Laws
he will be in a state of body which he would die rather than accept
as the permanent condition of his life? Are not those who train in
gymnasia, at first beginning reduced to a state of weakness?
CLEINIAS: Yes, all that is well known.
ATHENIAN: Also that they go of their own accord for the sake of the
subsequent benefit?
CLEINIAS: Very good.
ATHENIAN: And we may conceive this to be true in the same way of other
practices?
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: And the same view may be taken of the pastime of drinking
wine, if we are right in supposing that the same good effect follows?
CLEINIAS: To be sure.
ATHENIAN: If such convivialities should turn out to have any advantage
equal in importance to that of gymnastic, they are in their very nature
to be preferred to mere bodily exercise, inasmuch as they have no
accompaniment of pain.
CLEINIAS: True; but I hardly think that we shall be able to discover any
such benefits to be derived from them.
ATHENIAN: That is just what we must endeavour to show. And let me ask
you a question:--Do we not distinguish two kinds of fear, which are very
different?
CLEINIAS: What are they?
ATHENIAN: There is the fear of expected evil.
CLEINIAS: Yes.
ATHENIAN: And there is the fear of an evil reputation; we are afraid of
being thought evil, because we do or say some dishonourable thing, which
fear we and all men term shame.
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: These are the two fears, as I called them; one of which is the
opposite of pain and other fears, and the opposite also of the greatest
and most numerous sort of pleasures.
CLEINIAS: Very true.
ATHENIAN: And does not the legislator and every one who is good for
anything, hold this fear in the greatest honour? This is what he terms
reverence, and the confidence which is the reverse of this he terms
insolence; and the latter he always deems to be a very great evil both
to individuals and to states.
CLEINIAS: True.
ATHENIAN: Does not this kind of fear preserve us in many important ways?
What is there which so surely gives victory and safety in war? For there
are two things which give victory--confidence before enemies, and fear
of disgrace before friends.
CLEINIAS: There are.
ATHENIAN: Then each of us should be fearless and also fearful; and why
we should be either has now been determined.
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: And when we want to make any one fearless, we and the law
bring him face to face with many fears.
CLEINIAS: Clearly.
ATHENIAN: And when we want to make him rightly fearful, must we not
introduce him to shameless pleasures, and train him to take up arms
against them, and to overcome them? Or does this principle apply to
courage only, and must he who would be perfect in valour fight against
and overcome his own natural character,--since if he be unpractised and
inexperienced in such conflicts, he will not be half the man which he
might have been,--and are we to suppose, that with temperance it is
otherwise, and that he who has never fought with the shameless and
unrighteous temptations of his pleasures and lusts, and conquered them,
in earnest and in play, by word, deed, and act, will still be perfectly
temperate?
CLEINIAS: A most unlikely supposition.
ATHENIAN: Suppose that some God had given a fear-potion to men, and
that the more a man drank of this the more he regarded himself at
every draught as a child of misfortune, and that he feared everything
happening or about to happen to him; and that at last the most
courageous of men utterly lost his presence of mind for a time, and
only came to himself again when he had slept off the influence of the
draught.
CLEINIAS: But has such a draught, Stranger, ever really been known among
men?
ATHENIAN: No; but, if there had been, might not such a draught have been
of use to the legislator as a test of courage? Might we not go and say
to him, 'O legislator, whether you are legislating for the Cretan, or
for any other state, would you not like to have a touchstone of the
courage and cowardice of your citizens?'
CLEINIAS: 'I should,' will be the answer of every one.
ATHENIAN: 'And you would rather have a touchstone in which there is no
risk and no great danger than the reverse?'
CLEINIAS: In that proposition every one may safely agree.
ATHENIAN: 'And in order to make use of the draught, you would lead them
amid these imaginary terrors, and prove them, when the affection of fear
was working upon them, and compel them to be fearless, exhorting and
admonishing them; and also honouring them, but dishonouring any one who
will not be persuaded by you to be in all respects such as you command
him; and if he underwent the trial well and manfully, you would let him
go unscathed; but if ill, you would inflict a punishment upon him? Or
would you abstain from using the potion altogether, although you have no
reason for abstaining?'
CLEINIAS: He would be certain, Stranger, to use the potion.
ATHENIAN: This would be a mode of testing and training which would
be wonderfully easy in comparison with those now in use, and might be
applied to a single person, or to a few, or indeed to any number; and
he would do well who provided himself with the potion only, rather than
with any number of other things, whether he preferred to be by himself
in solitude, and there contend with his fears, because he was ashamed to
be seen by the eye of man until he was perfect; or trusting to the force
of his own nature and habits, and believing that he had been already
disciplined sufficiently, he did not hesitate to train himself in
company with any number of others, and display his power in conquering
the irresistible change effected by the draught--his virtue being such,
that he never in any instance fell into any great unseemliness, but was
always himself, and left off before he arrived at the last cup, fearing
that he, like all other men, might be overcome by the potion.
