Laws

Ath. There still remain, for the freeborn, three branches of learning: of these the first is reckoning and arithmetic; the second is the art of measuring length and surface and solid; the third deals with the course of the stars, and how they naturally travel in relation to one another. All these sciences should not be studied with minute accuracy by the majority of pupils, but only by a select few—and who these are we shall say when we have come near the end,—since that will be the proper place:[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 962c, Plat. Laws 965a.) but for the bulk of the pupils, while it would be shameful for most of them not to understand all those parts of them that are most truly termed necessary, yet it is not easy nor even at all possible for every student to go into them minutely. The necessary part of them it is impossible to reject, and probably this is what was in the mind of the original author of the proverb,[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 741a.) Not even God will ever be seen fighting against Necessity,—meaning by this, I suppose, all kinds of necessity that are divine, since in relation to human necessities (to which most people apply the saying when they quote it) it is of all sayings far and away the most fatuous.

Clin. What necessities then, Stranger, belong to these sciences, that are not of this sort, but divine?

Ath. Those, as I believe, which must be practiced and learned by every god, daemon, and hero, if he is to be competent seriously to supervise mankind: a man certainly would be far from becoming godlike if he were incapable of learning the nature of one and of two, and of even and odd numbers in general, and if he knew nothing at all about counting, and could not count even day and night as distinct objects, and if he were ignorant of the circuit of the sun and moon and all the other stars. To suppose, then, that all these studies[*](i.e. arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy: some elementary (necessary) knowledge of all three is indispensable for a through study of one branch of science.) are not necessary for a man who means to understand almost any single one of the fairest sciences, is a most foolish supposition. The first thing we must grasp correctly is this—which of these branches of study must be learnt, and how many, and at what periods, and which of them in conjunction with which, and which by themselves apart from all others, and the method of combining them; this done, and with these studies as introductory, we may proceed to the learning of the rest. For such is the natural order of procedure as determined by Necessity, against whom, as we declare, no god fights now, nor ever will fight.

Clin. Yes, Stranger, this account of yours does seem to be in accord with nature, and true.

Ath. That is indeed the truth of the matter, Clinias; but to give legal enactment to this program of ours is difficult. We will, if you agree, enact this more precisely on a later occasion.

Clin. You appear to us, Stranger, to be scared by the neglect of such studies which is the habit in our countries; but you are wrong to be scared. Do not be deterred on that account, but try to proceed with your statement.

Ath. I am indeed scared about the habit you mention, but I am still more alarmed about the people who take up these very sciences for study, and do so badly.[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 886a.) Complete and absolute ignorance of them is never alarming, nor is it a very great evil; much more mischievous is a wide variety of knowledge and learning combined with bad training.

Clin. That is true.

Ath. One ought to declare, then, that the freeborn children should learn as much of these subjects as the innumerable crowd of children in Egypt[*](The Egyptian priests are said to have specially drilled their scholars in arithmetic and geometry—partly with a view to their use in land-mensuration.) learn along with their letters. First, as regards counting, lessons have been invented for the merest infants to learn, by way of play and fun,—modes of dividing up apples and chaplets, so that the same totals are adjusted to larger and smaller groups, and modes of sorting out boxers and wrestlers, in byes and pairs, taking them alternately or consecutively, in their natural order. Moreover, by way of play, the teachers mix together bowls made of gold, bronze, silver and the like, and others distribute them, as I said, by groups of a single kind, adapting the rules of elementary arithmetic to play; and thus they are of service to the pupils for their future tasks of drilling, leading and marching armies, or of household management, and they render them both more helpful in every way to themselves and more alert. The next step of the teachers is to clear away, by lessons in weights and measures, a certain kind of ignorance, both absurd and disgraceful, which is naturally inherent in all men touching lines, surfaces and solids.

Clin. What ignorance do you mean, and of what kind is it?

Ath. My dear Clinias, when I was told quite lately of our condition in regard to this matter, I was utterly astounded myself: it seemed to me to be the condition of guzzling swine rather than of human beings, and I was ashamed, not only of myself, but of all the Greek world.[*](Cp. Plat. Rep. 528c.)

