Laws

Ath. The method of our legislation requires that we should deal next with the judicial proceedings connected with all the transactions hitherto described. The matters which involve such proceedings have been stated in part (those, namely, which concern farming and all industries dependent thereon), but we have not stated as yet the most important of such matters; so our next step must be to state them in full, enumerating in detail what penalty must attach to each offence, and before what court it must be tried.

Clin. True.

Ath. It is, in a sense, a shameful thing to make all those laws that we are proposing to make in a State like ours, which is, as we say, to be well managed and furnished with all that is right for the practice of virtue. In such a State, the mere supposition that any citizen will grow up to share in the worst forms of depravity practiced in other States, so that one must forestall and denounce by law the appearance of any such character, and, in order to warn them off or punish them, enact laws against them, as though they were certain to appear,—this, as I have said, is in a sense shameful. But we are not now legislating, like the ancient lawgivers, for heroes and sons of gods,—when, as the story goes, both the lawgivers themselves and their subjects were men of divine descent: we, on the contrary, are but mortal men legislating for the seed of men, and therefore it is permitted to us to dread lest any of our citizens should prove horny-hearted and attain to such hardness of temper as to be beyond melting; and just as those horn-struck beans cannot be softened by boiling on the fire, so these men should be uninfluenced by laws, however powerful. So, for the sake of these gentlemen, no very gentle law shall be stated first concerning temple-robbery, in case anyone dares to commit this crime. That a rightly nurtured citizen should be infected with this disease is a thing that we should neither desire nor expect; but such attempts might often be made by their servants, and by foreigners or foreigners’ slaves.

Ath. Chiefly, then, on their account, and also as a precaution against the general infirmity of human nature, I will state the law about temple-robbing, and all other crimes of a like kind which are hard, if not impossible, to cure. And, in accordance with our rule as already approved, we must prefix to all such laws preludes as brief as possible. By way of argument and admonition one might address in the following terms the man whom an evil desire urges by day and wakes up at night, driving him to rob some sacred object— My good man, the evil force that now moves you and prompts you to go temple-robbing is neither of human origin nor of divine, but it is some impulse bred of old in men from ancient wrongs unexpiated, which courses round wreaking ruin; and it you must guard against with all your strength. How you must thus guard, now learn. When there comes upon you any such intention, betake yourself to the rites of guilt-averting, betake yourself as suppliant to the shrines of the curse-lifting deities, betake yourself to the company of the men who are reputed virtuous; and thus learn, partly from others, partly by self-instruction, that every man is bound to honor what is noble and just; but the company of evil men shun wholly, and turn not back. And if it be so that by thus acting your disease grows less, well; but if not, then deem death the more noble way, and quit yourself of life. As we chant this prelude to those who purpose all these unholy deeds, destructive of civic life, the law itself we must leave unvoiced for him who obeys; but for him who disobeys we must suffer the law, following on the prelude, to utter aloud this chant: Whosoever is caught robbing a temple, if he be a foreigner or a slave, his curse shall be branded on his forehead and on his hands, and he shall be scourged with so many stripes as the judges decree, and he shall be cast out naked beyond the borders of the country; for, after paying this penalty, he might perchance be disciplined into a better life. For no penalty that is legally imposed aims at evil, but it effects, as a rule, one or other of two results,— it makes the person who suffers it either better or less bad. But if any citizen is ever convicted of such an act,—that is, of committing some great and infamous wrong against gods, parents, or State—the judge shall regard him as already incurable, reckoning that, in spite of all the training and nurture he has had from infancy, he has not refrained from the worst iniquity.

