h a view to war; in giving them
he was under the impression that no possessions or institutions are of
any value to him who is defeated in battle; for all the good things of
the conquered pass into the hands of the conquerors.

ATHENIAN: You appear to me, Stranger, to have been thoroughly trained
in the Cretan institutions, and to be well informed about them; will
you tell me a little more explicitly what is the principle of government
which you would lay down? You seem to imagine that a well-governed state
ought to be so ordered as to conquer all other states in war: am I right
in supposing this to be your meaning?

CLEINIAS: Certainly; and our Lacedaemonian friend, if I am not mistaken,
will agree with me.

MEGILLUS: Why, my good friend, how could any Lacedaemonian say anything
else?

ATHENIAN: And is what you say applicable only to states, or also to
villages?

CLEINIAS: To both alike.

ATHENIAN: The case is the same?

CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: And in the village will there be the same war of family
against family, and of individual against individual?

CLEINIAS: The same.

ATHENIAN: And should each man conceive himself to be his own
enemy:--what shall we say?

CLEINIAS: O Athenian Stranger--inhabitant of Attica I will not call you,
for you seem to deserve rather to be named after the goddess herself,
because you go back to first principles,--you have thrown a light upon
the argument, and will now be better able to understand what I was just
saying,--that all men are publicly one another's enemies, and each man
privately his own.

(ATHENIAN: My good sir, what do you mean?)--

CLEINIAS:...Moreover, there is a victory and defeat--the first and best
of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats--which each man gains or
sustains at the hands, not of another, but of himself; this shows that
there is a war against ourselves going on within every one of us.

ATHENIAN: Let us now reverse the order of the argument: Seeing that
every individual is either his own superior or his own inferior, may we
say that there is the same principle in the house, the village, and the
state?

CLEINIAS: You mean that in each of them there is a principle of
superiority or inferiority to self?

ATHENIAN: Yes.

CLEINIAS: You are quite right in asking the question, for there
certainly is such a principle, and above all in states; and the state
in which the better citizens win a victory over the mob and over the
inferior cl