at once getting information from
the sick man, and also instructing him as far as he is able, and he will
not prescribe for him until he has first convinced him; at last, when he
has brought the patient more and more under his persuasive influences and
set him on the road to health, he attempts to effect a cure. Now which is
the better way of proceeding in a physician and in a trainer? Is he the
better who accomplishes his ends in a double way, or he who works in one
way, and that the ruder and inferior?
CLEINIAS: I should say, Stranger, that the double way is far better.
ATHENIAN: Should you like to see an example of the double and single
method in legislation?
CLEINIAS: Certainly I should.
ATHENIAN: What will be our first law? Will not the legislator, observing
the order of nature, begin by making regulations for states about births?
CLEINIAS: He will.
ATHENIAN: In all states the birth of children goes back to the connexion
of marriage?
CLEINIAS: Very true.
ATHENIAN: And, according to the true order, the laws relating to marriage
should be those which are first determined in every state?
CLEINIAS: Quite so.
ATHENIAN: Then let me first give the law of marriage in a simple form; it
may run as follows:--A man shall marry between the ages of thirty and
thirty-five, or, if he does not, he shall pay such and such a fine, or
shall suffer the loss of such and such privileges. This would be the
simple law about marriage. The double law would run thus:--A man shall
marry between the ages of thirty and thirty-five, considering that in a
manner the human race naturally partakes of immortality, which every man
is by nature inclined to desire to the utmost; for the desire of every man
that he may become famous, and not lie in the grave without a name, is
only the love of continuance. Now mankind are coeval with all time, and
are ever following, and will ever follow, the course of time; and so they
are immortal, because they leave children's children behind them, and
partake of immortality in the unity of generation. And for a man
voluntarily to deprive himself of this gift, as he deliberately does who
will not have a wife or children, is impiety. He who obeys the law shall
be free, and shall pay no fine; but he who is disobedient, and does not
marry, when he has arrived at the age of thirty-five, shall pay a yearly
fine of a certain amount, in order that he may not imagine his celibacy to
bring ease and profit to him; and he shall not share in the honours which
the young men in the state give to the aged. Comparing now the two forms
of the law, you will be able to arrive at a judgment about any other laws
--whether they should be double in length even when shortest, because they
have to persuade as well as threaten, or whether they shall only threaten
and be of half the length.
MEGILLUS: The shorter form, Stranger, would be more in accordance with
Lacedaemonian custom; although, for my own part, if any one were to ask me
which I myself prefer in the state, I should certainly determine in favour
of the longer; and I would have every law made after the same pattern, if
I had to choose. But I think that Cleinias is the person to be consulted,
for his is the state which is going to use these laws.
CLEINIAS: Thank you, Megillus.
ATHENIAN: Whether, in the abstract, words are to be many or few, is a very
foolish question; the best form, and not the shortest, is to be approved;
nor is length at all to be regarded. Of the two forms of law which have
been recited, the one is not only twice as good in practical usefulness as
the other, but the case is like that of the two kinds of doctors, which I
was just now mentioning. And yet legislators never appear to have
considered that they have two instruments which they might use in
legislation--persuasion and force; for in dealing with the rude and
uneducated multitude, they use the one only as far as they can; they do
not mingle persuasion with coercion, but employ force pure and simple.
Moreover, there is a third point, sweet friends, which ought to be, and
never is, regarded in our existing laws.
CLEINIAS: What is it?
ATHENIAN: A point arising out of our previous discussion, which comes into
my mind in some mysterious way. All this time, from early dawn until noon,
have we been talking about laws in this charming retreat: now we are going
to promulgate our laws, and what has preceded was only the prelude of
them. Why do I mention this? For this reason:--Because all discourses and
vocal exercises have preludes and overtures, which are a sort of artistic
beginnings intended to help the strain which is to be performed; lyric
measures and music of every other kind have preludes framed with wonderful
care. But of the truer and higher strain of law and politics, no one has
ever yet uttered any prelude, or composed or published any, as though
there was no such thing in nature. Whereas our present discussion seems to
me to imply that there is;--these double laws, of which we were speaking,
are not exactly double, but they are in two parts, the law and the prelude
of the law. The arbitrary command, which was compared to the commands of
doctors, whom we described as of the meaner sort, was the law pure and
simple; and that which preceded, and was described by our friend here as
being hortatory only, was, although in fact, an exhortation, likewise
analogous to the preamble of a discourse. For I imagine that all this
language of conciliation, which the legislator has been uttering in the
preface of the law, was intended to create good-will in the person whom he
addressed, in order that, by reason of this good-will, he might more
intelligently receive his command, that is to say, the law. And therefore,
in my way of speaking, this is more rightly described as the preamble than
as the matter of the law. And I must further proceed to observe, that to
all his laws, and to each separately, the legislator should prefix a
preamble; he should remember how great will be the difference between
them, according as they have, or have not, such preambles, as in the case
already given.
CLEINIAS: The lawgiver, if he asks my opinion, will certainly legislate in
the form which you advise.
ATHENIAN: I think that you are right, Cleinias, in affirming that all laws
have preambles, and that throughout the whole of this work of legislation
every single law should have a suitable preamble at the beginning; for
that which is to follow is most important, and it makes all the difference
whether we clearly remember the preambles or not. Yet we should be wrong
in requiring that all laws, small and great alike, should have preambles
of the same kind, any more than all songs or speeches; although they may
be natural to all, they are not always necessary, and whether they are to
be employed or not has in each case to be left to the judgment of the
speaker or the musician, or, in the present instance, of the lawgiver.
CLEINIAS: That I think is most true. And now, Stranger, without delay let
us return to the argument, and, as people say in play, make a second and
better beginning, if you please, with the principles which we have been
laying down, which we never thought of regarding as a preamble before, but
of which we may now make a preamble, and not merely consider them to be
chance topics of discourse. Let us acknowledge, then, that we have a
preamble. About the honour of the Gods and the respect of parents, enough
has been already said; and we may proceed to the topics which follow next
in order, until the preamble is deemed by you to be complete; and after
that you shall go through the laws themselves.
ATHENIAN: I understand you to mean that we have made a sufficient preamble
about Gods and demigods, and about parents living or dead; and now you
would have us bring the rest of the subject into the light of day?
CLEINIAS: Exactly.
ATHENIAN: After this, as is meet and for the interest of us all, I the
speaker, and you the listeners, will try to estimate all that relates to
the souls and bodies and properties of the citizens, as regards both their
occupations and amusements, and thus arrive, as far as in us lies, at the
nature of education. These then are the topics which follow next in order.
CLEINIAS: Very good.