Ath. For him the penalty is death, the least of evils; and, moreover, by serving as an example, he will benefit others, when himself disgraced and removed from sight beyond the borders of the country; but his children and family, if they shun their father’s ways, shall be honored, and honorable mention shall be made of them, seeing that they have done well and bravely in leaving the ways of vice for those of virtue. That the goods of any such criminal should be confiscated would not be fitting in a State in which the allotments must remain always identical and equal in number. Whosoever is held to have done a wrong which deserves a money-fine must pay the fine exacted when the fine comes within the limits of the surplus he has over when his allotment has been equipped, but not what exceeds this: the precise facts in such cases the Law-wardens must find out from the registers, and they must inform the judges of the true state of each case, in order to prevent any allotment falling out of cultivation through lack of money. And if any man is held to deserve a larger fine, in case none of his friends are willing to go bail or, by clubbing together, to pay the sum and set him free, then we must punish him by long imprisonment, of a public kind, and by measures of degradation; but no one shall be absolutely outlawed for any single crime, even though he be banished from the country. The punishments to be inflicted shall be death, or imprisonment, or stripes, or seats or stations or exposures of a degrading kind at temples or at outermost boundaries, or money-fines of the kind we have stated,—where such punishments are required. In cases where the penalty is death, the judges shall be the Law-wardens together with the court of last year’s magistrates selected by merit. In respect of these cases the younger lawgivers must attend to the indictments and summonses and all such matters, and the procedure involved, while it is our task to regulate by law the method of voting. The votes shall be cast openly, and, before this takes place, our judges shall be seated, facing the plaintiff and defendant, in a closely-packed row in order of seniority, and all the citizens who have leisure to do so shall attend and listen attentively to the trials. One speech shall be made by the plaintiff first, and secondly one by the defendant; and after these speeches the oldest judge shall lead off with his survey of the case, in which he shall review in detail the statements made; and after the oldest, each of the other judges in turn must discuss every point which he has noticed in which either of the litigants has been guilty of making any kind of omission or blunder in his statement; and he that has no such criticism to make shall pass on the task of reviewing to his neighbor;

Ath. and when such of the statements as the judges have pronounced relevant have been confirmed by affixing to the documents the signatures of all the judges, they shall lay them up at the altar of Hestia. On the morrow again they shall assemble at the same place and discuss the case, and they shall make their pronouncements in the same manner, and shall again sign the statements. And after doing this thrice,—during which proceedings they shall pay full attention to evidence and witnesses,—each of the judges shall cast a sacred vote, promising by Hestia to give just and true judgment to the best of his power; and thus they shall bring to its end this form of trial. Next to cases which concern religion come those which concern the dissolution of the polity. Whosoever enslaves the laws by making them subject to men, and makes the State subject to a faction, and acts illegally in doing all this by violence and in stirring up civil strife,—such a man must be deemed the worst of all enemies to the whole State. And the man who, though he takes part in none of these doings, yet fails to observe them, while he has a share in the chief offices of State, or else, though he observes them, fails to defend his country and punish them, owing to his cowardice,—a citizen of such a kind must be counted second in order of badness. Every man who is of the least worth shall inform the magistrates by prosecuting the plotter on a charge of violent and illegal revolution: they shall have the same judges as the temple-robbers had, and the whole trial shall be conducted just as it was in their case, and the death penalty shall be imposed by a majority of votes. As a summary rule, the disgrace or punishment inflicted on a father shall not descend upon his children, except in a case where not only the father, but his father and grandfather before him, have all been condemned on a capital charge: in such a case, the children, while retaining their own property, excepting only the allotment with its full equipment, shall be deported by the State to their original country and State. And from the sons of citizens who happen to have more than one son over ten years old, ten shall be chosen by lot—after application made by the father or by the paternal or maternal grandfather,—and the names thus chosen shall be sent to Delphi; and that man whom the oracle names shall be established as the allotment-holder in the house of those departed,—be it with happier fortune!

Clin. Very good.

Ath. Moreover, a third general law shall be laid down, dealing with the judges to be employed and the manner of the trials, in cases where one man prosecutes another on a charge of treason; and concerning the offspring, likewise, whether they are to remain in their country or be expelled, this one law shall apply to the three cases of the traitor, the temple-robber, and the man who wrecks the State laws by violence. For the thief also, whether he steals a great thing or a small, one law and one legal penalty shall be enacted for all alike: first, he must pay twice the value of the stolen article, if he loses his case and possesses enough property over and above his allotment wherewith to pay; but if not, he must be put in prison until either he has paid the sum or has been let off by the prosecutor. And if a man be cast in a suit for theft from the State, on obtaining pardon from the State, or after payment of double the sum stolen, he shall be let out of prison.

Clin. How comes it, Stranger, that we are ruling that it makes no difference to the thief whether the thing he steals be great or small, and whether the place it is stolen from be holy or unhallowed, or whatever other differences may exist in the manner of a theft; whereas the lawgiver ought to suit the punishment to the crime by inflicting dissimilar penalties in these varying cases?

