Greek Texts & Translations

It would not be equally easy for States to conduct settlements in other cases as in those when, like a swarm of bees, a single clan goes out from a single country and settles, as a friend coming from friends, being either squeezed out by lack of room or forced by some other such pressing need. At times, too, the violence of civil strife might compel a whole section of a State to emigrate; and on one occasion an entire State went into exile, when it was totally crushed by an overpowering attack. 708cAll such cases are in one way easier to manage, as regards settling and legislation, but in another way harder. In the case where the race is one, with the same language and laws, this unity makes for friendliness, since it shares also in sacred rites and all matters of religion; but such a body does not easily tolerate laws or polities which differ from those of its homeland. Again, where such a body has seceded owing to civil strife due to the badness of the laws, but still strives to retain, owing to long habit, the very customs which caused its former ruin, then, because of this, it proves a difficult and intractable subject for the person who has control of its settlement and its laws. 708dOn the other hand, the clan that is formed by fusion of various elements would perhaps be more ready to submit to new laws, but to cause it to share in one spirit and pant (as they say) in unison like a team of horses would be a lengthy task and most difficult. But in truth legislation and the settlement of States are tasks that require men perfect above all other men in goodness.

Very probably; but tell us still more clearly the purport of these observations. 708e

My good Sir, in returning to the subject of lawgivers in our investigation, I may probably have to cast a slur on them; but if what I say is to the point, then there will be no harm in it. Yet why should I vex myself? For practically all human affairs seem to be in this same plight.

What is it you refer to?

I was on the point of saying that no man ever makes laws, 709abut chances and accidents of all kinds, occurring in all sorts of ways, make all our laws for us. For either it is a war that violently upsets polities and changes laws, or it is the distress due to grievous poverty. Diseases, too, often force on revolutions, owing to the inroads of pestilences and recurring bad seasons prolonged over many years. Foreseeing all this, one might deem it proper to say—as I said just now—that no mortal man frames any law, 709bbut human affairs are nearly all matters of pure chance. But the fact is that, although one may appear to be quite right in saying this about sea-faring and the arts of the pilot, the physician, and the general, yet there really is something else that we may say with equal truth about these same things.

What is that?

That God controls all that is, and that Chance and Occasion co-operate with God in the control of all human affairs. It is, however, less harsh to admit that these two must be accompanied by a third factor, which is Art. For that the pilots' art 709cshould cooperate with Occasion—verily I, for one, should esteem that a great advantage. Is it not so?

It is.

Then we must grant that this is equally true in the other cases also, by parity of reasoning, including the case of legislation. When all the other conditions are present which a country needs to possess in the way of fortune if it is ever to be happily settled, then every such State needs to meet with a lawgiver who holds fast to truth. 709d

Very true.

Would not, then, the man who possessed art in regard to each of the crafts mentioned be able to pray aright for that condition which, if it were given by Chance, would need only the supplement of his own art?

Certainly.

And if all the other craftsmen mentioned just now were bidden to state the object of their prayers, they could do so, could they not?

Of course.

And the lawgiver, I suppose, could do likewise?

I suppose so.

“Come now, O lawgiver,” let us say to him, “what are we to give you, and what condition of State, to enable you, when you receive it, thence-forward to manage the State by yourself satisfactorily?” 709e

What is the next thing that can rightly be said?

You mean, do you not, on the side of the lawgiver?

Yes.

This is what he will say: “Give me the State under a monarchy; ^note and let the monarch be young, and possessed by nature of a good memory, quick intelligence, courage and nobility of manner; and let that quality, which we formerly mentioned ^note as the necessary accompaniment of all the parts of virtue, attend now also 710aon our monarch's soul, if the rest of his qualities are to be of any value.”

Temperance, as I think, Megillus, is what the Stranger indicates as the necessary accompaniment. Is it not?

Yes, Clinias; temperance, that is, of the ordinary kind ^note not the kind men mean when they use academic language and identify temperance with wisdom, but that kind which by natural instinct springs up at birth in children and animals, so that some are not incontinent, others continent, in respect of pleasures; and of this we said ^note