Laws

Ath. And, as our argument asserts, the cause of this does not lie in luck, but in the evil life which is usually lived by the sons of excessively rich monarchs; for such an upbringing can never produce either boy or man or greybeard of surpassing goodness. To this, we say, the lawgiver must give heed,—as must we ourselves on the present occasion. It is proper, however, my Lacedaemonian friends, to give your State credit for this at least,—that you assign no different honor or training whatsoever to poverty or wealth, to the commoner or the king, beyond what your original oracle declared at the bidding of some god. Nor indeed is it right that pre-eminent honors in a State should be conferred on a man because he is specially wealthy, any more than it is right to confer them because he is swift or comely or strong without any virtue, or with a virtue devoid of temperance.

Meg. What do you mean by that, Stranger?

Ath. Courage is, presumably, one part of virtue.

Meg. Certainly.

Ath. Now that you have heard the argument, judge for yourself whether you would welcome as housemate or neighbor a man who is extremely courageous, but licentious rather than temperate.

Meg. Don’t suggest such a thing!

Ath. Well then,—a man wise in arts and crafts, but unjust.

Meg. Certainly not.

Ath. But justice, surely, is not bred apart from temperance.

Meg. Impossible.

Ath. Nor is he whom we recently proposed as our type of wisdom,—the man who has his feelings of pleasure and pain in accord with the dictates of right reason and obedient thereto.

Meg. No, indeed.

Ath. Here is a further point we must consider, in order to judge about the conferment of honors in States, when they are right and when wrong.

Meg. What point?

Ath. If temperance existed alone in a man’s soul, divorced from all the rest of virtue, would it justly be held in honor or the reverse?

Meg. I cannot tell what reply to make.

Ath. Yet, in truth, you have made a reply, and a reasonable one. For if you had declared for either of the alternatives in my question, you would have said what is, to my mind, quite out of tune.

Meg. So it has turned out to be all right.

Ath. Very good. Accordingly, the additional element in objects deserving of honor or dishonor will be one that demands not speech so much as a kind of speechless silence.

Meg. I suppose you mean temperance.

Ath. Yes. And of the rest, that which, with the addition of temperance, benefits us most would best deserve to be held in the highest honor, and the second in degree of benefit put second in order of honor; and so with each of the others in succession—to each it will be proper to assign the honor due to its rank.