CLEINIAS: Yes, Stranger, in that last case, too, he might equally show
his self-control.
ATHENIAN: Let us return to the lawgiver, and say to him:--'Well,
lawgiver, there is certainly no such fear-potion which man has either
received from the Gods or himself discovered; for witchcraft has no
place at our board. But is there any potion which might serve as a test
of overboldness and excessive and indiscreet boasting?
CLEINIAS: I suppose that he will say, Yes,--meaning that wine is such a
potion.
ATHENIAN: Is not the effect of this quite the opposite of the effect of
the other? When a man drinks wine he begins to be better pleased with
himself, and the more he drinks the more he is filled full of brave
hopes, and conceit of his power, and at last the string of his tongue
is loosened, and fancying himself wise, he is brimming over with
lawlessness, and has no more fear or respect, and is ready to do or say
anything.
CLEINIAS: I think that every one will admit the truth of your
description.
MEGILLUS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: Now, let us remember, as we were saying, that there are two
things which should be cultivated in the soul: first, the greatest
courage; secondly, the greatest fear--
CLEINIAS: Which you said to be characteristic of reverence, if I am not
mistaken.
ATHENIAN: Thank you for reminding me. But now, as the habit of courage
and fearlessness is to be trained amid fears, let us consider whether
the opposite quality is not also to be trained among opposites.
CLEINIAS: That is probably the case.
ATHENIAN: There are times and seasons at which we are by nature more
than commonly valiant and bold; now we ought to train ourselves on these
occasions to be as free from impudence and shamelessness as possible,
and to be afraid to say or suffer or do anything that is base.
CLEINIAS: True.
ATHENIAN: Are not the moments in which we are apt to be bold and
shameless such as these?--when we are under the influence of anger,
love, pride, ignorance, avarice, cowardice? or when wealth, beauty,
strength, and all the intoxicating workings of pleasure madden us? What
is better adapted than the festive use of wine, in the first place to
test, and in the second place to train the character of a man, if care
be taken in the use of it? What is there cheaper, or more innocent? For
do but consider which is the greater risk:--Would you rather test a man
of a morose and savage nature, which is the source of ten thousand acts
of injustice, by making bargains with him at a risk to yourself, or by
having him as a companion at the festival of Dionysus? Or would you, if
you wanted to apply a touchstone to a man who is prone to love, entrust
your wife, or your sons, or daughters to him, perilling your dearest
interests in order to have a view of the condition of his soul? I might
mention numberless cases, in which the advantage would be manifest of
getting to know a character in sport, and without paying dearly for
experience. And I do not believe that either a Cretan, or any other
man, will doubt that such a test is a fair test, and safer, cheaper, and
speedier than any other.
CLEINIAS: That is certainly true.
ATHENIAN: And this knowledge of the natures and habits of men's souls
will be of the greatest use in that art which has the management of
them; and that art, if I am not mistaken, is politics.
CLEINIAS: Exactly so.
BOOK II.
ATHENIAN: And now we have to consider whether the insight into human
nature is the only benefit derived from well-ordered potations, or
whether there are not other advantages great and much to be desired. The
argument seems to imply that there are. But how and in what way these
are to be attained, will have to be considered attentively, or we may be
entangled in error.
CLEINIAS: Proceed.
ATHENIAN: Let me once more recall our doctrine of right education;
which, if I am not mistaken, depends on the due regulation of convivial
intercourse.
CLEINIAS: You talk rather grandly.
ATHENIAN: Pleasure and pain I maintain to be the first perceptions of
children, and I say that they are the forms under which virtue and
vice are originally present to them. As to wisdom and true and fixed
opinions, happy is the man who acquires them, even when declining in
years; and we may say that he who possesses them, and the blessings
which are contained in them, is a perfect man. Now I mean by education
that training which is given by suitable habits to the first instincts
of virtue in children;--when pleasure, and friendship, and pain, and
hatred, are rightly implanted in souls not yet capable of understanding
the nature of them, and who find them, after they have attained reason,
to be in harmony with her. This harmony of the soul, taken as a whole,
is virtue; but the particular training in respect of pleasure and pain,
which leads you always to hate what you ought to hate, and love what you
ought to love from the beginning of life to the end, may be separated
off; and, in my view, will be rightly called education.
CLEINIAS: I think, Stranger, that you are quite right in all that you
have said and are saying about education.
ATHENIAN: I am glad to hear that you agree with me; for, indeed, the
discipline of pleasure and pain which, when rightly ordered, is a
principle of education, has been often relaxed and corrupted in human
life. And the Gods, pitying the toils which our race is born to undergo,
have appointed holy festivals, wherein men alternate rest with labour;
and have given them the Muses and Apollo, the leader of the Muses, and
Dionysus, to be companions in their revels, that they may improve their
education by taking part in the festivals of the Gods, and with their
help. I should like to know whether a common saying is in our opinion
true to nature or not. For men say that the young of all creatures