[313a]
Socrates
Tell me, what is law?Companion
To what kind of law does your question refer?Socrates
What! Is there any difference between law and law, in this particular point of being law? For just consider what is the actual question I am putting to you. It is as though I had asked, what is gold: if you had asked me in the same manner, to what kind of gold I refer, I think your question would have been incorrect. For I presume there is no difference between gold and gold, [313b] or between stone and stone, in point of being gold or stone; and so neither does law differ at all from law, I suppose, but they are all the same thing. For each of them is law alike, not one more so, and another less. That is the particular point of my question—what is law as a whole? So if you are ready, tell me.Companion
Well, what else should law be, Socrates, but things loyally accepted?1Socrates
And so speech, you think, is the things that are spoken, or sight the things seen, or hearing the things heard? Or is speech [313c] something distinct from the things spoken, sight something distinct from the things seen, and hearing something distinct from the things heard; and so law is something distinct from things loyally accepted? Is this so, or what is your view?Companion
I find it now to be something distinct.Socrates
Then law is not things loyally accepted.Companion
I think not.Socrates
Now what can law be? Let us consider it in this way. Suppose someone had asked us about what was stated just now:
Tell me, what is law?Companion
To what kind of law does your question refer?Socrates
What! Is there any difference between law and law, in this particular point of being law? For just consider what is the actual question I am putting to you. It is as though I had asked, what is gold: if you had asked me in the same manner, to what kind of gold I refer, I think your question would have been incorrect. For I presume there is no difference between gold and gold, [313b] or between stone and stone, in point of being gold or stone; and so neither does law differ at all from law, I suppose, but they are all the same thing. For each of them is law alike, not one more so, and another less. That is the particular point of my question—what is law as a whole? So if you are ready, tell me.Companion
Well, what else should law be, Socrates, but things loyally accepted?1Socrates
And so speech, you think, is the things that are spoken, or sight the things seen, or hearing the things heard? Or is speech [313c] something distinct from the things spoken, sight something distinct from the things seen, and hearing something distinct from the things heard; and so law is something distinct from things loyally accepted? Is this so, or what is your view?Companion
I find it now to be something distinct.Socrates
Then law is not things loyally accepted.Companion
I think not.Socrates
Now what can law be? Let us consider it in this way. Suppose someone had asked us about what was stated just now:
