state
should be balanced. The balance of powers saved Sparta, while the excess
of tyranny in Persia and the excess of liberty at Athens have been the
ruin of both...This discourse on politics is suddenly discovered to have
an immediate practical use; for Cleinias the Cretan is about to give
laws to a new colony.

At the beginning of the fourth book, after enquiring into the
circumstances and situation of the colony, the Athenian proceeds to make
further reflections. Chance, and God, and the skill of the legislator,
all co-operate in the formation of states. And the most favourable
condition for the foundation of a new one is when the government is
in the hands of a virtuous tyrant who has the good fortune to be
the contemporary of a great legislator. But a virtuous tyrant is a
contradiction in terms; we can at best only hope to have magistrates who
are the servants of reason and the law. This leads to the enquiry, what
is to be the polity of our new state. And the answer is, that we are to
fear God, and honour our parents, and to cultivate virtue and justice;
these are to be our first principles. Laws must be definite, and
we should create in the citizens a predisposition to obey them. The
legislator will teach as well as command; and with this view he will
prefix preambles to his principal laws.

The fifth book commences in a sort of dithyramb with another and higher
preamble about the honour due to the soul, whence are deduced the duties
of a man to his parents and his friends, to the suppliant and stranger.
He should be true and just, free from envy and excess of all sorts,
forgiving to crimes which are not incurable and are partly involuntary;
and he should have a true taste. The noblest life has the greatest
pleasures and the fewest pains...Having finished the preamble, and
touched on some other preliminary considerations, we proceed to the
Laws, beginning with the constitution of the state. This is not the best
or ideal state, having all things common, but only the second-best,
in which the land and houses are to be distributed among 5040 citizens
divided into four classes. There is to be no gold or silver among
them, and they are to have moderate wealth, and to respect number and
numerical order in all things.

In the first part of the sixth book, Plato completes his sketch of the
constitution by the appointment of officers. He explains the manner
in which guardians of the law, generals, priests, wardens of t