of the others. Remember that I am more in the way of hearing criticisms of
your laws than you can be; for in well-ordered states like Crete and
Sparta, although an old man may sometimes speak of them in private to a
ruler or elder, a similar liberty is not allowed to the young. But now
being alone we shall not offend your legislator by a friendly examination
of his laws. 'Take any freedom which you like.'

My first observation is, that your lawgiver ordered you to endure
hardships, because he thought that those who had not this discipline would
run away from those who had. But he ought to have considered further, that
those who had never learned to resist pleasure would be equally at the
mercy of those who had, and these are often among the worst of mankind.
Pleasure, like fear, would overcome them and take away their courage and
freedom. 'Perhaps; but I must not be hasty in giving my assent.'

Next as to temperance: what institutions have you which are adapted to
promote temperance? 'There are the common meals and gymnastic exercises.'
These are partly good and partly bad, and, as in medicine, what is good at
one time and for one person, is bad at another time and for another
person. Now although gymnastics and common meals do good, they are also a
cause of evil in civil troubles, and they appear to encourage unnatural
love, as has been shown at Miletus, in Boeotia, and at Thurii. And the
Cretans are said to have invented the tale of Zeus and Ganymede in order
to justify their evil practices by the example of the God who was their
lawgiver. Leaving the story, we may observe that all law has to do with
pleasure and pain; these are two fountains which are ever flowing in human
nature, and he who drinks of them when and as much as he ought, is happy,
and he who indulges in them to excess, is miserable. 'You may be right,
but I still incline to think that the Lacedaemonian lawgiver did well in
forbidding pleasure, if I may judge from the result. For there is no