Book 4
4.20
Is not the duty of honouring parents another universal law?Yes, that is another.And that parents shall not have sexual intercourse with their children nor children with their parents?Cyropaedia V. i. 10.No, I don’t think that is a law of God.Why so?Because I notice that some transgress it.
4.21
Yes, and they do many other things contrary to the laws. But surely the transgressors of the laws ordained by the gods pay a penalty that a man can in no wise escape, as some, when they transgress the laws ordained by man, escape punishment, either by concealment or by violence.
4.22
And pray what sort of penalty is it, Socrates, that may not be avoided by parents and children who have intercourse with one another?The greatest, of course. For what greater penalty can men incur when they beget children than begetting them badly?
4.23
How do they beget children badly then, if, as may well happen, the fathers are good men and the mothers good women?Surely because it is not enough that the two parents should be good. They must also be in full bodily vigour: unless you suppose that those who are in full vigour are no more efficient as parents than those who have not yet reached that condition or have passed it.Of course that is unlikely.Which are the better then?Those who are in full vigour, clearly.Consequently those who are not in full vigour are not competent to become parents?It is improbable, of course.In that case then, they ought not to have children?Certainly not.Therefore those who produce children in such circumstances produce them wrongly?I think so.Who then will be bad fathers and mothers, if not they?I agree with you there too.
