[28] Plato, Politik. p. 293 B-E.
[29] Plato, Politik. p. 297 A. οὐ γράμματα τιθεὶς ἀλλὰ τὴν τέχνην νόμον παρεχόμενος.
[30] Plato, Politik. pp. 300 C, 295 B-C.
[31] Plato, Politik. p. 296 C-D.
[32] Plato, Politik. p. 297 A.
Fixed laws, limiting the scientific Governor, are mischievous, as they would be for the physician and the steersman. Absurdity of determining medical practice by laws, and presuming every one to know it.
How mischievous would it be (continues the Eleate) if we prescribed by fixed laws how the physician or the steersman should practise their respective arts: if we held them bound to peremptory rules, punishing them whenever they departed from those rules, and making them accountable before the Dikastery, when any one accused them of doing so: if we consecrated these rules and dogmas, forbidding all criticism or censure upon them, and putting to death the free enquirer as a dreaming, prosy, Sophist, corrupting the youth and inciting lawless discontent![33] How absurd, if we pretended that every citizen did know, or might or ought to know, these two arts; because the matters concerning them were enrolled in the laws, and because no one ought to be wiser than the laws?[34] Who would think of imposing any such fetters on other arts, such as those of the general, the painter, the husbandman, the carpenter, the prophet, the cattle-dealer? To impose them would be to render life, hard as it is even now, altogether intolerable. Yet these are the trammels under which in actual cities the political Art is exercised.[35]
[33] Plato, Politik. pp. 298-299. 299 B: Καὶ τοίνυν ἔτι δεήσει θέσθαι νόμον ἐπὶ πᾶσι τούτοις, ἄν τις κυβερνητικὴν καὶ τὸ ναυτικὸν ἢ τὸ ὑγιεινὸν καὶ ἰατρικῆς ἀληθείαν … ζητῶν φαίνηται παρὰ τὰ γράμματα καὶ σοφιζόμενος ὁτιοῦν περὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα, πρῶτον μὲν μήτε ἰατρικὸν αὐτὸν μήτε κυβερνητικὸν ὀνομάζειν, ἀλλὰ μετεωρόλογον ἀδολέσχην τινὰ σοφιστὴν εἶθ’ ὡς διαφθείροντα ἄλλους νεωτέρους καὶ ἀναπείθοντα ἐπιτίθεσθαι κυβερνητικῇ, &c.
[34] Plato, Polit. p. 299 C. ἂν δὲ παρὰ τοὺς νόμους καὶ τὰ γεγραμμένα δόξῃ πείθειν εἴτε νέους εἴτε πρεσβύτας, κολάζειν τοῖς ἐσχάτοις. Οὐδὲν γὰρ δεῖν τῶν νόμων, εἶναι σοφώτερον· οὐδένα γὰρ ἀγνοεῖν τό τε ἰατρικὸν καὶ τὸ ὑγιεινὸν οὐδὲ τὸ κυβερνητικὸν καὶ ναυτικόν· ἐξεῖναι γὰρ τῷ βουλομένῳ μανθάνειν γεγραμμένα καὶ πάτρια ἔθη κείμενα.
[35] Plato, Polit. p. 299 D-E. ὥστε ὁ βίος, ὡν καὶ νῦν χαλεπός, εἰς τὸν χρόνον ἐκεῖνον ἀβίωτος γίγνοιτ’ ἂν τὸ παράπαν.