Complete Works (79 page)

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: That’s so.

V
ISITOR
: Then let’s suppose the same about the legislator too, the person who will direct his herds in relation to justice and their contracts with one
[295]
another: he will never be capable, in prescribing for everyone together, of assigning accurately to each individual what is appropriate for him.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What you say certainly sounds reasonable.

V
ISITOR
: Instead he will, I think, set down the law for each and every one according to the principle of ‘for the majority of people, for the majority of cases, and roughly, somehow, like this’, whether expressing it in writing or in unwritten form, legislating by means of ancestral customs.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Correct.

V
ISITOR
: Yes, it certainly is. For how would anyone ever be capable, Socrates, of sitting beside each individual perpetually throughout his life [b] and accurately prescribing what is appropriate to him? Since in my view, if he were capable of this, any one of those who had really acquired the expert knowledge of kingship would hardly put obstacles in his own way by writing down these laws we talked about.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: It certainly follows from what we have now said, visitor.

V
ISITOR
: Yes, but more, my good friend, from the things that are going to be said.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: And what are they?

V
ISITOR
: Things like the following. Are we to say—that is, between us—that if a doctor, or else some gymnastic trainer, were going to be out of [c] the country and away from his charges for what he thought would be a long time, and thought that the people being trained, or his patients, would not remember the instructions he had given them, he would want to write down reminders for them—or what are we to say?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: As you suggested.

V
ISITOR
: But what if he came back unexpectedly, having been away for less time than he thought he would be? Do you think he wouldn’t propose other prescriptions, contrary to the ones he had written down, when things [d] turned out to be different, and better, for his patients because of winds or else some other of the things that come from Zeus which had come about contrary to expectation, in some way differently from the usual pattern? Would he obstinately think that neither he nor the patient should step outside those ancient laws that had once been laid down—he himself by giving other instructions, the patient by daring to do different things contrary to what was written down—on the grounds that these were the rules of the art of medicine and of health, and that things that happened differently were unhealthy and not part of his expertise? Or would all such things, if they happened in the context of truly expert knowledge, [e] cause altogether the greatest ridicule, in all spheres, for acts of legislation of this sort?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Absolutely right.

V
ISITOR
: And as for the person who has written down what is just and unjust, fine and shameful, good and bad, or has laid down unwritten laws on these subjects, for all those herds of human beings that graze, city by city, according to the laws of those who wrote them down in each case—if the person who wrote them on the basis of expertise, or someone else
[296]
resembling him, arrives, is it really not to be permitted to him to give different instructions contrary to these? Or wouldn’t this prohibition appear in truth no less ridiculous than the other one?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Of course.

V
ISITOR
: Well then, do you know what the majority of people say in such a case?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: It doesn’t come to mind for the moment, just like that.

V
ISITOR
: Well, it sounds fine enough. What they say is that if someone recognizes laws that are better, contrary to those established by people before him, then he must introduce them by persuading his city to accept them in each case, but not otherwise.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Well then? Is that not a correct view?

[b] V
ISITOR
: Perhaps. But first things first: if someone forces through what is better without the use of persuasion, tell me, what will be the name to give to the use of force in this case? No—not yet; answer me first in relation to the previous cases.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What do you mean?

V
ISITOR
: If then—to continue with our example—someone does not persuade his patient, but has a correct grasp of the relevant expertise, and forces child, or man, or woman, to do what is better, contrary to what has been written down, what will be the name to give to this use of force? Surely anything rather than what we called an unhealthy mistake contrary [c] to the expertise in question? And the last thing the person who was the object of such force can correctly say about such a thing is that he had unhealthy things done to him by the doctors who used force on him, things that did not belong to their expertise?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What you say is very true.

V
ISITOR
: And what do we really suppose to be the sort of mistake we’re talking about, the one in contravention of the expertise of the statesman? Isn’t it what is shameful, what is bad,
⁵⁸
and unjust?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: I agree, absolutely.

V
ISITOR
: Then those who have been forced, contrary to what has been written down and to ancestral custom, to do different things that are more [d] just, better and finer than the things they did before—tell me, if people in this kind of situation for their part censure this kind of use of force, isn’t it true that, if their censure isn’t to be the most laughable of all, they must say anything on each occasion rather than that those who have been forced have had shameful, unjust and bad things done to them by those who did the forcing?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What you say is very true.