Ath. Well said, Clinias! You have collided with me when I was going, as it were, full steam ahead, and so have woken me up. You have reminded me of a previous reflection of mine, how that none of the attempts hitherto made at legislation have ever been carried out rightly—as in fact we may infer from the instance before us. What do I mean to imply by this remark? It was no bad comparison we made when we compared all existing legislation to the doctoring of slaves by slaves. For one should carefully notice this, that if any of the doctors who practice medicine by purely empirical methods, devoid of theory, were to come upon a free-born doctor conversing with a free-born patient, and using arguments, much as a philosopher would, dealing with the course of the ailment from its origin and surveying the natural constitution of the human body,—he would at once break out into a roar of laughter, and the language he would use would be none other than that which always comes ready to the tongue of most so-called doctors: You fool, he would say, you are not doctoring your patient, but schooling him, so to say, as though what he wanted was to be made, not a sound man, but a doctor.

Clin. And in saying so, would he not be right?

Ath. Possibly, provided that he should also take the view that the man who treats of laws in the way that we are now doing is schooling the citizens rather than legislating. Would he not seem to be right in saying that, too?

Clin. Probably.

Ath. How fortunate we are in the conclusion we have now come to!

Clin. What conclusion?

Ath. This,—that there is no need to legislate, but only to become students ourselves, and endeavor to discern in regard to every polity how the best form might come about, and how that which is the least elaborate possible. Moreover, we are now allowed, as it seems, to study, if we choose, the best form of legislation, or, if we choose, the least elaborate. So let us make our choice between these two.

Clin. The choice we propose, Stranger, is an absurd one: we should be acting like legislators who were driven by some overpowering necessity to pass laws on the spot, because it is impossible for them to do so on the morrow. But for us (if Heaven will) it is quite possible to do as bricklayers do, or men starting on any other kind of construction,—that is, to collect material piecemeal, from which we may select what is suitable for the edifice we intend to build, and, what is more, select it at our leisure. Let us assume, then, that we are not now building under compulsion, but that we are still at leisure, and engaged partly in collecting material and partly in putting it together; so that we may rightly say that our laws are being in part already erected and in part collected.

Ath. In this way, Clinias, our survey of laws will at any rate follow nature’s course more closely. Now let us consider, I adjure you, the following point about legislators.

Clin. What point?

Ath. We have in our States not only the writings and written speeches of many other people, but also the writings and speeches of the lawgiver.

Clin. Certainly.

Ath. Are we, then, to pay attention to the compositions of the others— poets, and all who, either with or without meter, have composed and put on record their counsels concerning life,—but to pay no attention to those of the lawgivers? Or should we not attend to them above all others?

Clin. Yes, far above all.

Ath. But we surely do not mean that the lawgiver alone of all the writers is not to give counsel about what is noble, good and just, teaching what these are, and how those who intend to be happy must practice them.

Clin. Of course he must do so.

Ath. Well then, is it more disgraceful on the part of Homer and Tyrtaeus and the rest of the poets to lay down in their writings bad rules about life and its pursuits, and less disgraceful on the part of Lycurgus and Solon and all the legislators who have written?

Ath. Or rather, is it not right that, of all the writings which exist in States, those which concern laws should be seen, when unrolled, to be by far the fairest and best, and all other writings to be either modelled on them or, if disagreeing with them, contemptible? Are we to conceive that the written laws in our States should resemble persons moved by love and wisdom, such as a father or a mother, or that they should order and threaten, like some tyrant and despot, who writes his decree on the wall, and there is an end of it? So let us now consider whether we are going to try to discuss laws with this intention—showing zeal, at any rate, whether or not we may prove successful; and if, in proceeding on this course, we must meet with mishap, so be it. Yet we pray that it may be well with us, and if God wills, it shall be well.

Clin. You are right: let us do as you say.

Ath. First of all, since we have started on it, we must examine closely the law about temple-robbers and all forms of thieving and wrongdoing; nor should we be vexed by the fact that, although we enacted some points while legislating, there are some points still under consideration: for we are in process of becoming lawgivers, and may perhaps become so, but we are not lawgivers as yet. So if we agree to consider the matters I have mentioned in the way I have mentioned, let us so consider them.

Clin. Most certainly.

Ath. In respect of goodness and justice as a whole, let us try to discern this,—how far we now agree with ourselves, and how far we differ (for we should certainly say that we desire, if nothing else, to differ at least from the majority of men), and how far also the majority agree or differ among themselves.

Clin. What differences of ours have you in mind?