Clin. Why? Tell us what you mean, Stranger.

Ath. I am doing so. But I can explain it better by putting a question. Answer me briefly: you know what a line is?

Clin. Yes.

Ath. And surface?

Clin. Certainly.

Ath. And do you know that these are two things, and that the third thing, next to these, is the solid?

Clin. I do.

Ath. Do you not, then, believe that all these are commensurable one with another?

Clin. Yes.

Ath. And you believe, I suppose, that line is really commensurable with line, surface with surface, and solid with solid?

Clin. Absolutely.

Ath. But supposing that some of them are neither absolutely nor moderately commensurable, some being commensurable and some not, whereas you regard them all as commensurable,—what do you think of your mental state with respect to them?

Clin. Evidently it is a sorry state.

Ath. Again, as regards the relation of line and surface to solid, or of surface and line to each other—do not all we Greeks imagine that these are somehow commensurable with one another?

Clin. Most certainly.

Ath. But if they cannot be thus measured by any way or means, while, as I said, all we Greeks imagine that they can, are we not right in being ashamed for them all, and saying to them, O most noble Greeks, this is one of those necessary things which we said[*](Plat. Laws 818a: cp. Aristot. Pol. 1338a.9 ff.) it is disgraceful not to know, although there is nothing very grand in knowing such things.

Clin. Of course.

Ath. In addition to these there are other matters, closely related to them, in which we find many errors arising that are nearly akin to the errors mentioned.

Clin. What are they?

Ath. Problems concerning the essential nature of the commensurable and the incommensurable. For students who are not to be absolutely worthless it is necessary to examine these and to distinguish the two kinds, and, by proposing such problems one to another, to compete in a game that is worthy of them,—for this is a much more refined pastime than draughts for old men.

Clin. No doubt. And, after all, draughts and these studies do not seem to be so very far apart.

Ath. I assert, then, Clinias, that these subjects must be learnt by the young; for they are, in truth, neither harmful nor hard, and when learnt by way of play they will do no damage at all to our State, but will do it good. Should anyone disagree, however, we must listen to him.

Clin. Of course.

Ath. Well then, if this is clearly the case, obviously we shall adopt these subjects; but if it seems clearly to be otherwise, we shall rule them out.

Clin. Yes, obviously.

Ath. Shall we not, then, lay these down as necessary subjects of instruction, so that there may be no gap in our code of laws? Yet we ought to lay them down provisionally—like pledges capable of redemption—apart from the rest of our constitution, in case they fail to satisfy either us who enact them or you for whom they are enacted.

Clin. Yes, that is the right way to lay them down.

Ath. Consider next whether or not we approve of the children learning astronomy.

Clin. Just tell us your opinion.

Ath. About this there is a very strange fact—indeed, quite intolerable.

Clin. What is that?

Ath. We commonly assert that men ought not to enquire concerning the greatest god and about the universe, nor busy themselves in searching out their causes, since it is actually impious to do so; whereas the right course, in all probability, is exactly the opposite.

Clin. Explain yourself.

Ath. My statement sounds paradoxical, and it might be thought to be unbecoming in an old man; but the fact is that, when a man believes that a science is fair and true and beneficial to the State and altogether well-pleasing to God, he cannot possibly refrain any longer from declaring it.[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 779b.)

Clin. That is reasonable; but what science of this kind shall we find on the subject of stars?

Ath. At present, my good sirs, nearly all we Greeks say what is false about those mighty deities, the Sun and Moon.

Clin. What is the falsehood?

Ath. We assert that they, and some other stars along with them, never travel along the same path; and we call them planets.[*](i.e. wanderers.)

Clin. Yes, by Zeus, Stranger, that is true; for I, during my life, have often noticed how Phosphorus and Hesperus and other stars never travel on the same course, but wander all ways; but as to the Sun and Moon, we all know that they are constantly doing this.

