nd let a man
not forget to pay the yearly tribute of respect to the dead, honouring
them chiefly by omitting nothing that conduces to a perpetual
remembrance of them, and giving a reasonable portion of his fortune to
the dead. Doing this, and living after this manner, we shall receive our
reward from the Gods and those who are above us (i.e. the demons); and
we shall spend our days for the most part in good hope. And how a man
ought to order what relates to his descendants and his kindred and
friends and fellow-citizens, and the rites of hospitality taught by
Heaven, and the intercourse which arises out of all these duties, with a
view to the embellishment and orderly regulation of his own life--these
things, I say, the laws, as we proceed with them, will accomplish,
partly persuading, and partly when natures do not yield to the
persuasion of custom, chastising them by might and right, and will thus
render our state, if the Gods co-operate with us, prosperous and happy.
But of what has to be said, and must be said by the legislator who is of
my way of thinking, and yet, if said in the form of law, would be out of
place--of this I think that he may give a sample for the instruction of
himself and of those for whom he is legislating; and then when, as far
as he is able, he has gone through all the preliminaries, he may proceed
to the work of legislation. Now, what will be the form of such prefaces?
There may be a difficulty in including or describing them all under a
single form, but I think that we may get some notion of them if we can
guarantee one thing.

CLEINIAS: What is that?

ATHENIAN: I should wish the citizens to be as readily persuaded to
virtue as possible; this will surely be the aim of the legislator in all
his laws.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: The proposal appears to me to be of some value; and I think
that a person will listen with more gentleness and good-will to the
precepts addressed to him by the legislator, when his soul is not
altogether unprepared to receive them. Even a little done in the way of
conciliation gains his ear, and is always worth having. For there is
no great inclination or readiness on the part of mankind to be made as
good, or as quickly good, as possible. The case of the many proves the
wisdom of Hesiod, who says that the road to wickedness is smooth and can
be travelled without perspiring, because it is so very short:

'But before virtue the immortal Gods have placed the