Dialogues

or again the description of the Laws as parents (Laws IX 859 A; Republic VII 538 D): the assumption that religion has been already settled by the oracle of Delphi (Laws V 738 B; Republic IV 427 B), to which an appeal is also made in special cases (Laws XI 914 A): the notion of the battle with self, a paradox for which Plato in a manner apologizes both in the Laws and the Republic (Laws I 626 E; Republic IV 430 E following): the remark (Laws IX 859 A) that just men, even when they are deformed in body, may still be perfectly beautiful in respect of the excellent justice of their minds (compare Republic III 402 D, E): the argument that ideals are none the worse because they cannot be carried out (Laws V 746 B, following; Republic V 472 D): the near approach to the idea of good in “the principle which is common to all the four virtues,” a truth which the guardians must be compelled to recognize (Laws XII 965 D; compare Republic VII 534 C): or again the recognition by reason of the right pleasure and pain, which had previously been matter of habit (Laws II 653 B; Republic III 402 A): or the blasphemy of saying that the excellency of music is to give pleasure (Laws II 655 D; Republic VI 509 A): again the story of the Sidonian Cadmus (Laws II 663 E), which is a variation of the Phoenician tale of the earthborn men (Republic III 414 C): the comparison of philosophy to a yelping she-dog, both in the Republic and in the Laws (Laws XII 967 D; Republic X 607 C): the remark that no man can practise two trades (Laws VIII 846 D; Republic III 394 E, etc.): or the advantage of the middle condition (Laws V 736 E; Republic IV 421 following): the tendency to speak of principles as moulds or forms; compare the ἐκμαγεῖα of song (Laws VII 800 following), and the τύποι of religion (Republic II 379 following): or the remark (Laws XII 945 E) that “the relaxation of justice makes many cities out of one,” which may be compared with the Republic (Republic IV 422 E): or the description of lawlessness “creeping in little by little in the fashions of music and overturning all things,”⁠—to us a paradox, but to Plato’s mind a fixed idea, which is found in the Laws (III 701 following) as well as in the Republic (IV 424): or the figure of the parts of the human body under which the parts of the state are described (Laws V 739; Republic V 462): the apology for delay and diffuseness, which occurs not unfrequently in the Republic, is carried to an excess in the Laws (I 641 E following; IX 857 E following; compare “Theaetetus” 172 C following): the remarkable thought (Laws X 899 B) that the soul of the sun is better than the sun, agrees with the relation in which the idea of good stands to the sun in the Republic, and with the substitution of mind for the idea of good in the “Philebus” (30 following): the passage about the tragic poets (Laws VII 817 A following) agrees generally with the treatment of them in the Republic, but is more finely conceived, and worked out in a nobler spirit. Some lesser similarities of thought and manner should not be omitted, such as the mention of the thirty years’ old students in the Republic (VII 539 A), and the fifty years’ old choristers in the Laws (II 670 A); or the making of the citizens out of wax (Laws V 746 A) compared with the other image (Republic IX 588); or the number of the tyrant (729), which is nearly equal with the number of days and nights in the year (730), compared with the “slight correction” of the sacred number 5,040, which is divisible by all the numbers from 1 to 12 except 11, and divisible by 11, if two families be deducted; or once more, we may compare the ignorance of solid geometry of which he complains in the Republic (VII 528 B, C) and the puzzle about fractions (VII 525 E) with the difficulty in the Laws about commensurable and incommensurable quantities (Laws VII 819, 820)⁠—and the malicious emphasis on the word γυναίκειος (Laws VII 790 A) with the use of the same word (Republic V 469 D). These and similar passages tend to show that the author of the Republic is also the author of the Laws. They are echoes of the same voice, expressions of the same mind, coincidences too subtle to have been invented by the ingenuity of any imitator. The force of the argument is increased, if we remember that no passage in the Laws is exactly copied⁠—nowhere do five or six words occur together which are found together elsewhere in Plato’s writings.

In other dialogues of Plato, as well as in the Republic, there are to be found parallels with the Laws. Such