meals, and practise gymnastics, and bear arms? 'My answer is, that all our
institutions are of a military character. We lead the life of the camp
even in time of peace, keeping up the organization of an army, and having
meals in common; and as our country, owing to its ruggedness, is ill-
suited for heavy-armed cavalry or infantry, our soldiers are archers,
equipped with bows and arrows. The legislator was under the idea that war
was the natural state of all mankind, and that peace is only a pretence;
he thought that no possessions had any value which were not secured
against enemies.' And do you think that superiority in war is the proper
aim of government? 'Certainly I do, and my Spartan friend will agree with
me.' And are there wars, not only of state against state, but of village
against village, of family against family, of individual against
individual? 'Yes.' And is a man his own enemy? 'There you come to first
principles, like a true votary of the goddess Athene; and this is all the
better, for you will the sooner recognize the truth of what I am saying--
that all men everywhere are the enemies of all, and each individual of
every other and of himself; and, further, that there is a victory and
defeat--the best and the worst--which each man sustains, not at the hands
of another, but of himself.' And does this extend to states and villages
as well as to individuals? 'Certainly; there is a better in them which
conquers or is conquered by the worse.' Whether the worse ever really
conquers the better, is a question which may be left for the present; but
your meaning is, that bad citizens do sometimes overcome the good, and
that the state is then conquered by herself, and that when they are
defeated the state is victorious over herself. Or, again, in a family
there may be several brothers, and the bad may be a majority; and when the
bad majority conquer the good minority, the family are worse than
themselves. The use of the terms 'better or worse than himself or
themselves' may be doubtful, but about the thing meant there can be no
dispute. 'Very true.' Such a struggle might be determined by a judge. And