Law

Use in the book

At 109b–c Socrates asks whether Alcibiades will advise war against those doing wrong or against those doing what is just. Alcibiades responds that even someone intending the latter would not admit it. Socrates then says it is not lawful; Alcibiades adds that it does not seem fine either. The attribution matters: “lawful” is Socrates' contribution, not a term first offered by Alcibiades.

The exchange supplies a publicly recognized restraint on advocacy. It also permits a question about its strength: the unwillingness to admit unjust policy is not identical with unwillingness to pursue it. Socrates nevertheless uses the accepted standards to elicit the claim that the better in war is the more just. One should preserve that movement rather than recasting the passage as a statement that a particular written law settles foreign policy.

The term's occurrence is brief but structurally important because it stands beside fineness as the answer to which Alcibiades' speeches must conform.

Places to read

1. 109b–109cSocrates calls war against just actors unlawful after Alcibiades says no adviser would admit recommending it

Translation in this edition

At 109c6 Burnet brackets τὸ δίκαιον after “these things.” Without the insertion, the plural can look back to the unlawful and unfine character just named; the edition’s note identifies this as a reading of the passage rather than an indisputable definition of the reference.

νόμιμος

Attested: νόμιμον (nomimon; 109c). At 109c: Lawful or in accord with accepted right, denied of waging war against those acting justly. Lexical identification: lemma: νόμιμος. See Lawful conduct.

Use in the book

The opening question asks what law is “for us.” The companion initially hears a request to identify one law among several. Socrates corrects that hearing with gold and stone: different pieces do not differ in the respect in which they are gold or stone. Likewise, each law is law equally, not more or less. The demand is for what makes the whole class intelligible, not for a list of enactments or the identification of one disputed provision.

This initial sameness claim should not be confused with the later claim that knowers have the same judgments about the same matters. Here Socrates brackets differences among instances to ask what it is to be law. Later he questions whether varying rules all qualify as genuine laws. The apparent simplicity of the opening thus conceals a revision of the class: what ordinary speakers call law may be excluded when it fails the standard of correctness.

The companion offers two answers from recognizable public life. First law is what is accepted; then it is resolutions and decrees, a resolution of the city. Socrates treats the first as confusing a source or capacity with its objects, and the second as overinclusive because resolutions can be base. He retains opinion conditionally, identifies decent opinion with true opinion, and concludes that law wishes to be the discovery of what is (315a).

The remaining discussion tests the consequences of that proposal. Diversity and change produce resistance; knowledge and the crafts are introduced to show a stable standard; rightness distinguishes law from what only appears law. Distribution then shifts the inquiry toward what a competent lawgiver does for recipients. Minos offers a supposed historical and poetic instance. The closing question asks what is distributed to a soul to make it better.

No final summary should erase that trajectory by quoting the formula at 315a as an independently established and fully explained definition. Socrates strengthens it at 317d, omitting “wishes,” and applies it to Minos at 321b. Yet its conditions are partly secured through the companion's concessions, and its beneficial content remains unarticulated. The opening demand for a general answer survives the hero's rehabilitation: identifying a praised lawgiver is not the same as specifying the good his legislation gives the soul.

Places to read

1. 313aὉ νόμος ἡμῖν τί ἐστιν; — The question that opens the work
2. 313aκατὰ τὸ νόμος εἶναι — The respect under which laws are compared
3. 313bτὸ πᾶν τί ἐστιν νόμος — The demand for law as a whole
4. 314cτὸ ὅλον τοῦτο, νόμος, δόγμα πόλεως εἶναι — The companion's whole-class answer in civic terms
5. 315aὉ νόμος ἄρα βούλεται τοῦ ὄντος εἶναι ἐξεύρεσις — Socrates' qualified discovery formula
6. 317dνόμον εἶναι τοῦ ὄντος εὕρεσιν — Its later, stronger recapitulation
7. 318bἐν τοῖς αὐλητικοῖς νόμοις — The musical range of nomos becomes explicit

Translation in this edition

Nomos is always “law,” including the musical occurrences, so that the repetition stays visible. The supplied introduction raises authorship as an unresolved question; this entry describes what the dialogue's speakers argue and does not use a blanket attribution to “Plato's doctrine” to settle it.

As a whole — τὸ πᾶν (to pan)

τὸ πᾶν (to pan)

As a whole. The scope of the definition requested for law, as opposed to a particular law. Attested: τὸ πᾶν (313b). Law and the demand for a definition.

