rises above law to the conception of the living voice of the lawgiver, who
is able to provide for individual cases. A similar thought is repeated in
the Laws: 'If in the order of nature, and by divine destiny, a man were
able to apprehend the truth about these things, he would have no need of
laws to rule over him; for there is no law or order above knowledge, nor
can mind without impiety be deemed the subject or slave of any, but rather
the lord of all.' The union of opposite natures, who form the warp and the
woof of the political web, is a favourite thought which occurs in both
dialogues (Laws; Statesman).

The Laws are confessedly a Second-best, an inferior Ideal, to which Plato
has recourse, when he finds that the city of Philosophers is no longer
'within the horizon of practical politics.' But it is curious to observe
that the higher Ideal is always returning (compare Arist. Polit.), and
that he is not much nearer the actual fact, nor more on the level of
ordinary life in the Laws than in the Republic. It is also interesting to
remark that the new Ideal is always falling away, and that he hardly
supposes the one to be more capable of being realized than the other.
Human beings are troublesome to manage; and the legislator cannot adapt
his enactments to the infinite variety of circumstances; after all he must
leave the administration of them to his successors; and though he would
have liked to make them as permanent as they are in Egypt, he cannot
escape from the necessity of change. At length Plato is obliged to
institute a Nocturnal Council which is supposed to retain the mind of the
legislator, and of which some of the members are even supposed to go
abroad and inspect the institutions of foreign countries, as a foundation
for changes in their own. The spirit of such changes, though avoiding the
extravagance of a popular assembly, being only so much change as the
conservative temper of old members is likely to allow, is nevertheless
inconsistent with the fixedness of Egypt which Plato wishes to impress