Laws
and the life of courage than the life of cowardice; one of each pair
exceeding in pleasure and the other in pain, the courageous surpassing
the cowardly, and the wise exceeding the foolish. And so the one
class of lives exceeds the other class in pleasure; the temperate and
courageous and wise and healthy exceed the cowardly and foolish and
intemperate and diseased lives; and generally speaking, that which has
any virtue, whether of body or soul, is pleasanter than the vicious
life, and far superior in beauty and rectitude and excellence and
reputation, and causes him who lives accordingly to be infinitely
happier than the opposite.
Enough of the preamble; and now the laws should follow; or, to speak
more correctly, an outline of them. As, then, in the case of a web
or any other tissue, the warp and the woof cannot be made of the same
materials (compare Statesman), but the warp is necessarily superior as
being stronger, and having a certain character of firmness, whereas
the woof is softer and has a proper degree of elasticity;--in a
similar manner those who are to hold great offices in states, should be
distinguished truly in each case from those who have been but slenderly
proven by education. Let us suppose that there are two parts in the
constitution of a state--one the creation of offices, the other the laws
which are assigned to them to administer.
But, before all this, comes the following consideration:--The shepherd
or herdsman, or breeder of horses or the like, when he has received his
animals will not begin to train them until he has first purified them in
a manner which befits a community of animals; he will divide the healthy
and unhealthy, and the good breed and the bad breed, and will send
away the unhealthy and badly bred to other herds, and tend the rest,
reflecting that his labours will be vain and have no effect, either on
the souls or bodies of those whom nature and ill nurture have corrupted,
and that they will involve in destruction the pure and healthy nature
and being of every other animal, if he should neglect to purify them.
Now the case of other animals is not so important--they are only worth
introducing for the sake of illustration; but what relates to man is of
the highest importance; and the legislator should make enquiries, and
indicate what is proper for each one in the way of purification and
of any other procedure. Take, for example, the purification of a
city--there are many kinds of purification, some easier and others more
difficult; and some of them, and the best and most difficult of them,
the legislator, if he be also a despot, may be able to effect; but the
legislator, who, not being a despot, sets up a new government and laws,
even if he attempt the mildest of purgations, may think himself happy if
he can complete his work. The best kind of purification is painful, like
similar cures in medicine, involving righteous punishment and inflicting
death or exile in the last resort. For in this way we commonly dispose
of great sinners who are incurable, and are the greatest injury of the
whole state. But the milder form of purification is as follows:--when
men who have nothing, and are in want of food, show a disposition to
follow their leaders in an attack on the property of the rich--these,
who are the natural plague of the state, are sent away by the legislator
in a friendly spirit as far as he is able; and this dismissal of them is
euphemistically termed a colony. And every legislator should contrive to
do this at once. Our present case, however, is peculiar. For there is
no need to devise any colony or purifying separation under the
circumstances in which we are placed. But as, when many streams flow
together from many sources, whether springs or mountain torrents, into a
single lake, we ought to attend and take care that the confluent waters
should be perfectly clear, and in order to effect this, should pump and
draw off and divert impurities, so in every political arrangement there
may be trouble and danger. But, seeing that we are now only discoursing
and not acting, let our selection be supposed to be completed, and the
desired purity attained. Touching evil men, who want to join and be
citizens of our state, after we have tested them by every sort of
persuasion and for a sufficient time, we will prevent them from coming;
but the good we will to the utmost of our ability receive as friends
with open arms.
Another piece of good fortune must not be forgotten, which, as we were
saying, the Heraclid colony had, and which is also ours,--that we have
escaped division of land and the abolition of debts; for these are
always a source of dangerous contention, and a city which is driven by
necessity to legislate upon such matters can neither allow the old ways
to continue, nor yet venture to alter them. We must have recourse to
prayers, so to speak, and hope that a slight change may be cautiously
effected in a length of time. And such a change can be accomplished
by those who have abundance of land, and having also many debtors,
are willing, in a kindly spirit, to share with those who are in want,
sometimes remitting and sometimes giving, holding fast in a path of
moderation, and deeming poverty to be the increase of a man's desires
and not the diminution of his property. For this is the great beginning
of salvation to a state, and upon this lasting basis may be erected
afterwards whatever political order is suitable under the circumstances;
but if the change be based upon an unsound principle, the future
administration of the country will be full of difficulties. That is a
danger which, as I am saying, is escaped by us, and yet we had better
say how, if we had not escaped, we might have escaped; and we may
venture now to assert that no other way of escape, whether narrow
or broad, can be devised but freedom from avarice and a sense of
justice--upon this rock our city shall be built; for there ought to be
no disputes among citizens about property. If there are quarrels of long
standing among them, no legislator of any degree of sense will proceed
a step in the arrangement of the state until they are settled. But that
they to whom God has given, as He has to us, to be the founders of a
new state as yet free from enmity--that they should create themselves
enmities by their mode of distributing lands and houses, would be
superhuman folly and wickedness.