Ask — ἐρωτᾶν (erōtan)

ἐρωτᾶν (erōtan)

Ask. The companion asks which of the laws Socrates means; the ensuing correction concerns the question's scope. Attested: ἐρωτᾷς (313a). Law and the demand for a definition.

Be in fact asking — τυγχάνειν (tynchanein)

τυγχάνειν (tynchanein)

Be in fact asking. The participial construction specifies the question Socrates is presently putting, rather than a claim about accidental legislation. Attested: τυγχάνω ἐρωτῶν (313a). Law and the demand for a definition.

Being law — τὸ νόμος εἶναι (to nomos einai)

τὸ νόμος εἶναι (to nomos einai)

Being law. The precise respect in which Socrates says a law does not differ from another law. Attested: τὸ νόμος εἶναι (313a). Law and the demand for a definition.

Had asked — ἀνέρομαι (aneromai)

ἀνέρομαι (aneromai)

Had asked. Socrates' hypothetical question about what gold is, used to explain the demand for a definition. Attested: ἀνηρόμην (313a). Law and the demand for a definition.

Law — νόμος (nomos)

νόμος (nomos)

Law. The common object of Socrates' opening question, to be defined as a whole rather than identified as one particular enactment. Attested: νόμος (313a). Law and the demand for a definition.

Ready to hand — πρόχειρος (procheiros)

πρόχειρος (procheiros)

Ready to hand. A definition the companion may already have available to give; not a claim that the inquiry is trivial. Attested: πρόχειρον (313b). Law and the demand for a definition.

Rightly — ὀρθῶς (orthōs) · ὀρθῶς (313a).

ὀρθῶς (orthōs)

Rightly. Correctly framing a question: asking which gold is inappropriate when what gold is has been asked. Attested: ὀρθῶς (313a). Law and the demand for a definition.

Say or mean — λέγειν (legein)

λέγειν (legein)

Say or mean. Specify which gold is meant in Socrates' hypothetical exchange; the point is about the intended subject. Attested: λέγω (313a). Law and the demand for a definition.

The whole — τὸ ὅλον (to holon)

τὸ ὅλον (to holon)

The whole. The companion echoes Socrates' demand to identify law as a whole. Attested: τὸ ὅλον (314c). Law and the demand for a definition.

What law is for us (contextual phrase)

313a: Ὁ νόμος ἡμῖν τί ἐστιν; The dative ἡμῖν introduces the question “for us,” not an established doctrine that law is whatever a particular group happens to decide. The companion initially hears a request to identify one of several laws; Socrates then asks for what makes each law law. The phrase sets up the tension between a shared inquiry and the plurality of laws without resolving it at the first line. See Law and its definition.

Neither more nor less law (contextual phrase)

313b: οὐχ ὁ μὲν μᾶλλον, ὁ δ’ ἧττον. The balanced clauses say that one is not law to a greater degree and another to a lesser degree, with the predicate understood from the preceding statement. This concerns the common character under inquiry. It does not already establish that every rule in ordinary usage is equally just; later Socrates excludes wrong rules from law in the strict sense. See Law and its definition.

Use in the book

Hesiod calls the human possession of justice a law laid down by Zeus. Cleanthes describes a common law of God that people fail to see or hear despite wanting good things. The Laws excerpt explains a different aspect: long familiarity with unchanged laws creates reverence and fear of disturbing them. Divine authority and the psychological force of inherited institutions therefore require separate attention.

Places to read

1. I.3.1Law assigns justice to human beings.
2. I.1.12bThe hymn invokes God’s common law.
3. I.47.7.3Long habituation reinforces reverence for established laws.

Translation in this edition

“Law” is retained without automatically turning cosmic order into legislation or every civil law into a direct divine command.

Use in the book

The early modesty passage speaks of laws without identifying a statute; its strongly gendered demand belongs to a historical moral vocabulary. The passions passage assigns laws the task of satisfying certain impulses through social institutions while inner discipline keeps them bounded. Finally the restrictive definition allows the name law only to what appears most just, wise and morally binding to a universal reason of all places and times. This is a normative test, not a description of every enacted rule.

Places to read

1. I, p. 40, entry 1, ¶1Laws of modesty function as social norms.
2. I, p. 462, entry 4, ¶1Institutions channel and satisfy passions.
3. II, p. 893, entry 8, ¶1Universal reason restricts what deserves to be called law.

