A
good man (they think), since he lives with his mind fixed on what is
noble, will submit to argument, while a bad man, whose desire is for
pleasure, is corrected by pain like a beast of burden. This is, too,
why they say the pains inflicted should be those that are most opposed
to the pleasures such men love.
However that may be, if (as we have said) the man who is to be
good must be well trained and habituated, and go on to spend his
time in worthy occupations and neither willingly nor unwillingly do
bad actions, and if this can be brought about if men live in
accordance with a sort of reason and right order, provided this has
force,-if this be so, the paternal command indeed has not the required
force or compulsive power (nor in general has the command of one
man, unless he be a king or something similar), but the law has
compulsive power, while it is at the same time a rule proceeding
from a sort of practical wisdom and reason. And while people hate
men who oppose their impulses, even if they oppose them rightly, the
law in its ordaining of what is good is not burdensome.
In the Spartan state alone, or almost alone, the legislator seems to
have paid attention to questions of nurture and occupations; in most
states such matters have been neglected, and each man lives as he
pleases, Cyclops-fashion, 'to his own wife and children dealing
law'.
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