How then can we rightly order the distribution of the land? In the first
place, the number of the citizens has to be determined, and also the
number and size of the divisions into which they will have to be formed;
and the land and the houses will then have to be apportioned by us
as fairly as we can. The number of citizens can only be estimated
satisfactorily in relation to the territory and the neighbouring
states. The territory must be sufficient to maintain a certain number of
inhabitants in a moderate way of life--more than this is not required;
and the number of citizens should be sufficient to defend themselves
against the injustice of their neighbours, and also to give them the
power of rendering efficient aid to their neighbours when they are
wronged. After having taken a survey of their's and their neighbours'
territory, we will determine the limits of them in fact as well as in
theory. And now, let us proceed to legislate with a view to perfecting
the form and outline of our state. The number of our citizens shall be
5040--this will be a convenient number; and these shall be owners of the
land and protectors of the allotment. The houses and the land will be
divided in the same way, so that every man may correspond to a lot. Let
the whole number be first divided into two parts, and then into three;
and the number is further capable of being divided into four or five
parts, or any number of parts up to ten. Every legislator ought to know
so much arithmetic as to be able to tell what number is most likely
to be useful to all cities; and we are going to take that number which
contains the greatest and most regular and unbroken series of divisions.
The whole of number has every possible division, and the number 5040
can be divided by exactly fifty-nine divisors, and ten of these proceed
without interval from one to ten: this will furnish numbers for war and
peace, and for all contracts and dealings, including taxes and divisions
of the land. These properties of number should be ascertained at leisure
by those who are bound by law to know them; for they are true, and
should be proclaimed at the foundation of the city, with a view to use.
Whether the legislator is establishing a new state or restoring an old
and decayed one, in respect of Gods and temples,--the temples which are
to be built in each city, and the Gods or demi-gods after whom they
are to be called,--if he be a man of sense, he will make no change in
anything which the oracle of Delphi, or Dodona, or the God Ammon, or
any ancient tradition has sanctioned in whatever manner, whether by
apparitions or reputed inspiration of Heaven, in obedience to which
mankind have established sacrifices in connexion with mystic rites,
either originating on the spot, or derived from Tyrrhenia or Cyprus
or some other place, and on the strength of which traditions they have
consecrated oracles and images, and altars and temples, and portioned
out a sacred domain for each of them. The least part of all these ought
not to be disturbed by the legislator; but he should assign to
the several districts some God, or demi-god, or hero, and, in the
distribution of the soil, should give to these first their chosen domain
and all things fitting, that the inhabitants of the several districts
may meet at fixed times, and that they may readily supply their various
wants, and entertain one another with sacrifices, and become friends
and acquaintances; for there is no greater good in a state than that the
citizens should be known to one another. When not light but darkness and
ignorance of each other's characters prevails among them, no one will
receive the honour of which he is deserving, or the power or the justice
to which he is fairly entitled: wherefore, in every state, above all
things, every man should take heed that he have no deceit in him, but
that he be always true and simple; and that no deceitful person take any
advantage of him.
The next move in our pastime of legislation, like the withdrawal of the
stone from the holy line in the game of draughts, being an unusual one,
will probably excite wonder when mentioned for the first time. And yet,
if a man will only reflect and weigh the matter with care, he will see
that our city is ordered in a manner which, if not the best, is the
second best. Perhaps also some one may not approve this form, because he
thinks that such a constitution is ill adapted to a legislator who
has not despotic power. The truth is, that there are three forms of
government, the best, the second and the third best, which we may just
mention, and then leave the selection to the ruler of the settlement.
Following this method in the present instance, let us speak of the
states which are respectively first, second, and third in excellence,
and then we will leave the choice to Cleinias now, or to any one else
who may hereafter have to make a similar choice among constitutions, and
may desire to give to his state some feature which is congenial to him
and which he approves in his own country.
The first and highest form of the state and of the government and of the
law is that in which there prevails most widely the ancient saying, that
'Friends have all things in common.' Whether there is anywhere now, or
will ever be, this communion of women and children and of property, in
which the private and individual is altogether banished from life, and