Laws
a common measure, as also their vessels and coins; the great blessing of
the state is the number 5040. Plato is deeply impressed by the antiquity
of Egypt, and the unchangeableness of her ancient forms of song and
dance. And he is also struck by the progress which the Egyptians had
made in the mathematical sciences--in comparison of them the Greeks
appeared to him to be little better than swine. Yet he censures the
Egyptian meanness and inhospitality to strangers. He has traced the
growth of states from their rude beginnings in a philosophical spirit;
but of any life or growth of the Hellenic world in future ages he is
silent. He has made the reflection that past time is the maker of states
(Book iii.); but he does not argue from the past to the future, that
the process is always going on, or that the institutions of nations
are relative to their stage of civilization. If he could have stamped
indelibly upon Hellenic states the will of the legislator, he would have
been satisfied. The utmost which he expects of future generations is
that they should supply the omissions, or correct the errors which
younger statesmen detect in his enactments. When institutions have been
once subjected to this process of criticism, he would have them fixed
for ever.
THE PREAMBLE.
BOOK I. Strangers, let me ask a question of you--Was a God or a man the
author of your laws? 'A God, Stranger. In Crete, Zeus is said to have
been the author of them; in Sparta, as Megillus will tell you, Apollo.'
You Cretans believe, as Homer says, that Minos went every ninth year to
converse with his Olympian sire, and gave you laws which he brought from
him. 'Yes; and there was Rhadamanthus, his brother, who is reputed among
us to have been a most righteous judge.' That is a reputation worthy of
the son of Zeus. And as you and Megillus have been trained under these
laws, I may ask you to give me an account of them. We can talk about
them in our walk from Cnosus to the cave and temple of Zeus. I am told
that the distance is considerable, but probably there are shady places
under the trees, where, being no longer young, we may often rest and
converse. 'Yes, Stranger, a little onward there are beautiful groves of
cypresses, and green meadows in which we may repose.'
My first question is, Why has the law ordained that you should have
common meals, and practise gymnastics, and bear arms? 'My answer is,
that all our institutions are of a military character. We lead the life
of the camp even in time of peace, keeping up the organization of an
army, and having meals in common; and as our country, owing to its
ruggedness, is ill-suited for heavy-armed cavalry or infantry, our
soldiers are archers, equipped with bows and arrows. The legislator was
under the idea that war was the natural state of all mankind, and that
peace is only a pretence; he thought that no possessions had any
value which were not secured against enemies.' And do you think that
superiority in war is the proper aim of government? 'Certainly I do, and
my Spartan friend will agree with me.' And are there wars, not only of
state against state, but of village against village, of family against
family, of individual against individual? 'Yes.' And is a man his own
enemy? 'There you come to first principles, like a true votary of the
goddess Athene; and this is all the better, for you will the sooner
recognize the truth of what I am saying--that all men everywhere are the
enemies of all, and each individual of every other and of himself;
and, further, that there is a victory and defeat--the best and the
worst--which each man sustains, not at the hands of another, but of
himself.' And does this extend to states and villages as well as to
individuals? 'Certainly; there is a better in them which conquers or
is conquered by the worse.' Whether the worse ever really conquers
the better, is a question which may be left for the present; but your
meaning is, that bad citizens do sometimes overcome the good, and that
the state is then conquered by herself, and that when they are defeated
the state is victorious over herself. Or, again, in a family there may
be several brothers, and the bad may be a majority; and when the
bad majority conquer the good minority, the family are worse than
themselves. The use of the terms 'better or worse than himself or
themselves' may be doubtful, but about the thing meant there can be no
dispute. 'Very true.' Such a struggle might be determined by a judge.
And which will be the better judge--he who destroys the worse and lets
the better rule, or he who lets the better rule and makes the others
voluntarily obey; or, thirdly, he who destroys no one, but reconciles
the two parties? 'The last, clearly.' But the object of such a judge or
legislator would not be war. 'True.' And as there are two kinds of war,
one without and one within a state, of which the internal is by far
the worse, will not the legislator chiefly direct his attention to
this latter? He will reconcile the contending factions, and unite them
against their external enemies. 'Certainly.' Every legislator will
aim at the greatest good, and the greatest good is not victory in war,
whether civil or external, but mutual peace and good-will, as in the
body health is preferable to the purgation of disease. He who makes war
his object instead of peace, or who pursues war except for the sake of
peace, is not a true statesman. 'And yet, Stranger, the laws both of
Crete and Sparta aim entirely at war.' Perhaps so; but do not let us
quarrel about your legislators--let us be gentle; they were in earnest
quite as much as we are, and we must try to discover their meaning. The
poet Tyrtaeus (you know his poems in Crete, and my Lacedaemonian friend
is only too familiar with them)--he was an Athenian by birth, and a
Spartan citizen:--'Well,' he says, 'I sing not, I care not about any
man, however rich or happy, unless he is brave in war.' Now I should
like, in the name of us all, to ask the poet a question. Oh Tyrtaeus, I
would say to him, we agree with you in praising those who excel in war,
but which kind of war do you mean?--that dreadful war which is termed
civil, or the milder sort which is waged against foreign enemies? You
say that you abominate 'those who are not eager to taste their enemies'
blood,' and you seem to mean chiefly their foreign enemies. 'Certainly
he does.' But we contend that there are men better far than your heroes,
Tyrtaeus, concerning whom another poet, Theognis the Sicilian, says that
'in a civil broil they are worth their weight in gold and silver.' For
in a civil war, not only courage, but justice and temperance and wisdom
are required, and all virtue is better than a part. The mercenary
soldier is ready to die at his post; yet he is commonly a violent,
senseless creature. And the legislator, whether inspired or uninspired,
will make laws with a view to the highest virtue; and this is not brute
courage, but loyalty in the hour of danger. The virtue of Tyrtaeus,
although needful enough in his own time, is really of a fourth-rate
description. 'You are degrading our legislator to a very low level.'