Ath. It is precisely for this reason, Megillus and Clinias, that I now assert that our citizens and our children ought to learn so much concerning all these facts about the gods of Heaven as to enable them not to blaspheme about them, but always to speak piously both at sacrifices and when they pray reverently at prayers.

Clin. You are right, provided that, in the first place, it is possible to learn the subject you mention; and provided also that learning will make us correct any mistakes we may be making about them now,—then I, too, agree that a subject of such importance should be learned. This being so, do you make every effort to expound the matter, and we will endeavor to follow you and learn.

Ath. Well, the matter I speak of is not an easy one to learn; nor yet is it altogether difficult and demanding very prolonged study. In proof of this—although I was told of it neither in the days of my youth nor long ago, I may be able to explain it to you in a comparatively short time. Whereas, if it had been a difficult subject, I should never have been able to explain it to you at all—I at my age to you at yours.

Clin. Very true. But what is this science which you describe as marvellous and fitting for the young to learn, and which we are ignorant about? Do try to tell us thus much, at least, about it, with all possible clearness,

Ath. I must try. The opinion, my friends, that the Sun and Moon and the rest of the stars wander is not correct; the truth is precisely the opposite: each of them always travels in a circle one and the same path,—not many paths, although it appears to move along many paths; and the quickest of the stars is wrongly opined to be the slowest, and vice versa.[*](Cp.Plat. Tim. 39d ff.) If these are the real facts and we imagine otherwise,—well, suppose we held a similar notion about horses racing at Olympia, or about long-distance runners, and proclaimed the quickest to be slowest and the slowest quickest, and sang chants lauding the loser as the winner, why, then, the laudations we bestowed on the runners would be neither right nor acceptable, though they were but mortal men. But in the present case, when we commit the same error about gods, do we not think that what would have been ludicrous and wrong there and then is, here and now and in dealing with this subject, by no means ludicrous and assuredly not pleasing to the gods, when concerning gods we repeat a tale that is false?

Clin. Very true, if the facts are as you say.

Ath. Then, if we demonstrate that they really are so, shall all these subjects be learnt up to the point mentioned, and, failing that demonstration, be left alone? Is that to be our agreement?

Clin. Certainly.

Ath. We may now say that our regulations concerning subjects of education have been completed. The subject of hunting, and similar pursuits, must now be dealt with in a similar manner. The duty laid upon the lawgiver probably goes further than the bare task of enacting laws: in addition to laws, there is something else which falls naturally between advice and law— a thing which has often cropped up in the course of our discussion,[*](Plat. Laws 788a ff., Plat. Laws 793a ff.) as, for example, in connection with the nurture of young children: such matters, we say, should not be left unregulated, but it would be most foolish to regard those regulations as enacted laws. When, then, the laws and the whole constitution have been thus written down, our praise of the citizen who is preeminent for virtue will not be complete when we say that the virtuous man is he who is the best servant of the laws and the most obedient;

Ath. a more complete statement will be this,—that the virtuous man is he who passes through life consistently obeying the written rules of the lawgiver, as given in his legislation, approbation and disapprobation.[*](i.e. for perfect virtue there is required not only obedience to statute law, but also conformity with all the other rules of conduct laid down by the lawgiver in the less rigid form of advice (approbation and disapprobation).) This statement is the most correct way of praising the citizen; and in this way, moreover, the lawgiver must not only write down the laws, but in addition to the laws, and combined with them, he must write down his decisions as to what things are good and what bad; and the perfect citizen must abide by these decisions no less than by the rules enforced by legal penalties. The subject now before us we may adduce as a witness to show more clearly what we mean. Hunting is a large and complex matter, all of which is now generally embraced under this single name. Of the hunting of water-animals there are many varieties, and many of the hunting of fowls; and very many varieties also of hunts of land-animals—not of beasts only, but also, mark you, of men, both in war and often, too, in friendship, a kind of hunt that is partly approved and partly disapproved;[*](Cp.Plat. Soph. 222d ff where ἡ τῶν ἐρώντων θήρα (the lovers’ chase) is mentioned as a sub-species of θηρευτική: and in Symposium 203 D the God of Love is described as a mighty hunter (θηρευτὴς δεινός).) and then there are robberies and hunts carried on by pirates and by bands. When the lawgiver is making laws about hunting, he is necessarily bound to make this point clear, and to lay down minatory directions by imposing regulations and penalties for all these kinds. What then ought to be done about these matters? The lawgiver, for his part, will be right in praising or blaming hunting with an eye to the toils and pursuits of the young; and the young man will be right in listening and obeying, and in allowing neither pleasure nor toil to hinder him, and in holding in greater respect the orders that are sanctioned by praise, and carrying them out, rather than those which are enacted by law under threat of penalties. After these prefatory observations there will follow adequate praise and blame of hunting—praise of the kind which renders the souls of the young better, and blame of the kind which does the opposite. Our next step will be to address the young people with prayer—O friends, would that you might never be seized with any desire or craving for hunting by sea, or for angling, or for ever pursuing water-animals with creels that do your lazy hunting for you, whether you sleep or wake.

