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[519e]

“You have again forgotten,1 my friend,” said I, “that the law is not concerned with the special happiness of any class in the state, but is trying to produce this condition2 in the city as a whole, harmonizing and adapting the citizens to one another by persuasion and compulsion,3 and requiring them to impart to one another any benefit4

1 Cf. Vol. I. pp. 314-315 on 419.

2 i.e. happiness, not of course exceptional happiness.

3 Persuasion and compulsion are often bracketed or contrasted. Cf. also Laws 661 C, 722 B, 711 C, Rep. 548 B.

4 Cf. 369 C ff. The reference there however is only to the economic division of labor. For the idea that laws should be for the good of the whole state cf. 420 B ff., 466 A, 341-342, Laws 715 B, 757 D, 875 A.

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