should be tested in his cups, as we test his courage amid dangers. He
should have a fear of the right sort, as well as a courage of the right
sort.

At the beginning of the second book the subject of pleasure leads to
education, which in the early years of life is wholly a discipline
imparted by the means of pleasure and pain. The discipline of pleasure is
implanted chiefly by the practice of the song and the dance. Of these the
forms should be fixed, and not allowed to depend on the fickle breath of
the multitude. There will be choruses of boys, girls, and grown-up
persons, and all will be heard repeating the same strain, that 'virtue is
happiness.' One of them will give the law to the rest; this will be the
chorus of aged minstrels, who will sing the most beautiful and the most
useful of songs. They will require a little wine, to mellow the austerity
of age, and make them amenable to the laws.

After having laid down as the first principle of politics, that peace, and
not war, is the true aim of the legislator, and briefly discussed music
and festive intercourse, at the commencement of the third book Plato makes
a digression, in which he speaks of the origin of society. He describes,
first of all, the family; secondly, the patriarchal stage, which is an
aggregation of families; thirdly, the founding of regular cities, like
Ilium; fourthly, the establishment of a military and political system,
like that of Sparta, with which he identifies Argos and Messene, dating
from the return of the Heraclidae. But the aims of states should be good,
or else, like the prayer of Theseus, they may be ruinous to themselves.
This was the case in two out of three of the Heracleid kingdoms. They did
not understand that the powers in a state should be balanced. The balance
of powers saved Sparta, while the excess of tyranny in Persia and the
excess of liberty at Athens have been the ruin of both...This discourse on