Ath.And may no longing for man-hunting by sea and piracy overtake you, and render you cruel and lawless hunters; and may the thought of committing robbery in country or city not so much as cross your minds. Neither may there seize upon any of the young the crafty craving for snaring birds— no very gentlemanly pursuit! Thus there is left for our athletes only the hunting and capture of land-animals. Of this branch of hunting, the kind called night-stalking, which is the job of lazy men who sleep in turn, is one that deserves no praise; nor does that kind deserve praise in which there are intervals of rest from toil, when men master the wild force of beasts by nets and traps instead of doing so by the victorious might of a toil-loving soul. Accordingly, the only kind left for all, and the best kind, is the hunting of quadrupeds with horses and dogs and the hunter’s own limbs, when men hunt in person, and subdue all the creatures by means of their own running, striking and shooting—all the men, that is to say, who cultivate the courage that is divine. Concerning the whole of this subject, the exposition we have now given will serve as the praise and blame; and the law will run thus,—None shall hinder these truly sacred hunters from hunting wheresoever and howsoever they wish; but the night-trapper who trusts to nets and snares no one shall ever allow to hunt anywhere. The fowler no man shall hinder on fallow land or mountain; but he that finds him on tilled fields or on sacred glebes shall drive him off. The fisherman shall be allowed to hunt in all waters except havens and sacred rivers and pools and lakes, but only on condition that he makes no use of muddying juices.[*](i.e. vegetable juices which taint the water and paralyze the fish.) So now, at last, we may say that all our laws about education are complete.

Clin. You may rightly say so.

Ath. Our next task is, with the help of the Delphic oracles, to arrange and ordain by law the festivals, prescribing what sacrifices, and to what deities, it will be good and right for the State to offer: the times and the number of them, however, it is, no doubt, our own business to ordain by ourselves.

Clin. Very likely, as regards the number of them.

Ath. Then let us first state the number. There shall be not less than 365 feasts, so that some one official may always be doing sacrifice to some god or daemon on behalf of the State, the people, and their property.[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 771d.) The interpreters, the priests, the priestesses and the prophets shall assemble, and, in company with the Law-wardens, they shall ordain what the lawgiver is obliged to omit: moreover, these same persons shall determine wherein such omissions consist. For the law will state that there are twelve feasts to the twelve gods who give their names to the several tribes: to each of these they shall perform monthly sacrifices and assign choirs and musical contests, and also gymnastic contests, as is suitable both to the gods themselves and to the several seasons of the year; and they shall ordain also women’s festivals, prescribing how many of these shall be for women only, and how many open also to men. Further, they must determine, in conformity with the law, the rites proper to the nether gods, and how many of the celestial gods should be invoked, and what of the rites connected with them should not be mingled but kept apart, and put them in the twelfth month, which is sacred to Pluto; and this god should not be disliked by men who are warriors, but honored as one who is always most good to the human race; for, as I would assert in all seriousness, union is in no way better for soul and body than dissolution.

