Plato : LAWS Persons of the dialogue: An Athenian stranger - Cleinias, a Cretan  - Megillus, a Lacedaemonian Translated by Benjamin Jowett - 80 Pages (Part 1) - Greek fonts Search Plato's works / Plato Anthology / The Greek Word Library = Note by Elpenor

LAWS part 1 of 2, 3, 4, 5

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Part 1 Page 29

Ath. Does not this kind of fear preserve us in many important ways? What is there which so surely gives victory and safety in war? For there are two things which give victory - confidence before enemies, and fear of disgrace before friends.

Cle. There are.

Ath. Then each of us should be fearless and also fearful; and why we should be either has now been determined.

Cle. Certainly.

Ath. And when we want to make any one fearless, we and the law bring him face to face with many fears.

Cle. Clearly.

Ath. And when we want to make him rightly fearful, must we not introduce him to shameless pleasures, and train him to take up arms against them, and to overcome them? Or does this principle apply to courage only, and must he who would be perfect in valour fight against and overcome his own natural character - since if he be unpractised and inexperienced in such conflicts, he will not be half the man which he might have been - and are we to suppose, that with temperance it is otherwise, and that he who has never fought with the shameless and unrighteous temptations of his pleasures and lusts, and conquered them, in earnest and in play, by word, deed, and act, will still be perfectly temperate?

Cle. A most unlikely supposition.

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Laws part 2 of 3, 4, 5. You are at part 1

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