Ath. I will try to explain. Concerning justice in general, and men, things, or actions that are just, we all agree that these are all beautiful, so that no one would be regarded as saying what was wrong even if he should maintain that just men, however ugly in body, are quite beautiful in respect of their very just character.

Clin. Would not that be right?

Ath. Perhaps; but let us observe this,—that if all things which belong to justice are beautiful, that all includes for us passions nearly as much as actions.

Clin. Well, what then?

Ath. Every just action, in so far as it shares in justice, practically in the same degree partakes of beauty.

Clin. Yes.

Ath. It is agreed also—if our argument is to be consistent— that a passion which shares in justice, becomes, so far, beautiful.

Clin. True.

Ath. But if we agree that a passion though just is unseemly, then justice and beauty will be at discord, when just things are called most unseemly.

Clin. What do you mean by that?

Ath. It is not hard to grasp. The laws we enacted a short time ago might seem to enjoin what is absolutely contrary to our present statements.

Clin. What statements?

Ath. We laid it down that it is just to put to death the temple-robber and the enemy of the rightly-enacted laws; and then, when we were minded to enact a host of similar rules, we held our hand, since we perceived that such rules involve passions infinite both in number and in magnitude, and that, although they are eminently just, they are also eminently unseemly. Thus the just and the beautiful will seem to us at one moment wholly identical, at another, utterly opposed, will they not?

Clin. I am afraid so.

Ath. Thus it is that by the multitude the beautiful and the just are flung apart, and inconsistent language is used about them.

Clin. It certainly seems so, Stranger.

Ath. Then let us look again at our own view, and see how far it is consistent in this respect.

Clin. What kind of consistency, and in respect of what, do you mean?

Ath. I believe that I expressly stated in our previous discourse,—or, if I did not do it before, please assume that I now assert—

Clin. What?

Ath. That all bad men are in all respects unwillingly bad; and, this being so, our next statement must agree therewith.

Clin. What statement do you mean?

Ath. This,—that the unjust man is, indeed, bad, but the bad man is unwillingly bad. But it is illogical to suppose that a willing deed is done unwillingly; therefore he that commits an unjust act does so unwillingly in the opinion of him who assumes that injustice is involuntary—a conclusion which I also must now allow; for I agree that all men do unjust acts unwillingly; so, since I hold this view—and do not share the opinion of those who, through contentiousness or arrogance, assert that, while there are some who are unjust against their will, yet there are also many who are unjust willingly,—how am I to prove consistent with my own statements? Suppose you two, Megillus and Clinias, put this question to me—If this is the state of the case, Stranger, what counsel do you give us in regard to legislating for the Magnesian State? Shall we legislate or shall we not? Legislate by all means, I shall reply.

Ath. Will you make a distinction, then, between voluntary and involuntary wrongdoings, and are we to enact heavier penalties for the crimes and wrongdoings that are voluntary, and lighter penalties for the others? Or shall we enact equal penalties for all, on the view that there is no such thing as a voluntary act of injustice?

Clin. What you say, Stranger, is quite right: so what use are we to make of our present arguments?

Ath. A very proper question! The use we shall make of them, to begin with, is this—

Clin. What?

Ath. Let us recall how, a moment ago, we rightly stated that in regard to justice we are suffering from the greatest confusion and inconsistency. Grasping this fact, let us again question ourselves,—As to our perplexity about these matters, since we have neither got it clear nor defined the point of difference between those two kinds of wrongdoing, voluntary and involuntary, which are treated as legally distinct in every State by every legislator who has ever yet appeared,—as to this, is the statement we recently made to stand, like a divine oracle, as a mere ex cathedra statement, unsupported by any proof, and to serve as a kind of master-enactment? That is impossible; and before we legislate we are bound first to make it clear somehow that these wrong-doings are two-fold, and wherein their difference consists, in order that when we impose the penalty on either kind, everyone may follow our rules, and be able to form some judgment regarding the suitability or otherwise of our enactments.

Clin. What you say, Stranger, appears to us to be excellent: we ought to do one of two things,—either not assert that all unjust acts are involuntary, or else make our distinctions first, then prove the correctness of that assertion.

Ath. Of these alternatives the first is to me quite intolerable—namely, not to assert what I hold to be the truth,—for that would be neither a lawful thing to do nor a pious. But as to the question how such acts are two-fold,—if the difference does not lie in that between the voluntary and the involuntary, then we must try to explain it by means of some other distinction.

