the end.
425 Hitherto our legislation has been chiefly occupied with the appointment of offices. Perfect unity and exactness, extending to the whole and every particular of political administration, cannot be attained to the full, until the discussion shall have a beginning, middle, and end, and is complete in every part. At present we have reached the election of magistrates, and this may be regarded as a sufficient termination of what preceded. And now there need no longer be any delay or hesitation in beginning the work of legislation.
| Cleinias |
I like what you have said, Stranger; and I particularly like your manner of tacking on the beginning of your new discourse to the end of the former one. |
| Athenian |
Thus far, then, the old men’s rational pastime has gone off well. |
| Cleinias |
You mean, I suppose, their serious and noble pursuit? |
| Athenian |
Perhaps; but I should like to know whether you and I are agreed about a certain thing. |
| Cleinias |
About what thing? |
| Athenian |
You know the endless labour which painters expend upon their pictures—they are always putting in or taking out colours, or whatever be the term which artists employ; they seem as if they would never cease touching up their works, which are always being made brighter and more beautiful. |
| Cleinias |
I know something of these matters from report, although I have never had any great acquaintance with the art. |
| Athenian |
No matter; we may make use of the illustration notwithstanding:—Suppose that someone had a mind to paint a figure in the most beautiful manner, in the hope that his work instead of losing would always improve as time went on—do you not see that being a mortal, unless he leaves someone to succeed him who will correct the flaws which time may introduce, and be able to add what is left imperfect through the defect of the artist, and who will further brighten up and improve the picture, all his great labour will last but a short time? |
| Cleinias |
True. |
| Athenian |
And is not the aim of the legislator similar? First, he desires that his laws should be written down with all possible exactness; in the second place, as time goes on and he has made an actual trial of his decrees, will he not find omissions? Do you imagine that there ever was a legislator so foolish as not to know that many things are necessarily omitted, which someone coming after him must correct, if the constitution and the order of government is not to deteriorate, but to improve in the state which he has established? |
| Cleinias |
Assuredly, that is the sort of thing which everyone would desire. |
| Athenian |
And if anyone possesses any means of accomplishing this by word or deed, or has any way great or small by which he can teach a person to understand how he can maintain and amend the laws, he should finish what he has to say, and not leave the work incomplete. |
| Cleinias |
By all means. |
| Athenian |
And is not this what you and I have to do at the present moment? |
| Cleinias |
What have we to do? |
| Athenian |
As we are about to legislate and have chosen our guardians of the law, and are ourselves in the evening of life, and they as compared with us are young men, we ought not only to legislate for them, but to endeavour to make them not only guardians of the law but legislators themselves, as far as this is possible. |
| Cleinias |
Certainly; if we can. |
| Athenian |
At any rate, we must do our best. |
| Cleinias |
Of course. |
| Athenian |
We will say to them—O friends and saviours of our laws, in laying down any law, there are many particulars which we shall omit, and this cannot be helped; at the same time, we will do our utmost to describe what is important, and will give an outline which you shall fill up. And I will explain on what principle you are to act. Megillus and Cleinias and I have often spoken to one another touching these matters, and we are of opinion that we have spoken well. And we hope that you will be of the same mind with us, and become our disciples, and keep in view the things which in our united opinion the legislator and guardian of the law ought to keep in view. There was one main point about which we were agreed—that a man’s whole energies throughout life should be devoted to the acquisition of the virtue proper to a man, whether this was to be gained by study, or habit, or some mode of acquisition, or desire, or opinion, or knowledge—and this applies equally to men and women, old and young—the aim of all should always be such as I have described; anything which may be an impediment, the good man ought to show that he utterly disregards. And if at last necessity plainly compels him to be an outlaw from his native land, rather than bow his neck to the yoke of slavery and be ruled by inferiors, and he has to fly, an exile he must be and endure all such trials, rather than accept another form of government, which is likely to make men worse. These are our original principles; and do you now, fixing your eyes upon the standard of what a man and a citizen ought or ought not to be, praise and blame the laws—blame those which have not this power of making the citizen better, but embrace those which have; and with gladness receive and live in them; bidding a long farewell to other institutions which aim at goods, as they are termed, of a different kind.
Let us proceed to another class of laws, beginning with their foundation in religion. And we must first return to the number 5,040—the entire number had, and has, a great many convenient divisions, and the number of the tribes which was a twelfth part of the whole, being correctly formed by 21 × 20 (5,040 ÷ (21 × 20), i.e., 5,040 ÷ 420 =
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