860
Clinias
Clin. What statements?
Athenian
Ath. We laid it downPlat. Laws 854b. that it is just to put to death the temple-robber and the enemy of the rightly-enacted laws; and then, when we were minded to enact a host of similar rules, we held our hand, since we perceived that such rules involve passions infinite both in number and in magnitude, and that, although they are eminently just, they are also eminently unseemly. Thus the just and the beautiful will seem to us at one moment wholly identical, at another, utterly opposed, will they not?
Clinias
Clin. I am afraid so.
Athenian
Ath. Thus it is that by the multitude the beautiful and the just are flung apart, and inconsistent language is used about them.
Clinias
Clin. It certainly seems so, Stranger.
10
Athenian
Ath. Then let us look again at our own view, and see how far it is consistent in this respect.
Clinias
Clin. What kind of consistency, and in respect of what, do you mean?
Athenian
Ath. I believe that I expressly statedPlat. Laws 731c, Plat. Laws 734b: cp. Aristot. Nic. Eth. 1109b.30 ff. in our previous discourse,—or, if I did not do it before, please assume that I now assert—
Athenian
Ath. That all bad men are in all respects unwillingly bad; and, this being so, our next statement must agree therewith.
15
Clinias
Clin. What statement do you mean?