Clin. Well, certainly, Stranger, about this matter there is no other plan we can possibly adopt.

Ath. It shall be done. Come now, in dealings and intercourse between citizens, injuries committed by one against another are of frequent occurrence, and they involve plenty of the voluntary as well as of the involuntary.

Clin. To be sure!

Ath. Let no one put down all injuries as acts of injustice and then regard the unjust acts involved as two-fold in the way described, namely, that they are partly voluntary and partly involuntary (for, of the total, the involuntary injuries are not less than the voluntary either in number or in magnitude); but consider whether in saying what I am now going to say I am speaking sense or absolute nonsense. For what I assert, Megillus and Clinias, is not that, if one man harms another involuntarily and without wishing it, he acts unjustly though involuntarily, nor shall I legislate in this way, pronouncing this to be an involuntary act of injustice, but I will pronounce that such an injury is not an injustice at all, whether it be a greater injury or a less. And, if my view prevails, we shall often say that the author of a benefit wrongly done commits an injustice; for as a rule, my friends, neither when a man gives some material object to another, nor when he takes it away, ought one to term such an act absolutely just or unjust, but only when a man of just character and disposition does any benefit or injury to another,—that is what the lawgiver must look at; he must consider these two things, injustice and injury, and the injury inflicted he must make good so far as possible by legal means; he must conserve what is lost, restore what has been broken down, make whole what is wounded or dead; and when the several injuries have been atoned for by compensation, he must endeavor always by means of the laws to convert the parties who have inflicted them and those who have suffered them from a state of discord to a state of amity.

Clin. He will be right in doing that.

Ath. As regards unjust injuries and gains, in case one man causes another to gain by acting unjustly towards him, all such cases as are curable we must cure, regarding them as diseases of the soul. And we should affirm that our cure for injustice lies in this direction—

Clin. What direction?

Ath. In this,—that whenever any man commits any unjust act, great or small, the law shall instruct him and absolutely compel him for the future either never willingly to dare to do such a deed, or else to do it ever so much less often, in addition to paying for the injury. To effect this, whether by action or speech, by means of pleasures and pains, honors and dishonors, money-fines and money-gifts, and in general by whatsoever means one can employ to make men hate injustice and love (or at any rate not hate) justice,—this is precisely the task of laws most noble. But for all those whom he perceives to be incurable in respect of these matters, what penalty shall the lawgiver enact, and what law?

Ath. The lawgiver will realize that in all such cases not only is it better for the sinners themselves to live no longer, but also that they will prove of a double benefit to others by quitting life—since they will both serve as a warning to the rest not to act unjustly, and also rid the State of wicked men,—and thus he will of necessity inflict death as the chastisement for their sins, in cases of this kind, and of this kind only.

Clin. What you have said seems very reasonable; but we should be glad to hear a still clearer statement respecting the difference between injury and injustice, and how the distinction between the voluntary and the involuntary applies in these cases.

Ath. I must endeavor to do as you bid me, and explain the matter. No doubt in conversing with one another you say and hear said at least thus much about the soul, that one element in its nature (be it affection or part) is passion, which is an inbred quality of a contentious and pugnacious kind, and one that overturns many things by its irrational force.

Clin. Of course.

Ath. Moreover, we distinguish pleasure from passion, and we assert that its mastering power is of an opposite kind, since it effects all that its intention desires by a mixture of persuasion and deceit.

Clin. Exactly.

Ath. Nor would it be untrue to say that the third cause of sins is ignorance. This cause, however, the lawgiver would do well to subdivide into two, counting ignorance in its simple form to be the cause of minor sins, and in its double form—where the folly is due to the man being gripped not by ignorance only, but also by a conceit of wisdom, as though he had full knowledge of things he knows nothing at all about,—counting this to be the cause of great and brutal sins when it is joined with strength and might, but the cause of childish and senile sins when it is joined with weakness; and these last he will count as sins and he will ordain laws, as for sinners, but laws that will be, above all others, of the most mild and merciful kind.

Clin. That is reasonable.

Ath. And pretty well everyone speaks of one man being superior, another inferior, to pleasure or to passion; and they are so.

Clin. Most certainly.

Ath. But we have never heard it said that one man is superior, another inferior, to ignorance.

Clin. Quite true.

Ath. And we assert that all these things urge each man often to go counter to the actual bent of his own inclination.

Clin. Very frequently.