| Plato, Laws (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Pl. Leg.]. | ||
| <<Pl. Leg. 741b | Pl. Leg. 743b (Greek) | >>Pl. Leg. 745c |
742cbrought in. In marrying or giving in marriage, no one shall give or receive any dowry at all. No one shall deposit money with anyone he does not trust, nor lend at interest, since it is permissible for the borrower to refuse entirely to pay back either interest or principal. That these are the best rules for a State to observe in practice, one would perceive rightly
742dif one viewed them in relation to the primary intention. The intention of the judicious statesman is, we say, not at all the intention which the majority would ascribe to him; they would say that the good Iawgiver should desire that the State, for which he is benevolentIy legislating, should be as large and as rich as possible, possessed of silver and gold, and bearing rule over as many people as possible both by land and sea; and they would add that he should desire the State to be as good and as happy as possible, if he is a true legislator.
742eOf these objects some are possible of attainment, some impossible; such as are possible the organizer of the State will desire; the impossible he will neither vainly desire nor attempt. That happiness and goodness should go together is well-nigh inevitable, note so he will desire the people to be both good and happy; but it is impossible for them to be at once both good and excessively rich—rich at least as most men count riches; for they reckon as rich those who possess, in a rare degree, goods worth a vast deal of money,
743aand these even a wicked man might possess. And since this is so, I would never concede to them that the rich man is really happy if he is not also good; while, if a man is superlatively good, it is impossible that he should be also superlatively rich. “Why so?” it may be asked. Because, we would reply, the gain derived from both right and wrong is more than double that from right alone, whereas the expenditure of those who refuse to spend either nobly or ignobIy is only one-half the expenditure of those who are noble and like spending on noble objects;
743bconsequently, the wealth of men who double their gains and halve their expenditure will never be exceeded by the men whose procedure in both respects is just the opposite. note Now of these men, the one is good, and the other not bad, so long as he is niggardly, but utterly bad when he is not niggardly, and (as we have just said) at no time good. For while the one man, since he takes both justly and unjustly and spends neither justly nor unjustly, is rich (and the utterly bad man, being lavish as a rule, is very poor) ,—
743cthe other man, who spends on noble objects, and gains by just means only, is never likely to become either superlatively rich or extremely poor. Accordingly, what we have stated is true,—that the very rich are not good, and not being good, neither are they happy. Now the fundamental purpose of our laws was this,—that the citizens should be as happy as possible, and in the highest degree united in mutual friendship. Friendly the citizens will never be where they have frequent legal actions with one another and frequent illegal acts, but rather where these are
743dthe fewest and least possible. We say that in the State there must be neither gold nor silver, nor must there be much money-making by means of vulgar trading or usury or the fattening of gelded beasts, but only such profit as farming offers and yields, and of this only so much as will not drive a man by his money-making to neglect the objects for which money exists: these objects are the soul and the body, which without gymnastic and the other branches of education
743ewould never become things of value. Wherefore we have asserted (and that not once only) note that the pursuit of money is to be honored last of all: of all the three objects which concern every man, the concern for money, rightly directed, comes third and last; that for the body comes second; and that for the soul, first. Accordingly, if it prescribes its honors in this order, the polity which we are describing has its laws correctly laid down; but if any of the laws therein enacted shall evidently make health
744aof more honor in the State than temperance, or wealth than health and temperance, it will quite clearly be a wrong enactment. Thus the lawgiver must ofttimes put this question to himself— “What is it that I intend?” and, “Am I succeeding in this, or am I wide of the mark?” In this way he might, perhaps, get through the task of legislation himself, and save others the trouble of it; but in no other way could he ever possibly do so. The man who has received an allotment shall hold it, as we say,
744bon the terms stated. It would indeed have been a splendid thing if each person, on entering the colony, had had all else equal as well. Since this, however, is impossible, and one man will arrive with more money and another with less, it is necessary for many reasons, and for the sake of equaIizing chances in public life, that there should be unequal valuations, in order that offices and contributions may be assigned in accordance with the assessed valuation in each case,—being framed not in proportion only to the moral excellence of a man's ancestors or of himself, nor to his bodily strength
744cand comeliness, but in proportion also to his wealth or poverty,—so that by a rule of symmetrical inequality note they may receive offices and honors as equally as possible, and may have no quarrelling. For these reasons we must make four classes, graded by size of property, and called first, second, third and fourth (or by some other names) , alike when the individuals remain in the same class and when, through a change from poverty to wealth or from wealth to poverty, they pass over each to that class to which he belongs.
| Plato, Laws (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Pl. Leg.]. | ||
| <<Pl. Leg. 741b | Pl. Leg. 743b (Greek) | >>Pl. Leg. 745c |
