Laws
give information against traitors. The mode of proceeding at such trials
will be the same as at trials for sacrilege; the penalty, death. But
neither in this case nor in any other is the son to bear the iniquity of
the father, unless father, grandfather, great-grandfather, have all of
them been capitally convicted, and then the family of the criminal
are to be sent off to the country of their ancestor, retaining their
property, with the exception of the lot and its fixtures. And ten are to
be selected from the younger sons of the other citizens--one of whom is
to be chosen by the oracle of Delphi to be heir of the lot.
Our third law will be a general one, concerning the procedure and the
judges in cases of treason. As regards the remaining or departure of the
family of the offender, the same law shall apply equally to the traitor,
the sacrilegious, and the conspirator.
A thief, whether he steals much or little, must refund twice the amount,
if he can do so without impairing his lot; if he cannot, he must go to
prison until he either pays the plaintiff, or in case of a public theft,
the city, or they agree to forgive him. 'But should all kinds of theft
incur the same penalty?' You remind me of what I know--that legislation
is never perfect. The men for whom laws are now made may be compared
to the slave who is being doctored, according to our old image, by the
unscientific doctor. For the empirical practitioner, if he chance to
meet the educated physician talking to his patient, and entering into
the philosophy of his disease, would burst out laughing and say, as
doctors delight in doing, 'Foolish fellow, instead of curing the patient
you are educating him!' 'And would he not be right?' Perhaps; and
he might add, that he who discourses in our fashion preaches to the
citizens instead of legislating for them. 'True.' There is, however, one
advantage which we possess--that being amateurs only, we may either take
the most ideal, or the most necessary and utilitarian view. 'But why
offer such an alternative? As if all our legislation must be done
to-day, and nothing put off until the morrow. We may surely rough-hew
our materials first, and shape and place them afterwards.' That will be
the natural way of proceeding. There is a further point. Of all writings
either in prose or verse the writings of the legislator are the most
important. For it is he who has to determine the nature of good and
evil, and how they should be studied with a view to our instruction.
And is it not as disgraceful for Solon and Lycurgus to lay down false
precepts about the institutions of life as for Homer and Tyrtaeus?
The laws of states ought to be the models of writing, and what is at
variance with them should be deemed ridiculous. And we may further
imagine them to express the affection and good sense of a father or
mother, and not to be the fiats of a tyrant. 'Very true.'
Let us enquire more particularly about sacrilege, theft and other
crimes, for which we have already legislated in part. And this leads
us to ask, first of all, whether we are agreed or disagreed about the
nature of the honourable and just. 'To what are you referring?' I will
endeavour to explain. All are agreed that justice is honourable, whether
in men or things, and no one who maintains that a very ugly men who is
just, is in his mind fair, would be thought extravagant. 'Very true.'
But if honour is to be attributed to justice, are just sufferings
honourable, or only just actions? 'What do you mean?' Our laws supply a
case in point; for we enacted that the robber of temples and the traitor
should die; and this was just, but the reverse of honourable. In this
way does the language of the many rend asunder the just and honourable.
'That is true.' But is our own language consistent? I have already said
that the evil are involuntarily evil; and the evil are the unjust. Now
the voluntary cannot be the involuntary; and if you two come to me
and say, 'Then shall we legislate for our city?' Of course, I shall
reply.--'Then will you distinguish what crimes are voluntary and what
involuntary, and shall we impose lighter penalties on the latter, and
heavier on the former? Or shall we refuse to determine what is the
meaning of voluntary and involuntary, and maintain that our words have
come down from heaven, and that they should be at once embodied in a
law?' All states legislate under the idea that there are two classes of
actions, the voluntary and the involuntary, but there is great confusion
about them in the minds of men; and the law can never act unless they
are distinguished. Either we must abstain from affirming that unjust
actions are involuntary, or explain the meaning of this statement.
Believing, then, that acts of injustice cannot be divided into voluntary
and involuntary, I must endeavour to find some other mode of classifying
them. Hurts are voluntary and involuntary, but all hurts are not
injuries: on the other hand, a benefit when wrongly conferred may be an
injury. An act which gives or takes away anything is not simply just;
but the legislator who has to decide whether the case is one of hurt or
injury, must consider the animus of the agent; and when there is hurt,
he must as far as possible, provide a remedy and reparation: but if
there is injustice, he must, when compensation has been made, further
endeavour to reconcile the two parties. 'Excellent.' Where injustice,
like disease, is remediable, there the remedy must be applied in word
or deed, with the assistance of pleasures and pains, of bounties and
penalties, or any other influence which may inspire man with the love
of justice, or hatred of injustice; and this is the noblest work of
law. But when the legislator perceives the evil to be incurable, he will
consider that the death of the offender will be a good to himself,
and in two ways a good to society: first, as he becomes an example to
others; secondly, because the city will be quit of a rogue; and in such
a case, but in no other, the legislator will punish with death.
