legislator. The first reason is
curious enough, though not important; the second can hardly be thought
deserving of much attention. Yet if Plato means to say that society
is one of the principal instruments of education in after-life, he has
expressed in an obscure fashion a principle which is true, and to
his contemporaries was also new. That at a banquet a degree of moral
discipline might be exercised is an original thought, but Plato has not
yet learnt to express his meaning in an abstract form. He is sensible
that moderation is better than total abstinence, and that asceticism is
but a one-sided training. He makes the sagacious remark, that 'those who
are able to resist pleasure may often be among the worst of mankind.' He
is as much aware as any modern utilitarian that the love of pleasure is
the great motive of human action. This cannot be eradicated, and must
therefore be regulated,--the pleasure must be of the right sort.
Such reflections seem to be the real, though imperfectly expressed,
groundwork of the discussion. As in the juxtaposition of the Bacchic
madness and the great gift of Dionysus, or where he speaks of the
different senses in which pleasure is and is not the object of imitative
art, or in the illustration of the failure of the Dorian institutions
from the prayer of Theseus, we have to gather his meaning as well as we
can from the connexion.

The feeling of old age is discernible in this as well as in several
other passages of the Laws. Plato has arrived at the time when men sit
still and look on at life; and he is willing to allow himself and others
the few pleasures which remain to them. Wine is to cheer them now that
their limbs are old and their blood runs cold. They are the best critics
of dancing and music, but cannot be induced to join in song unless they
have been enlivened by drinking. Youth has no need of the stimulus
of wine, but age can only be made young again by its invigorating
influence. Total abstinence for the young, moderate and increasing
potations for the old, is Plato's principle. The fire, of which there is
too much in the one, has to be brought to the other. Drunkenness, like
madness, had a sacredness and mystery to the Greek; if, on the one hand,
as in the case of the Tarentines, it degraded a whole population, it was
also a mode of worshipping the god Dionysus, which was to be practised
on certain occasions. Moreover, the intoxication produced by the fruit
of the vine was