them is excessive, another mean, a third moderate, and you say that the last is right.  Now if I had a rich wife, and she told me to bury her, and I were to sing of her burial, I should praise the extravagant kind; a poor man would commend a funeral of the meaner sort, and a man of moderate means would prefer a moderate funeral.  But you, as legislator, would have to say exactly what you meant by ‘moderate.’  ‘Very true.’  And is our lawgiver to have no preamble or interpretation of his laws, never offering a word of advice to his subjects, after the manner of some doctors?  For of doctors are there not two kinds?  The one gentle and the other rough, doctors who are freemen and learn themselves and teach their pupils scientifically, and doctor’s assistants who get their knowledge empirically by attending on their masters?  ‘Of course there are.’  And did you ever observe that the gentlemen doctors practise upon freemen, and that slave doctors confine themselves to slaves?  The latter go about the country or wait for the slaves at the dispensaries.  They hold no parley with their patients about their diseases or the remedies of them; they practise by the rule of thumb, and give their decrees in the most arbitrary manner.  When they have doctored one patient they run off to another, whom they treat with equal assurance, their duty being to relieve the master of the care of his sick slaves.  But the other doctor, who practises on freemen, proceeds in quite a different way.  He takes counsel with his patient and learns from him, and never does anything until he has persuaded him of what he is doing.  He trusts to influence rather than force.  Now is not the use of both methods far better than the use of either alone?  And both together may be advantageously employed by us in legislation.

We may illustrate our proposal by an example.  The laws relating to marriage naturally come first, and therefore we may begin with them.  The simple law would be as follows:—­A man shall marry between the ages of thirty and thirty-five; if he do not, he shall be fined or deprived of certain privileges.  The double law would add the reason why:  Forasmuch as man desires immortality, which he attains by the procreation of children, no one should deprive himself of his share in this good.  He who obeys the law is blameless, but he who disobeys must not be a gainer by his celibacy; and therefore he shall pay a yearly fine, and shall not be allowed to receive honour from the young.  That is an example of what I call the double law, which may enable us to judge how far the addition of persuasion to threats is desirable.  ’Lacedaemonians in general, Stranger, are in favour of brevity; in this case, however, I prefer length.  But Cleinias is the real lawgiver, and he ought to be first consulted.’  ’Thank you, Megillus.’  Whether words are to be many or few, is a foolish question:—­the best and not the shortest forms are always to be approved.  And legislators have never thought of the advantages