ompels against his will to do something for his
good which is contrary to the written rules; what is this compulsion to
be called? Would you ever dream of calling it a violation of the art,
or a breach of the laws of health? Nothing could be more unjust than for
the patient to whom such violence is applied, to charge the physician
who practises the violence with wanting skill or aggravating his
disease.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Most true.

STRANGER: In the political art error is not called disease, but evil, or
disgrace, or injustice.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite true.

STRANGER: And when the citizen, contrary to law and custom, is compelled
to do what is juster and better and nobler than he did before, the last
and most absurd thing which he could say about such violence is that
he has incurred disgrace or evil or injustice at the hands of those who
compelled him.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.

STRANGER: And shall we say that the violence, if exercised by a rich
man, is just, and if by a poor man, unjust? May not any man, rich or
poor, with or without laws, with the will of the citizens or against
the will of the citizens, do what is for their interest? Is not this the
true principle of government, according to which the wise and good
man will order the affairs of his subjects? As the pilot, by watching
continually over the interests of the ship and of the crew,--not by
laying down rules, but by making his art a law,--preserves the lives of
his fellow-sailors, even so, and in the self-same way, may there not
be a true form of polity created by those who are able to govern in a
similar spirit, and who show a strength of art which is superior to the
law? Nor can wise rulers ever err while they observing the one great
rule of distributing justice to the citizens with intelligence and
skill, are able to preserve them, and, as far as may be, to make them
better from being worse.

YOUNG SOCRATES: No one can deny what has been now said.

STRANGER: Neither, if you consider, can any one deny the other
statement.

YOUNG SOCRATES: What was it?

STRANGER: We said that no great number of persons, whoever they may be,
can attain political knowledge, or order a State wisely, but that the
true government is to be found in a small body, or in an individual, and
that other States are but imitations of this, as we said a little while
ago, some for the better and some for the worse.

YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean? I cannot have understo