Nothing in life seems to be of much importance to them; they are
spectators rather than actors, and men in general appear to the Athenian
speaker to be the playthings of the Gods and of circumstances. Still they
have a fatherly care of the young, and are deeply impressed by sentiments
of religion. They would give confidence to the aged by an increasing use
of wine, which, as they get older, is to unloose their tongues and make
them sing. The prospect of the existence of the soul after death is
constantly present to them; though they can hardly be said to have the
cheerful hope and resignation which animates Socrates in the Phaedo or
Cephalus in the Republic. Plato appears to be expressing his own feelings
in remarks of this sort. For at the time of writing the first book of the
Laws he was at least seventy-four years of age, if we suppose him to
allude to the victory of the Syracusans under Dionysius the Younger over
the Locrians, which occurred in the year 356. Such a sadness was the
natural effect of declining years and failing powers, which make men ask,
'After all, what profit is there in life?' They feel that their work is
beginning to be over, and are ready to say, 'All the world is a stage;'
or, in the actual words of Plato, 'Let us play as good plays as we can,'
though 'we must be sometimes serious, which is not agreeable, but
necessary.' These are feelings which have crossed the minds of reflective
persons in all ages, and there is no reason to connect the Laws any more
than other parts of Plato's writings with the very uncertain narrative of
his life, or to imagine that this melancholy tone is attributable to
disappointment at having failed to convert a Sicilian tyrant into a
philosopher.

II. The plan of the Laws is more irregular and has less connexion than any
other of the writings of Plato. As Aristotle says in the Politics, 'The
greater part consists of laws'; in Books v, vi, xi, xii the dialogue
almost entirely disappears. Large portions of them are rather the