Laws
MEGILLUS: And yet, Stranger, I perceive that I cannot say, without more
thought, what I should call the government of Lacedaemon, for it seems
to me to be like a tyranny,--the power of our Ephors is marvellously
tyrannical; and sometimes it appears to me to be of all cities the most
democratical; and who can reasonably deny that it is an aristocracy
(compare Ar. Pol.)? We have also a monarchy which is held for life,
and is said by all mankind, and not by ourselves only, to be the most
ancient of all monarchies; and, therefore, when asked on a sudden, I
cannot precisely say which form of government the Spartan is.
CLEINIAS: I am in the same difficulty, Megillus; for I do not feel
confident that the polity of Cnosus is any of these.
ATHENIAN: The reason is, my excellent friends, that you really have
polities, but the states of which we were just now speaking are merely
aggregations of men dwelling in cities who are the subjects and servants
of a part of their own state, and each of them is named after the
dominant power; they are not polities at all. But if states are to be
named after their rulers, the true state ought to be called by the name
of the God who rules over wise men.
CLEINIAS: And who is this God?
ATHENIAN: May I still make use of fable to some extent, in the hope that
I may be better able to answer your question: shall I?
CLEINIAS: By all means.
ATHENIAN: In the primeval world, and a long while before the cities came
into being whose settlements we have described, there is said to
have been in the time of Cronos a blessed rule and life, of which the
best-ordered of existing states is a copy (compare Statesman).
CLEINIAS: It will be very necessary to hear about that.
ATHENIAN: I quite agree with you; and therefore I have introduced the
subject.
CLEINIAS: Most appropriately; and since the tale is to the point, you
will do well in giving us the whole story.
ATHENIAN: I will do as you suggest. There is a tradition of the happy
life of mankind in days when all things were spontaneous and abundant.
And of this the reason is said to have been as follows:--Cronos knew
what we ourselves were declaring, that no human nature invested with
supreme power is able to order human affairs and not overflow with
insolence and wrong. Which reflection led him to appoint not men but
demigods, who are of a higher and more divine race, to be the kings and
rulers of our cities; he did as we do with flocks of sheep and other
tame animals. For we do not appoint oxen to be the lords of oxen, or
goats of goats; but we ourselves are a superior race, and rule over
them. In like manner God, in His love of mankind, placed over us the
demons, who are a superior race, and they with great ease and pleasure
to themselves, and no less to us, taking care of us and giving us peace
and reverence and order and justice never failing, made the tribes of
men happy and united. And this tradition, which is true, declares that
cities of which some mortal man and not God is the ruler, have no escape
from evils and toils. Still we must do all that we can to imitate the
life which is said to have existed in the days of Cronos, and, as far as
the principle of immortality dwells in us, to that we must hearken, both
in private and public life, and regulate our cities and houses according
to law, meaning by the very term 'law,' the distribution of mind. But if
either a single person or an oligarchy or a democracy has a soul
eager after pleasures and desires--wanting to be filled with them, yet
retaining none of them, and perpetually afflicted with an endless and
insatiable disorder; and this evil spirit, having first trampled
the laws under foot, becomes the master either of a state or of an
individual,--then, as I was saying, salvation is hopeless. And now,
Cleinias, we have to consider whether you will or will not accept this
tale of mine.
CLEINIAS: Certainly we will.
ATHENIAN: You are aware,--are you not?--that there are often said to be
as many forms of laws as there are of governments, and of the latter we
have already mentioned all those which are commonly recognized. Now you
must regard this as a matter of first-rate importance. For what is to
be the standard of just and unjust, is once more the point at issue. Men
say that the law ought not to regard either military virtue, or virtue
in general, but only the interests and power and preservation of the
established form of government; this is thought by them to be the best
way of expressing the natural definition of justice.
CLEINIAS: How?
ATHENIAN: Justice is said by them to be the interest of the stronger
(Republic).
CLEINIAS: Speak plainer.
ATHENIAN: I will:--'Surely,' they say, 'the governing power makes
whatever laws have authority in any state'?
CLEINIAS: True.
ATHENIAN: 'Well,' they would add, 'and do you suppose that tyranny or
democracy, or any other conquering power, does not make the continuance
of the power which is possessed by them the first or principal object of
their laws'?
CLEINIAS: How can they have any other?
ATHENIAN: 'And whoever transgresses these laws is punished as an
evil-doer by the legislator, who calls the laws just'?
CLEINIAS: Naturally.
ATHENIAN: 'This, then, is always the mode and fashion in which justice
exists.'
CLEINIAS: Certainly, if they are correct in their view.
ATHENIAN: Why, yes, this is one of those false principles of government
to which we were referring.
CLEINIAS: Which do you mean?
