who are brought
together for the first time, and are strangers to one another, and also
uneducated, will avoid making mistakes in the choice of magistrates?

CLEINIAS: Impossible.

ATHENIAN: The matter is serious, and excuses will not serve the turn. I
will tell you, then, what you and I will have to do, since you, as
you tell me, with nine others, have offered to settle the new state on
behalf of the people of Crete, and I am to help you by the invention
of the present romance. I certainly should not like to leave the tale
wandering all over the world without a head;--a headless monster is such
a hideous thing.

CLEINIAS: Excellent, Stranger.

ATHENIAN: Yes; and I will be as good as my word.

CLEINIAS: Let us by all means do as you propose.

ATHENIAN: That we will, by the grace of God, if old age will only permit
us.

CLEINIAS: But God will be gracious.

ATHENIAN: Yes; and under his guidance let us consider a further point.

CLEINIAS: What is it?

ATHENIAN: Let us remember what a courageously mad and daring creation
this our city is.

CLEINIAS: What had you in your mind when you said that?

ATHENIAN: I had in my mind the free and easy manner in which we are
ordaining that the inexperienced colonists shall receive our laws. Now
a man need not be very wise, Cleinias, in order to see that no one can
easily receive laws at their first imposition. But if we could anyhow
wait until those who have been imbued with them from childhood, and have
been nurtured in them, and become habituated to them, take their part in
the public elections of the state; I say, if this could be accomplished,
and rightly accomplished by any way or contrivance--then, I think that
there would be very little danger, at the end of the time, of a state
thus trained not being permanent.

CLEINIAS: A reasonable supposition.

ATHENIAN: Then let us consider if we can find any way out of the
difficulty; for I maintain, Cleinias, that the Cnosians, above all the
other Cretans, should not be satisfied with barely discharging their
duty to the colony, but they ought to take the utmost pains to establish
the offices which are first created by them in the best and surest
manner. Above all, this applies to the selection of the guardians of the
law, who must be chosen first of all, and with the greatest care; the
others are of less importance.

CLEINIAS: What method can we devise of electing them?

ATHENIAN: This will be the method:--Sons of t