slator are the most
important. For it is he who has to determine the nature of good and
evil, and how they should be studied with a view to our instruction.
And is it not as disgraceful for Solon and Lycurgus to lay down false
precepts about the institutions of life as for Homer and Tyrtaeus?
The laws of states ought to be the models of writing, and what is at
variance with them should be deemed ridiculous. And we may further
imagine them to express the affection and good sense of a father or
mother, and not to be the fiats of a tyrant. 'Very true.'

Let us enquire more particularly about sacrilege, theft and other
crimes, for which we have already legislated in part. And this leads
us to ask, first of all, whether we are agreed or disagreed about the
nature of the honourable and just. 'To what are you referring?' I will
endeavour to explain. All are agreed that justice is honourable, whether
in men or things, and no one who maintains that a very ugly men who is
just, is in his mind fair, would be thought extravagant. 'Very true.'
But if honour is to be attributed to justice, are just sufferings
honourable, or only just actions? 'What do you mean?' Our laws supply a
case in point; for we enacted that the robber of temples and the traitor
should die; and this was just, but the reverse of honourable. In this
way does the language of the many rend asunder the just and honourable.
'That is true.' But is our own language consistent? I have already said
that the evil are involuntarily evil; and the evil are the unjust. Now
the voluntary cannot be the involuntary; and if you two come to me
and say, 'Then shall we legislate for our city?' Of course, I shall
reply.--'Then will you distinguish what crimes are voluntary and what
involuntary, and shall we impose lighter penalties on the latter, and
heavier on the former? Or shall we refuse to determine what is the
meaning of voluntary and involuntary, and maintain that our words have
come down from heaven, and that they should be at once embodied in a
law?' All states legislate under the idea that there are two classes of
actions, the voluntary and the involuntary, but there is great confusion
about them in the minds of men; and the law can never act unless they
are distinguished. Either we must abstain from affirming that unjust
actions are involuntary, or explain the meaning of this statement.
Believing, then, that acts of injustice cannot be divided into voluntary
and involuntar