Athenian:  Excellent.  I was running on too fast, Cleinias, and you impinged upon me, and brought me to my senses, reminding me of what, indeed, had occurred to my mind already, that legislation was never yet rightly worked out, as I may say in passing.  Do you remember the image in which I likened the men for whom laws are now made to slaves who are doctored by slaves?  For of this you may be very sure, that if one of those empirical physicians, who practise medicine without science, were to come upon the gentleman physician talking to his gentleman patient, and using the language almost of philosophy, beginning at the beginning of the disease and discoursing about the whole nature of the body, he would burst into a hearty laugh—­he would say what most of those who are called doctors always have at their tongue’s end:  Foolish fellow, he would say, you are not healing the sick man, but you are educating him; and he does not want to be made a doctor, but to get well.

Cleinias:  And would he not be right?

Athenian:  Perhaps he would; and he might remark upon us, that he who discourses about laws, as we are now doing, is giving the citizens education and not laws; that would be rather a telling observation.

Cleinias:  Very true.

Athenian:  But we are fortunate.

Cleinias:  In what way?

Athenian:  Inasmuch as we are not compelled to give laws, but we may take into consideration every form of government, and ascertain what is best and what is most needful, and how they may both be carried into execution; and we may also, if we please, at this very moment choose what is best, or, if we prefer, what is most necessary—­which shall we do?

Cleinias:  There is something ridiculous, Stranger, in our proposing such an alternative, as if we were legislators, simply bound under some great necessity which cannot be deferred to the morrow.  But we, as I may by the grace of Heaven affirm, like gatherers of stones or beginners of some composite work, may gather a heap of materials, and out of this, at our leisure, select what is suitable for our projected construction.  Let us then suppose ourselves to be at leisure, not of necessity building, but rather like men who are partly providing materials, and partly putting them together.  And we may truly say that some of our laws, like stones, are already fixed in their places, and others lie at hand.

Athenian:  Certainly, in that case, Cleinias, our view of law will be more in accordance with nature.  For there is another matter affecting legislators, which I must earnestly entreat you to consider.

Cleinias:  What is it?

Athenian:  There are many writings to be found in cities, and among them there are discourses composed by legislators as well as by other persons.

Cleinias:  To be sure.

Athenian:  Shall we give heed rather to the writings of those others—­poets and the like, who either in metre or out of metre have recorded their advice about the conduct of life, and not to the writings of legislators? or shall we give heed to them above all?