Ath. Moreover, if they are to arrange these matters adequately, these persons must believe that no other State exists which can compare with ours in respect of the degree in which it possesses leisure and control over the necessities of life;[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 832c., Plat. Laws 835d, Plat. Laws 835e.) and believe also that it, like an individual, ought to lead a good life. But for a good and blessed life, the first requisite is neither to do wrong oneself nor to suffer wrong from others. Of these, the former is not very hard, but it is very hard to secure immunity from suffering wrong;[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 663a, Plat. Laws 904e. Perfect goodness helps to secure this immunity because it includes the virtue of courage: people do not lightly provoke the brave warrior.) indeed, it is impossible to gain this perfectly, except by becoming perfectly good. So likewise a State may obtain a life of peace if it becomes good, but if bad, a life of war both abroad and at home. This being so, all men must train for war not in war-time, but while they are living in peace.[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 803d, Plat. Laws 814d.) Therefore, a judicious State must carry out a march, every month, for not less than one whole day, or more (according as the rulers decree),[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 830d.) paying no heed to cold weather or hot: all shall join in it—men, women and children—whenever the rulers decide to march them out en masse, and at other times they shall go in sections. Along with sacrifices, they must continually devise noble games, to serve as festival-contests, modelled as closely as possible on those of war. At each of these they must distribute prizes and awards of merit, and compose for one another speeches of praise and blame, according to the character each one exhibits not only in the contests, but in his life generally, magnifying him who is accounted most good and blaming him who is not. Such speeches not everyone shall compose; for, first, no one who is under fifty years old shall compose one, and further, no one shall do so who, though he may be fully proficient in poetry and music, has not as yet performed any noble or notable deed. But, even though they be not musical, those poems shall be sung which are composed by men[*](Cp. Plat. Laws 936a.) who are personally good and honored in the State as performers of noble deeds. The adjudication of these shall lie with the Educator and the rest of the Law-wardens, who shall grant them the sole privilege of free speech in song; whereas to the others no permission shall be given; nor yet shall anyone venture to sing an unauthorized song— not even should it be sweeter than the hymns of Orpheus or of Thamyras,—but only such sacred poems as have won the judges’ approval and have been presented to the gods, or those by good men which have been adjudged to have duly distributed praise or blame. In regard both to military operations and to freedom of poetic speech I state that the same rules shall apply equally to both men and women.

Ath. The lawgiver ought to commune with himself and reason thus—Come now, what men am I to rear up, when I have made ready the whole State? Are they not to be competitors in the greatest of contests, wherein their antagonists will be numberless? Most certainly, one would rightly reply. What then? Suppose we had been rearing boxers or pancratiasts or competitors in any similar branch of athletics, should we have gone straight into the contest without previously engaging in daily combat with someone? If we were boxers, for a great many days before the contest we should have been learning how to fight, and working hard, practicing in mimicry all those methods we meant to employ on the day we should be fighting for victory, and imitating the real thing as nearly as possible: thus, we should don padded gloves instead of proper ring-gloves, so as to get the best possible practice in giving blows and dodging them; and if we chanced to be very short of training-mates, do you suppose that we should be deterred by fear of the laughter of fools from hanging up a lifeless dummy and practicing on it? Indeed, if ever we were in a desert, and without either live or lifeless training-mates, would we not have recourse to shadow-fighting of the most literal kind, against ourselves? Or what else should one call the practice of pugilistic posturing?

Clin. There is no other name for it, Stranger, than the one you have just given to it.

Ath. What then? Is the fighting force of our State to venture to come forward every time to fight for their lives, their children, their goods, and for the whole State, after a less thorough preparation than the competitors we have been describing? And so is their lawgiver, through fear lest these training-bouts may appear ridiculous to some, to refrain from laying down laws whereby he will ordain field-operations, of which the minor kind, without heavy arms, will take place daily, if possible,—and to this end both the choristry and all the gymnastic shall be directed,—while the others, as a major kind of gymnastics in full armor, he shall order to be held at least once a month? In this latter kind they will engage in contests with one another throughout the whole country, contending in the capturing of forts and in ambuscades and in all forms of mimic warfare;