296
Y. Soc. It certainly would.
296
Str. Do you know what people in general say about such a case?
296
Y. Soc. I don’t recall it just now off-hand.
296
Str. Yes, it is very plausible; for they say that if anyone has anything better than the old laws to offer, he must first persuade the state, and then he may make his laws, but not otherwise.
296
Y. Soc. And is that not right?
296
Str. Perhaps. But suppose a man does not use persuasion, but makes an improvement by force. What is this force to be called? Answer me—or, no, not yet; first answer in reference to what we were talking of before.
296
Y. Soc. What do you mean?
296
Str. Suppose a physician who has right knowledge of his profession does not persuade, but forces, his patient, whether man, woman, or child, to do the better thing, though it be contrary to the written precepts, what will such violence be called? The last name in the world to call it would be unscientific and baneful error, as the phrase is, would it not? And the patient so forced might rightly say anything else rather than that he had been treated in a baneful or unscientific way by the physicians who used force upon him.
296
Y. Soc. Very true.
296
Str. But what can we call the unscientific error in the field of statesmanship? Is it not baseness and evil and injustice?
296
Y. Soc. Certainly.
296
Str. Now if people are forced, contrary to the written laws and inherited traditions, to do what is juster and nobler and better than what they did before, tell me, will not anyone who blames such use of force, unless he is to be most utterly ridiculous, always say anything or everything rather than that those who have been so forced have suffered base and unjust and evil treatment at the hands of those who forced them?
296
Y. Soc. Very true.
