Laws
age, if we suppose him to allude to the victory of the Syracusans under
Dionysius the Younger over the Locrians, which occurred in the year 356.
Such a sadness was the natural effect of declining years and failing
powers, which make men ask, 'After all, what profit is there in life?'
They feel that their work is beginning to be over, and are ready to say,
'All the world is a stage;' or, in the actual words of Plato, 'Let us
play as good plays as we can,' though 'we must be sometimes serious,
which is not agreeable, but necessary.' These are feelings which have
crossed the minds of reflective persons in all ages, and there is no
reason to connect the Laws any more than other parts of Plato's writings
with the very uncertain narrative of his life, or to imagine that this
melancholy tone is attributable to disappointment at having failed to
convert a Sicilian tyrant into a philosopher.
II. The plan of the Laws is more irregular and has less connexion than
any other of the writings of Plato. As Aristotle says in the Politics,
'The greater part consists of laws'; in Books v, vi, xi, xii the
dialogue almost entirely disappears. Large portions of them are rather
the materials for a work than a finished composition which may rank with
the other Platonic dialogues. To use his own image, 'Some stones are
regularly inserted in the building; others are lying on the ground ready
for use.' There is probably truth in the tradition that the Laws were
not published until after the death of Plato. We can easily believe that
he has left imperfections, which would have been removed if he had
lived a few years longer. The arrangement might have been improved;
the connexion of the argument might have been made plainer, and the
sentences more accurately framed. Something also may be attributed
to the feebleness of old age. Even a rough sketch of the Phaedrus or
Symposium would have had a very different look. There is, however, an
interest in possessing one writing of Plato which is in the process of
creation.
We must endeavour to find a thread of order which will carry us through
this comparative disorder. The first four books are described by Plato
himself as the preface or preamble. Having arrived at the conclusion
that each law should have a preamble, the lucky thought occurs to him at
the end of the fourth book that the preceding discourse is the
preamble of the whole. This preamble or introduction may be abridged as
follows:--
The institutions of Sparta and Crete are admitted by the Lacedaemonian
and Cretan to have one aim only: they were intended by the legislator
to inspire courage in war. To this the Athenian objects that the true
lawgiver should frame his laws with a view to all the virtues and not
to one only. Better is he who has temperance as well as courage, than he
who has courage only; better is he who is faithful in civil broils,
than he who is a good soldier only. Better, too, is peace than war; the
reconciliation than the defeat of an enemy. And he who would attain all
virtue should be trained amid pleasures as well as pains. Hence
there should be convivial intercourse among the citizens, and a man's
temperance should be tested in his cups, as we test his courage amid
dangers. He should have a fear of the right sort, as well as a courage
of the right sort.
At the beginning of the second book the subject of pleasure leads to
education, which in the early years of life is wholly a discipline
imparted by the means of pleasure and pain. The discipline of pleasure
is implanted chiefly by the practice of the song and the dance. Of
these the forms should be fixed, and not allowed to depend on the fickle
breath of the multitude. There will be choruses of boys, girls, and
grown-up persons, and all will be heard repeating the same strain, that
'virtue is happiness.' One of them will give the law to the rest; this
will be the chorus of aged minstrels, who will sing the most beautiful
and the most useful of songs. They will require a little wine, to mellow
the austerity of age, and make them amenable to the laws.
After having laid down as the first principle of politics, that peace,
and not war, is the true aim of the legislator, and briefly discussed
music and festive intercourse, at the commencement of the third book
Plato makes a digression, in which he speaks of the origin of society.
He describes, first of all, the family; secondly, the patriarchal stage,
which is an aggregation of families; thirdly, the founding of regular
cities, like Ilium; fourthly, the establishment of a military and
political system, like that of Sparta, with which he identifies Argos
and Messene, dating from the return of the Heraclidae. But the aims of
states should be good, or else, like the prayer of Theseus, they may
be ruinous to themselves. This was the case in two out of three of the
Heracleid kingdoms. They did not understand that the powers in a state
should be balanced. The balance of powers saved Sparta, while the excess
of tyranny in Persia and the excess of liberty at Athens have been the
ruin of both...This discourse on politics is suddenly discovered to have
an immediate practical use; for Cleinias the Cretan is about to give
laws to a new colony.
At the beginning of the fourth book, after enquiring into the
circumstances and situation of the colony, the Athenian proceeds to make
further reflections. Chance, and God, and the skill of the legislator,
all co-operate in the formation of states. And the most favourable
condition for the foundation of a new one is when the government is
in the hands of a virtuous tyrant who has the good fortune to be
the contemporary of a great legislator. But a virtuous tyrant is a
contradiction in terms; we can at best only hope to have magistrates who
are the servants of reason and the law. This leads to the enquiry, what
is to be the polity of our new state. And the answer is, that we are to
fear God, and honour our parents, and to cultivate virtue and justice;
these are to be our first principles. Laws must be definite, and
we should create in the citizens a predisposition to obey them. The
legislator will teach as well as command; and with this view he will
prefix preambles to his principal laws.
