STRANGER: To go against the laws, which are based upon long experience,

and the wisdom of counsellors who have graciously recommended them and

persuaded the multitude to pass them, would be a far greater and more

ruinous error than any adherence to written law?

YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.

STRANGER: Therefore, as there is a danger of this, the next best thing

in legislating is not to allow either the individual or the multitude to

break the law in any respect whatever.

YOUNG SOCRATES: True.

STRANGER: The laws would be copies of the true particulars of action as

far as they admit of being written down from the lips of those who have

knowledge?

YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly they would.

STRANGER: And, as we were saying, he who has knowledge and is a true

Statesman, will do many things within his own sphere of action by his

art without regard to the laws, when he is of opinion that something

other than that which he has written down and enjoined to be observed

during his absence would be better.