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[9]
But doubtless it is not enough for people to receive the right
nurture and discipline in youth; they must also practice the lessons they have learnt, and
confirm them by habit, when they are grown up. Accordingly we shall need laws to regulate
the discipline of adults as well, and in fact the whole life of the people generally; for
the many are more amenable to compulsion and punishment than to reason and to moral
ideals.
[10]
Hence some persons hold,1 that while it is proper for the lawgiver to encourage and exhort men to virtue on
moral grounds, in the expectation that those who have had a virtuous moral upbringing will
respond, yet he is bound to impose chastisement and penalties on the disobedient and
ill-conditioned, and to banish the incorrigible out of the state altogether.2 For (they argue) although the virtuous man, who guides his life
by moral ideals, will be obedient to reason, the base, whose desires are fixed on
pleasure, must be chastised by pain, like a beast of burden. This indeed is the ground for
the view that the pains and penalties for transgressors should be such as are most opposed
to their favorite pleasures.
[11]
But to resume: if, as has been said, in order to be good a man must have been properly
educated and trained, and must subsequently continue to follow virtuous habits of life,
and to do nothing base whether voluntarily or involuntarily, then this will be secured if
men's lives are regulated by a certain intelligence, and by a right system, invested with
adequate sanctions.
[12]
Now paternal authority has not the
power to compel obedience, nor indeed, speaking
generally, has the authority of any individual unless he be a king or the like; but law on
the other hand is a rule, emanating from a certain wisdom and intelligence, that has
compulsory force. Men are hated when they thwart people's inclinations, even though they
do so rightly, whereas law can enjoin virtuous conduct without being invidious.
[13]
But Sparta appears to be
the only or almost the only state in which the lawgiver has paid attention to the nurture
and exercises of the citizens; in most states such matters have been entirely neglected,
and every man lives as he likes, in Cyclops
fashion ‘laying down the law For children and for spouse.’3
[14]
The best thing is then that there should be a proper system of public regulation; but
when the matter is neglected by the community, it would seem to be the duty of the
individual to assist his own children and friends to attain virtue, or even if not able to
do so successfully,4 at all events to make
this his aim. But it would seem to follow from what has been said before, that he will be
more likely to be successful in this if he has acquired the science of legislation. Public
regulations in any case must clearly be established by law, and only good laws will
produce good regulations;
3 Hom. Od. 9.114 f., quoted in Aristot. Pol. 1252b 22.
4 This clause, literally ‘and to be able to do it,’ Bywater would place here; it comes in the mss. after ‘public regulation’ above.