Nay, we degrade not him, but ourselves, if we believe that the laws of
Lycurgus and Minos had a view to war only. A divine lawgiver would have
had regard to all the different kinds of virtue, and have arranged his
laws in corresponding classes, and not in the modern fashion, which
only makes them after the want of them is felt,--about inheritances and
heiresses and assaults, and the like. As you truly said, virtue is the
business of the legislator; but you went wrong when you referred all
legislation to a part of virtue, and to an inferior part. For the object
of laws, whether the Cretan or any other, is to make men happy. Now
happiness or good is of two kinds--there are divine and there are human
goods. He who has the divine has the human added to him; but he who
has lost the greater is deprived of both. The lesser goods are health,
beauty, strength, and, lastly, wealth; not the blind God, Pluto, but one
who has eyes to see and follow wisdom. For mind or wisdom is the most
divine of all goods; and next comes temperance, and justice springs from
the union of wisdom and temperance with courage, which is the fourth or
last. These four precede other goods, and the legislator will arrange
all his ordinances accordingly, the human going back to the divine,
and the divine to their leader mind. There will be enactments about
marriage, about education, about all the states and feelings and
experiences of men and women, at every age, in weal and woe, in war and
peace; upon all the law will fix a stamp of praise and blame. There will
also be regulations about property and expenditure, about contracts,
about rewards and punishments, and finally about funeral rites and
honours of the dead. The lawgiver will appoint guardians to preside over
these things; and mind will harmonize his ordinances, and show them to
be in agreement with temperance and justice. Now I want to know whether
the same principles are observed in the laws of Lycurgus and Minos,
or, as I should rather say, of Apollo and Zeus. We must go through the
virtues, beginning with courage, and then we will show that what has
preceded has relation to virtue.
'I wish,' says the Lacedaemonian, 'that you, Stranger, would first
criticize Cleinias and the Cretan laws.' Yes, is the reply, and I will
criticize you and myself, as well as him. Tell me, Megillus, were not
the common meals and gymnastic training instituted by your legislator
with a view to war? 'Yes; and next in the order of importance comes
hunting, and fourth the endurance of pain in boxing contests, and in the
beatings which are the punishment of theft. There is, too, the so-called
Crypteia or secret service, in which our youth wander about the country
night and day unattended, and even in winter go unshod and have no beds
to lie on. Moreover they wrestle and exercise under a blazing sun, and
they have many similar customs.' Well, but is courage only a combat
against fear and pain, and not against pleasure and flattery? 'Against
both, I should say.' And which is worse,--to be overcome by pain, or
by pleasure? 'The latter.' But did the lawgivers of Crete and Sparta
legislate for a courage which is lame of one leg,--able to meet the
attacks of pain but not those of pleasure, or for one which can meet
both? 'For a courage which can meet both, I should say.' But if so,
where are the institutions which train your citizens to be equally brave
against pleasure and pain, and superior to enemies within as well as
without? 'We confess that we have no institutions worth mentioning which
are of this character.' I am not surprised, and will therefore only
request forbearance on the part of us all, in case the love of truth
should lead any of us to censure the laws of the others. Remember that
I am more in the way of hearing criticisms of your laws than you can be;
for in well-ordered states like Crete and Sparta, although an old man
may sometimes speak of them in private to a ruler or elder, a similar
liberty is not allowed to the young. But now being alone we shall not
offend your legislator by a friendly examination of his laws. 'Take any
freedom which you like.'
My first observation is, that your lawgiver ordered you to endure
hardships, because he thought that those who had not this discipline
would run away from those who had. But he ought to have considered
further, that those who had never learned to resist pleasure would be
equally at the mercy of those who had, and these are often among the
worst of mankind. Pleasure, like fear, would overcome them and take away
their courage and freedom. 'Perhaps; but I must not be hasty in giving
my assent.'