[20] Plato, Minos, 315 A-B.
Objection taken by the Companion — That there is great discordance of laws in different places — he specifies several cases of such discordance at some length. Sokrates reproves his prolixity, and requests him to confine himself to question or answer.
(The Companion here enumerates some remarkable local rites, venerable in one place, abhorrent in another, such as the human sacrifices at Carthage, &c., thus lengthening his answer much beyond what it had been before. Sokrates then continues):
Sokr. — Perhaps you are right, and these matters have escaped me. But if you and I go on making long speeches each for ourselves, we shall never come to an agreement. If we are to carry on our research together, we must do so by question and answer. Question me, if you prefer:— if not, answer me. Comp. — I am quite ready, Sokrates, to answer whatever you ask.
Farther questions by Sokrates — Things heavy and light, just and unjust, honourable and dishonourable, &c., are so, and are accounted so everywhere. Real things are always accounted real. Whoever fails in attaining the real, fails in attaining the lawful.
Sokr. — Well, then! do you think that just things are just and unjust things are unjust? Comp. — I think they are. Sokr. — Do not all men in all communities, among the Persians as well as here, now as well as formerly, think so too? Comp. — Unquestionably they do. Sokr. — Are not things which weigh more, accounted heavier; and things which weigh less, accounted lighter, here, at Carthage, and everywhere else?[21] Comp. — Certainly. Sokr. — It seems, then, that honourable things are accounted honourable everywhere, and dishonourable things dishonourable? not the reverse. Comp. — Yes, it is so. Sokr. — Then, speaking universally, existent things or realities (not non-existents) are accounted existent and real, among us as well as among all other men? Comp. — I think they are. Sokr. — Whoever therefore fails in attaining the real fails in attaining the lawful.[22] Comp. — As you now put it, Sokrates, it would seem that the same things are accounted lawful both by us at all times, and by all the rest of mankind besides. But when I reflect that we are perpetually changing our laws, I cannot persuade myself of what you affirm.
[21] Plato, Minos, 316 A. Πότερον δὲ τὰ πλεῖον ἔλκοντα βαρύτερα νομίζεται ἐνθάδε, τὰ δὲ ἔλαττον, κουφότερα, ἢ τοὐναντίον;
The verb νομίζεται deserves attention here, being the same word as has been employed in regard to law, and derived from νόμος.
[22] Plato, Minos, 316 B. οὐκοῦν, ὡς κατὰ πάντων εἰπεῖν, τὰ ὄντα νομίζεται εἶναι, οὐ τὰ μὴ ὄντα, καὶ παρ’ ἡμῖν καὶ παρὰ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἅπασιν. Comp. Ἔμοιγε δοκεῖ. Sokr. Ὃς ἂν ἄρα τοῦ ὄντος ἁμαρτάνῃ, τοῦ νομίμου ἁμαρτάνει.
There are laws of health and of cure, composed by the few physicians wise upon those subjects, and unanimously declared by them. So also there are laws of farming, gardening, cookery, declared by the few wise in those respective pursuits. In like manner, the laws of a city are the judgments declared by the few wise men who know how to rule.