'There is some truth in what you say. I wish, however, that you would
distinguish more clearly the difference of injury and hurt, and the
complications of voluntary and involuntary.' You will admit that anger
is of a violent and destructive nature? 'Certainly.' And further, that
pleasure is different from anger, and has an opposite power, working by
persuasion and deceit? 'Yes.' Ignorance is the third source of crimes;
this is of two kinds--simple ignorance and ignorance doubled by conceit
of knowledge; the latter, when accompanied with power, is a source of
terrible errors, but is excusable when only weak and childish. 'True.'
We often say that one man masters, and another is mastered by pleasure
and anger. 'Just so.' But no one says that one man masters, and another
is mastered by ignorance. 'You are right.' All these motives actuate men
and sometimes drive them in different ways. 'That is so.' Now, then, I
am in a position to define the nature of just and unjust. By injustice I
mean the dominion of anger and fear, pleasure and pain, envy and desire,
in the soul, whether doing harm or not: by justice I mean the rule of
the opinion of the best, whether in states or individuals, extending to
the whole of life; although actions done in error are often thought to
be involuntary injustice. No controversy need be raised about names at
present; we are only desirous of fixing in our memories the heads of
error. And the pain which is called fear and anger is our first head of
error; the second is the class of pleasures and desires; and the third,
of hopes which aim at true opinion about the best;--this latter falls
into three divisions (i.e. (1) when accompanied by simple ignorance, (2)
when accompanied by conceit of wisdom combined with power, or (3) with
weakness), so that there are in all five. And the laws relating to them
may be summed up under two heads, laws which deal with acts of open
violence and with acts of deceit; to which may be added acts both
violent and deceitful, and these last should be visited with the utmost
rigour of the law. 'Very properly.'
Let us now return to the enactment of laws. We have treated of
sacrilege, and of conspiracy, and of treason. Any of these crimes may be
committed by a person not in his right mind, or in the second childhood
of old age. If this is proved to be the fact before the judges, the
person in question shall only have to pay for the injury, and not be
punished further, unless he have on his hands the stain of blood. In
this case he shall be exiled for a year, and if he return before the
expiration of the year, he shall be retained in the public prison two
years.
Homicides may be divided into voluntary and involuntary: and first of
involuntary homicide. He who unintentionally kills another man at the
games or in military exercises duly authorized by the magistrates,
whether death follow immediately or after an interval, shall be
acquitted, subject only to the purification required by the Delphian
Oracle. Any physician whose patient dies against his will shall in like
manner be acquitted. Any one who unintentionally kills the slave of
another, believing that he is his own, with or without weapons, shall
bear the master of the slave harmless, or pay a penalty amounting to
twice the value of the slave, and to this let him add a purification
greater than in the case of homicide at the games. If a man kill his
own slave, a purification only is required of him. If he kill a freeman
unintentionally, let him also make purification; and let him remember
the ancient tradition which says that the murdered man is indignant when
he sees the murderer walk about in his own accustomed haunts, and that
he terrifies him with the remembrance of his crime. And therefore the
homicide should keep away from his native land for a year, or, if he
have slain a stranger, let him avoid the land of the stranger for a like
period. If he complies with this condition, the nearest kinsman of the
deceased shall take pity upon him and be reconciled to him; but if he
refuses to remain in exile, or visits the temples unpurified, then
let the kinsman proceed against him, and demand a double penalty. The
kinsman who neglects this duty shall himself incur the curse, and any
one who likes may proceed against him, and compel him to leave his
country for five years. If a stranger involuntarily kill a stranger, any
one may proceed against him in the same manner: and the homicide, if
he be a metic, shall be banished for a year; but if he be an entire
stranger, whether he have murdered metic, citizen, or stranger, he shall
be banished for ever; and if he return, he shall be punished with death,
and his property shall go to the next of kin of the murdered man. If
he come back by sea against his will, he shall remain on the seashore,
wetting his feet in the water while he waits for a vessel to sail; or
if he be brought back by land, the magistrates shall send him unharmed
beyond the border.
Next follows murder done from anger, which is of two kinds--either
arising out of a sudden impulse, and attended with remorse; or committed
with premeditation, and unattended with remorse. The cause of both is
anger, and both are intermediate between voluntary and involuntary.
The one which is committed from sudden impulse, though not wholly
involuntary, bears the image of the involuntary, and is therefore the
more excusable of the two, and should receive a gentler punishment. The
act of him who nurses his wrath is more voluntary, and therefore more
culpable. The degree of culpability depends on the presence or absence
of intention, to which the degree of punishment should correspond. For
the first kind of murder, that which is done on a momentary impulse,