ATHENIAN: Those which we were examining when we spoke of who ought to
govern whom. Did we not arrive at the conclusion that parents ought
to govern their children, and the elder the younger, and the noble the
ignoble? And there were many other principles, if you remember, and they
were not always consistent. One principle was this very principle of
might, and we said that Pindar considered violence natural and justified
it.
CLEINIAS: Yes; I remember.
ATHENIAN: Consider, then, to whom our state is to be entrusted. For
there is a thing which has occurred times without number in states--
CLEINIAS: What thing?
ATHENIAN: That when there has been a contest for power, those who gain
the upper hand so entirely monopolize the government, as to refuse all
share to the defeated party and their descendants--they live watching
one another, the ruling class being in perpetual fear that some one who
has a recollection of former wrongs will come into power and rise up
against them. Now, according to our view, such governments are not
polities at all, nor are laws right which are passed for the good of
particular classes and not for the good of the whole state. States
which have such laws are not polities but parties, and their notions of
justice are simply unmeaning. I say this, because I am going to assert
that we must not entrust the government in your state to any one
because he is rich, or because he possesses any other advantage, such as
strength, or stature, or again birth: but he who is most obedient to the
laws of the state, he shall win the palm; and to him who is victorious
in the first degree shall be given the highest office and chief ministry
of the gods; and the second to him who bears the second palm; and on a
similar principle shall all the other offices be assigned to those who
come next in order. And when I call the rulers servants or ministers of
the law, I give them this name not for the sake of novelty, but because
I certainly believe that upon such service or ministry depends the well-
or ill-being of the state. For that state in which the law is subject
and has no authority, I perceive to be on the highway to ruin; but I see
that the state in which the law is above the rulers, and the rulers are
the inferiors of the law, has salvation, and every blessing which the
Gods can confer.
CLEINIAS: Truly, Stranger, you see with the keen vision of age.
ATHENIAN: Why, yes; every man when he is young has that sort of vision
dullest, and when he is old keenest.
CLEINIAS: Very true.
ATHENIAN: And now, what is to be the next step? May we not suppose the
colonists to have arrived, and proceed to make our speech to them?
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: 'Friends,' we say to them,--'God, as the old tradition
declares, holding in his hand the beginning, middle, and end of all
that is, travels according to His nature in a straight line towards the
accomplishment of His end. Justice always accompanies Him, and is the
punisher of those who fall short of the divine law. To justice, he who
would be happy holds fast, and follows in her company with all humility
and order; but he who is lifted up with pride, or elated by wealth
or rank, or beauty, who is young and foolish, and has a soul hot with
insolence, and thinks that he has no need of any guide or ruler, but is
able himself to be the guide of others, he, I say, is left deserted
of God; and being thus deserted, he takes to him others who are like
himself, and dances about, throwing all things into confusion, and many
think that he is a great man, but in a short time he pays a penalty
which justice cannot but approve, and is utterly destroyed, and his
family and city with him. Wherefore, seeing that human things are thus
ordered, what should a wise man do or think, or not do or think'?
CLEINIAS: Every man ought to make up his mind that he will be one of the
followers of God; there can be no doubt of that.
ATHENIAN: Then what life is agreeable to God, and becoming in His
followers? One only, expressed once for all in the old saying that
'like agrees with like, with measure measure,' but things which have no
measure agree neither with themselves nor with the things which have.
Now God ought to be to us the measure of all things, and not man
(compare Crat.; Theaet.), as men commonly say (Protagoras): the words
are far more true of Him. And he who would be dear to God must, as far
as is possible, be like Him and such as He is. Wherefore the temperate
man is the friend of God, for he is like Him; and the intemperate man is
unlike Him, and different from Him, and unjust. And the same applies to
other things; and this is the conclusion, which is also the noblest and
truest of all sayings,--that for the good man to offer sacrifice to the
Gods, and hold converse with them by means of prayers and offerings and
every kind of service, is the noblest and best of all things, and also
the most conducive to a happy life, and very fit and meet. But with the
bad man, the opposite of this is true: for the bad man has an impure
soul, whereas the good is pure; and from one who is polluted, neither
a good man nor God can without impropriety receive gifts. Wherefore the
unholy do only waste their much service upon the Gods, but when offered
by any holy man, such service is most acceptable to them. This is the
mark at which we ought to aim. But what weapons shall we use, and how
shall we direct them? In the first place, we affirm that next after the
Olympian Gods and the Gods of the State, honour should be given to the
Gods below; they should receive everything in even numbers, and of
the second choice, and ill omen, while the odd numbers, and the first
choice, and the things of lucky omen, are given to the Gods above, by
him who would rightly hit the mark of piety. Next to these Gods, a wise
man will do service to the demons or spirits, and then to the heroes,
and after them will follow the private and ancestral Gods, who are
worshipped as the law prescribes in the places which are sacred to them.
Next comes the honour of living parents, to whom, as is meet, we have to
pay the first and greatest and oldest of all debts, considering that all
which a man has belongs to those who gave him birth and brought him up,