Plato, Laws 857a–861e: Book IX: The lawgiver as student; laws as the finest of writings; justice, beauty and wrongdoing

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!