final goal. During the time of their imtimacy with Socrates there were
no disputants whom they were more eager to encounter than professed
politicians.

Thus the story is told of Alcibiades--how before the age of twenty he
engaged his own guardian, Pericles, at that time prime minister of the
state, in a discussion concerning laws.

Alc. Please, Pericles, can you teach me what a law is?

Per. To be sure I can.

Alc. I should be so much obliged if you would do so. One so often
hears the epithet "law-abiding" applied in a complimentary sense; yet,
it strikes me, one hardly deserves the compliment, if one does not
know what a law is.

Per. Fortunately there is a ready answer to your difficulty. You wish
to know what a law is? Well, those are laws which the majority, being
met together in conclave, approve and enact as to what it is right to
do, and what it is right to abstain from doing.

Alc. Enact on the hypothesis that it is right to do what is good? or
to do what is bad?

Per. What is good, to be sure, young sir, not what is bad.

Alc. Supposing it is not the majority, but, as in the case of an
oligarchy, the minority, who meet and enact the rules of conduct, what
are these?