Kitap 9
857
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 madePlat. Laws 720a. 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.
857
Clin. And in saying so, would he not be right?
857
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?
857
Clin. Probably.
857
Ath. How fortunate we are in the conclusion we have now come to!
857
Clin. What conclusion?
858
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.
