punishment of theft.  There is, too, the so-called Crypteia or secret service, in which our youth wander about the country night and day unattended, and even in winter go unshod and have no beds to lie on.  Moreover they wrestle and exercise under a blazing sun, and they have many similar customs.’  Well, but is courage only a combat against fear and pain, and not against pleasure and flattery?  ‘Against both, I should say.’  And which is worse,—­to be overcome by pain, or by pleasure?  ‘The latter.’  But did the lawgivers of Crete and Sparta legislate for a courage which is lame of one leg,—­able to meet the attacks of pain but not those of pleasure, or for one which can meet both?  ’For a courage which can meet both, I should say.’  But if so, where are the institutions which train your citizens to be equally brave against pleasure and pain, and superior to enemies within as well as without?  ’We confess that we have no institutions worth mentioning which are of this character.’  I am not surprised, and will therefore only request forbearance on the part of us all, in case the love of truth should lead any of us to censure the laws of the others.  Remember that I am more in the way of hearing criticisms of your laws than you can be; for in well-ordered states like Crete and Sparta, although an old man may sometimes speak of them in private to a ruler or elder, a similar liberty is not allowed to the young.  But now being alone we shall not offend your legislator by a friendly examination of his laws.  ‘Take any freedom which you like.’

My first observation is, that your lawgiver ordered you to endure hardships, because he thought that those who had not this discipline would run away from those who had.  But he ought to have considered further, that those who had never learned to resist pleasure would be equally at the mercy of those who had, and these are often among the worst of mankind.  Pleasure, like fear, would overcome them and take away their courage and freedom.  ‘Perhaps; but I must not be hasty in giving my assent.’

Next as to temperance:  what institutions have you which are adapted to promote temperance?  ‘There are the common meals and gymnastic exercises.’  These are partly good and partly bad, and, as in medicine, what is good at one time and for one person, is bad at another time and for another person.  Now although gymnastics and common meals do good, they are also a cause of evil in civil troubles, and they appear to encourage unnatural love, as has been shown at Miletus, in Boeotia, and at Thurii.  And the Cretans are said to have invented the tale of Zeus and Ganymede in order to justify their evil practices by the example of the God who was their lawgiver.  Leaving the story, we may observe that all law has to do with pleasure and pain; these are two fountains which are ever flowing in human nature, and he who drinks of them when and as much as he ought, is happy, and he who indulges in them to excess, is miserable.