The fifth book commences in a sort of dithyramb with another and higher
preamble about the honour due to the soul, whence are deduced the duties
of a man to his parents and his friends, to the suppliant and stranger.
He should be true and just, free from envy and excess of all sorts,
forgiving to crimes which are not incurable and are partly involuntary;
and he should have a true taste. The noblest life has the greatest
pleasures and the fewest pains...Having finished the preamble, and
touched on some other preliminary considerations, we proceed to the
Laws, beginning with the constitution of the state. This is not the best
or ideal state, having all things common, but only the second-best,
in which the land and houses are to be distributed among 5040 citizens
divided into four classes. There is to be no gold or silver among
them, and they are to have moderate wealth, and to respect number and
numerical order in all things.
In the first part of the sixth book, Plato completes his sketch of the
constitution by the appointment of officers. He explains the manner
in which guardians of the law, generals, priests, wardens of town
and country, ministers of education, and other magistrates are to be
appointed; and also in what way courts of appeal are to be constituted,
and omissions in the law to be supplied. Next--and at this point
the Laws strictly speaking begin--there follow enactments respecting
marriage and the procreation of children, respecting property in slaves
as well as of other kinds, respecting houses, married life, common
tables for men and women. The question of age in marriage suggests the
consideration of a similar question about the time for holding offices,
and for military service, which had been previously omitted.
Resuming the order of the discussion, which was indicated in the
previous book, from marriage and birth we proceed to education in the
seventh book. Education is to begin at or rather before birth; to be
continued for a time by mothers and nurses under the supervision of
the state; finally, to comprehend music and gymnastics. Under music is
included reading, writing, playing on the lyre, arithmetic, geometry,
and a knowledge of astronomy sufficient to preserve the minds of the
citizens from impiety in after-life. Gymnastics are to be practised
chiefly with a view to their use in war. The discussion of education,
which was lightly touched upon in Book ii, is here completed.
The eighth book contains regulations for civil life, beginning with
festivals, games, and contests, military exercises and the like. On such
occasions Plato seems to see young men and maidens meeting together,
and hence he is led into discussing the relations of the sexes, the evil
consequences which arise out of the indulgence of the passions, and the
remedies for them. Then he proceeds to speak of agriculture, of arts and
trades, of buying and selling, and of foreign commerce.
The remaining books of the Laws, ix-xii, are chiefly concerned with
criminal offences. In the first class are placed offences against the
Gods, especially sacrilege or robbery of temples: next follow offences
against the state,--conspiracy, treason, theft. The mention of thefts
suggests a distinction between voluntary and involuntary, curable and
incurable offences. Proceeding to the greater crime of homicide, Plato
distinguishes between mere homicide, manslaughter, which is partly
voluntary and partly involuntary, and murder, which arises from avarice,
ambition, fear. He also enumerates murders by kindred, murders by
slaves, wounds with or without intent to kill, wounds inflicted in
anger, crimes of or against slaves, insults to parents. To these,
various modes of purification or degrees of punishment are assigned, and
the terrors of another world are also invoked against them.
At the beginning of Book x, all acts of violence, including sacrilege,
are summed up in a single law. The law is preceded by an admonition, in
which the offenders are informed that no one ever did an unholy act or
said an unlawful word while he retained his belief in the existence of
the Gods; but either he denied their existence, or he believed that they
took no care of man, or that they might be turned from their course
by sacrifices and prayers. The remainder of the book is devoted to the
refutation of these three classes of unbelievers, and concludes with the
means to be taken for their reformation, and the announcement of their
punishments if they continue obstinate and impenitent.
The eleventh book is taken up with laws and with admonitions relating to
individuals, which follow one another without any exact order. There are
laws concerning deposits and the finding of treasure; concerning slaves
and freedmen; concerning retail trade, bequests, divorces, enchantments,
poisonings, magical arts, and the like. In the twelfth book the same
subjects are continued. Laws are passed concerning violations of
military discipline, concerning the high office of the examiners and
their burial; concerning oaths and the violation of them, and the
punishments of those who neglect their duties as citizens. Foreign
travel is then discussed, and the permission to be accorded to citizens
of journeying in foreign parts; the strangers who may come to visit
the city are also spoken of, and the manner in which they are to be
received. Laws are added respecting sureties, searches for property,
right of possession by prescription, abduction of witnesses, theatrical
competition, waging of private warfare, and bribery in offices. Rules