estle 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 G