the fact.

ATHENIAN: And if we can show that such is really the fact, then all
these matters ought to be learned so far as is necessary for the
avoidance of impiety; but if we cannot, they may be let alone, and let
this be our decision.

CLEINIAS: Very good.

ATHENIAN: Enough of laws relating to education and learning. But
hunting and similar pursuits in like manner claim our attention. For
the legislator appears to have a duty imposed upon him which goes beyond
mere legislation. There is something over and above law which lies in a
region between admonition and law, and has several times occurred to us
in the course of discussion; for example, in the education of very young
children there were things, as we maintain, which are not to be defined,
and to regard them as matters of positive law is a great absurdity.
Now, our laws and the whole constitution of our state having been thus
delineated, the praise of the virtuous citizen is not complete when he
is described as the person who serves the laws best and obeys them most,
but the higher form of praise is that which describes him as the good
citizen who passes through life undefiled and is obedient to the words
of the legislator, both when he is giving laws and when he assigns
praise and blame. This is the truest word that can be spoken in praise
of a citizen; and the true legislator ought not only to write his
laws, but also to interweave with them all such things as seem to him
honourable and dishonourable. And the perfect citizen ought to seek to
strengthen these no less than the principles of law which are sanctioned
by punishments. I will adduce an example which will clear up my meaning,
and will be a sort of witness to my words. Hunting is of wide extent,
and has a name under which many things are included, for there is a
hunting of creatures in the water, and of creatures in the air, and
there is a great deal of hunting of land animals of all kinds, and
not of wild beasts only. The hunting after man is also worthy of
consideration; there is the hunting after him in war, and there is often
a hunting after him in the way of friendship, which is praised and also
blamed; and there is thieving, and the hunting which is practised by
robbers, and that of armies against armies. Now the legislator, in
laying down laws about hunting, can neither abstain from noting these
things, nor can he make threatening ordinances which will assign rules
and penalties about all of