V
ISITOR
: But are the things forced on them just, if the person who did the forcing is rich, and unjust if he happens to be poor? Or if, whether by using persuasion or not, whether as a rich or a poor man, or according to written law or contrary to it, he does what is not to the benefit of the [e] citizens
⁵⁹
or what is to their benefit, must that be the criterion, and must it have to do with these things—the truest criterion of correct government of a city, the one according to which the wise and good man will govern the interests of the ruled? Just as a steersman, always watching out for what is to the benefit of the ship and the sailors, preserves his fellow sailors
[297]
not by putting things down in writing but offering his expertise as law, so too in this same manner a constitution would be correct, would it not, if it issued from those who are able to rule in this way, offering the strength of their expertise as more powerful than the laws? And there is no mistake, is there, for wise rulers, whatever they do, provided that they watch for [b] one great thing, that by always distributing to those in the city what is most just, as judged by the intelligent application of their expertise, they are able both to preserve them and so far as they can to bring it about that they are better than they were?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: It is certainly not possible to contradict what has just been said.

V
ISITOR
: And neither should one contradict those other things we said.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What are you referring to?

V
ISITOR
: That a mass of any people whatsoever would never be able to acquire this sort of expert knowledge and so govern a city with intelligence; and that we must look for that one constitution, the correct one, in relation [c] to a small element in the population, few in number, or even a single individual, putting down the other constitutions as imitations, as was said a little earlier, some of them imitating this one for the better, the others for the worse.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What do you mean by this? What are you saying? For I did not understand the point about imitations when it was made just now
⁶⁰
either.

V
ISITOR
: And it’s no small matter, if one stirs up this subject and then proceeds to leave it where it is instead of going through it and showing the mistake that now occurs in relation to it. [d]

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What mistake is that?

V
ISITOR
: This sort of thing we must hunt for, since it is not altogether what we are used to or easy to see; but all the same let’s try to get hold of it. Tell me: given that this constitution we have talked about is on our view the only correct one, do you recognize that the others ought to employ the written documents that belong to this one, and save themselves in that way, doing what is now praised, although it is not the most correct thing to do?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What are you referring to?

V
ISITOR
: The principle that no one in the city should dare to do anything [e] contrary to the laws, and that the person who dares to do so should be punished by death and all the worst punishments. This is very correct and fine as a second choice, when one changes the principle we discussed just now,
⁶¹
which is our first choice; but let us go over the way in which what we have called ‘second-best’ has come about. Do you agree?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Absolutely.

V
ISITOR
: Well then, let’s go back to the likenesses to which we must always compare our kingly rulers.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Which likenesses?

V
ISITOR
: The noble steersman and the doctor who is ‘worth many others’.
⁶²
Let us look at the matter by fashioning a kind of figure, using these as material.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: A figure of what kind?

[298]
V
ISITOR
: Of the following sort: let’s suppose that we all thought of them as doing the most terrible things to us. For the one as much as the other saves whichever of us he wishes to save; and whichever of us they wish to mutilate, they do it by cutting and burning us and directing us to pay them expenses as if they were taxes, of which they spend little or none [b] on the patient, while they themselves and their household use the rest; and the final step is for them to take money from relatives or some enemies of the patient as pay for killing him. And steersmen, in their turn, bring about thousands of other things of a similar sort, leaving people stranded on voyages because of some conspiracy or other, causing shipwrecks on the seas and throwing people overboard, and doing other malicious things. Let’s suppose then that we thought this, and came to a conclusion about [c] them in a sort of council, no longer to allow either of these sorts of expertise to have autonomous control either of slaves or of free men, but to call together an assembly with ourselves as members, consisting either of the people all together or only of the rich. The rule would be that both laymen and craftsmen other than steersmen and doctors would be permitted to contribute an opinion, whether about sailing or about diseases, as to the basis on which drugs and the tools of the doctor’s art should be used on [d] patients, and even how to employ ships themselves, and the tools of the sailor’s art for operating them, for facing not only the dangers affecting the voyage itself from winds and sea, but encounters with pirates, and perhaps, if it should turn out to be necessary, for fighting a sea battle with long ships against others of the same type. And once there was a record, on
kurbeis
⁶³
or blocks of stone of some sort, of what the majority had decided, whether with the advice of some doctors and steersmen or of those who had no specialized knowledge of medicine or steersmanship, [e] then all our sailing and caring for patients for all future time would have to be done according to this, along with certain other rules established as unwritten ancestral customs.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What you’ve described is distinctly odd.

V
ISITOR
: Yes—and let’s suppose that a further conclusion was that we should set up officers annually who belong to the mass of people, whether from the rich or from the whole people, whoever has office assigned to him by lot; and that those who take office should execute it by steering the ships and healing patients according to the written rules.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: This is even harder to take.

V
ISITOR
: Then consider too what follows after this. When the year ends for each and every one of the officers, there will be a requirement to set up courts, either of the rich on the basis of preselection or again those
[299]
chosen by lot from the whole people together, and to bring before these judges those who have held office, in order to examine their conduct. Anyone who wishes will be permitted to charge an officer that he failed to steer the ships during the year according to the written rules or according to the ancient customs of our ancestors. There will be these same requirements also in the case of those healing the sick, and for any officers condemned by the vote, the judges will have to assess what penalty they should suffer or what financial restitution they should make.