857–858
Athenian
Ath. How fortunate we are in the conclusion we have now come to!
Clinias
Clin. What conclusion?
Athenian
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.
Clinias
Clin. The choice we propose, Stranger, is an absurd one: we should be acting like legislators who were driven by some overpowering necessity to pass laws on the spot, because it is impossible for them to do so on the morrow. But for us (if Heaven will) it is quite possible to do as bricklayers do, or men starting on any other kind of construction,—that is, to collect material piecemeal, from which we may select what is suitable for the edifice we intend to build, and, what is more, select it at our leisure. Let us assume, then, that we are not now building under compulsion, but that we are still at leisure, and engaged partly in collecting material and partly in putting it together; so that we may rightly say that our laws are being in part already erected and in part collected.
Athenian
Ath. In this way, Clinias, our survey of laws will at any rate follow nature’s course more closely. Now let us consider, I adjure you, the following point about legislators.
Clinias
Clin. What point?