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[313b] or between stone and stone, in point of being gold or stone; and so neither does law differ at all from law, I suppose, but they are all the same thing. For each of them is law alike, not one more so, and another less. That is the particular point of my question—what is law as a whole? So if you are ready, tell me.

Companion
Well, what else should law be, Socrates, but things loyally accepted?1

Socrates
And so speech, you think, is the things that are spoken, or sight the things seen, or hearing the things heard? Or is speech


1 νομιζόμενα in ordinary speech meant “accepted by custom” : “loyally” here attempts to preserve the connection with νόμος ( “law” in this context, though sometimes “custom,” as below, 315 D).

Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1925.

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