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Now everyone would admit, I think, that our laws have been the source of very many and very great benefits to the life of humanity.Cf. Isoc. 4.39-40. But our enjoyment of these laws is a boon which, in the very nature of the case, is limited to the affairs of our state and to the engagements which you enter into with each other; whereas, if you would heed my words, you might direct the whole of Hellas with honor and justice and, at the same time, with advantage to Athens.
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Men of wisdom ought to concern themselves both for the interests of our city and for the interests of Hellas, but should give preference to the broader and worthier cause;See General lntrod. p. xxxii. and they ought, furthermore, to appreciate the fact that while any number of men both among the Hellenes and among the barbarians have been able to lay down laws, there are not many who can discourse upon questions of public welfare in a spirit worthy both of Athens and of Hellas.
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For these reasons, men who make it their duty to invent discourses of that kind should be held in higher esteem than those who propose and write down laws, inasmuch as they are rarer, have the more difficult task, and must have superior qualities of mind. Especially is this true in our day;
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for, at the time when the human race was beginning to come into existence and to settle together in cities,Cf. Isoc. 4.32 ff. it was natural that their searching should have been for much the same thing; but today, on the other hand, when we have advanced to the point where the discourses which have been spoken and the laws which have been laid down are innumerable, and where we single out the oldest among laws and the newest among discourses for our praise, these tasks no longer call for the same understanding;
