that other States are but imitations of this, as we said a little while

ago, some for the better and some for the worse.

YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean? I cannot have understood your previous

remark about imitations.

STRANGER: And yet the mere suggestion which I hastily threw out is

highly important, even if we leave the question where it is, and do not

seek by the discussion of it to expose the error which prevails in this

matter.

YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?

STRANGER: The idea which has to be grasped by us is not easy or

familiar; but we may attempt to express it thus:--Supposing the

government of which I have been speaking to be the only true model, then

the others must use the written laws of this--in no other way can they

be saved; they will have to do what is now generally approved, although

not the best thing in the world.

YOUNG SOCRATES: What is this?

STRANGER: No citizen should do anything contrary to the laws, and any

infringement of them should be punished with death and the most extreme

penalties; and this is very right and good when regarded as the

second best thing, if you set aside the first, of which I was just now

Statesman