[425c]
the quality of what follows. Does not like ever summon
like?” “Surely.” “And the final1
outcome, I presume, we would say is one complete and vigorous product of
good or the reverse.” “Of course,” said he.
“For my part, then,” I said, “for these
reasons I would not go on to try to legislate on such matters.2”
“With good reason,” said he. “But what, in
heaven's name,” said I, “about business matters, the
deals3 that men make with one another in the
agora—
1 Cf. 401 C, Demosthenes Olynth. iii. 33τέλειόν τι καὶ μέγα.
2 τὰ τοιαῦτα is slightly contemptuous. Specific commercial, industrial and criminal legislation was not compatible with the plan of the Republic, and so Plato omits it here. Much of it is given in the Laws, but even there details are left to the citizens and their rulers. Cf. on 412 B.
3 Cf. Laws 922 A, Aristotle Politics 1263 b 21. All legal relations of contract, impied contract and tort.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.