Translation in this edition

The English translation uses law for both historical spellings and preserves the repeated “only” in the normative definition. It keeps the modesty passage’s severe social language without presenting it as present-day advice. No particular legal institution is added to à statuer.

Use in the book

His thought experiment asks what laws the soul would choose if it understood its own excellence and God’s. The answer is love: the giver’s nature and the recipient’s nature alike require the relation by which each is enjoyed. Command therefore appears as an articulation of felicity rather than a wholly extrinsic obstacle to it.

The preceding meditation turns the law outward. God commands his subjects to love the individual, so that authority becomes a form of honour and protection. The reader is simultaneously beneficiary and obligated participant. Psalm 19 then places law beside creation as something more desirable than gold and sweeter than honey. Its value is experienced through right living, not exhausted by submission.

Places to read

1. I.70The lawgiver honours the soul by commanding others to love it.
2. I.71Laws of nature and blessedness direct the soul toward reciprocal love.
3. III.72The laws praised in Psalm 19 become treasures and sources of delight.

In this edition

Law of nature here includes the requirements of God’s and humanity’s loving natures; it should not automatically be read as a modern scientific law.

Use in the book

The two lines give the rule a scope greater than a particular city's ordinance. Its extension through cosmic space makes the universal reach vivid. That reach is relevant to the surrounding ethical questions, especially whether the bounds of human convention exhaust obligations toward living things. Yet the fragment begins with a connective and a pronoun-like expression whose full antecedent is missing. It does not itself state the rule's content.

Accordingly, one should not cite these lines alone as a complete command against killing, a theory of modern natural rights, or a constitution binding every named kind of being in an identical way. B136–1372 can illuminate an ethical reading, and B1152 supplies another universal-seeming decree, but neither comparison restores the lost preceding sentence. The passage securely preserves the image of an all-embracing norm; identifying its precise application requires interpretation.

Places to read

1. B 135What is lawful for all stretches continuously through aither and light.
2. B 115.1–82Necessity’s ordinance provides a related, but separately stated, binding law.
3. B 136The rebuke of slaughter provides an ethical comparison, without supplying B135’s missing antecedent.

Translation in this edition

Aristotle transmits B135 in the Rhetoric. The source citation identifies the witness, but the edition does not print the entire surrounding Aristotelian argument. “Universal law” is an explanatory heading for the surviving expression, not its full missing context.

Use in the book

Flatland's institutions repeatedly align positive law with what the narrator calls natural necessity. In §723 Nature and Expediency endorse regular bodies, and the Law seconds their efforts. In §923 the reformers reverse the same argument: because colour has practically removed distinctions, the Law should follow. Both sides claim that legislation ought to recognize an order already established outside legislation. The dispute is partly over which kind of fact gets to instruct the law.

The Colour Bill makes legislative procedure central. Its proponents address an extraordinary Assembly of all the States, proposing a specified bodily code. The Circles answer through a public performance of concession and majority approval. But the apparent parliamentary setting ends in a planned killing. Institutional form does not guarantee deliberation when one side controls guards, speech, and exits. The ruler can invoke the majority while arranging that its composition, voice, and survival depend on him.

Afterward, ordinary classificatory procedures are suspended. Suspected Irregular Triangles are destroyed by Court Martial without exact measurement by the Social Board. A society that normally insists on measurement permits suspicion to replace it when repression requires speed. This is more than harsh enforcement of a stable standard: the emergency dissolves the standard's evidentiary safeguards. The narrator calls the outcome a restored balance, letting constitutional vocabulary conceal the change in procedure.

The prohibition on colour shows another flexibility. Possession is prohibited; uttering colour words is punishable, with an explicit exception for Circles and qualified scientific teachers. Separately, the Square reports only from hearsay that colour itself is used in advanced university instruction. The certain exception concerns speech, not a general right to paint. Even this narrower permission makes access part of the hierarchy: institutional standing determines who may name what others must not name. Similarly, women's marriage requires a state-certified pedigree, turning intimate choice into a legal mechanism of bodily governance.

Part II extends these practices to testimony. The Council prescribes different penalties by rank for claims about another world, and later judges the Square in a procedure whose lethal treatment of witnesses he can infer before speaking. Law here allocates both credibility and vulnerability. It does not merely punish belief after an impartial inquiry; it helps determine whose account may circulate at all.

Places to read

1. §723“the Law been backward in seconding”
2. §923“the Law should follow in the same path”
3. §1023“without the formality of exact measurement”
4. §1023“still sanctioned”
5. §1223“without a certified pedigree”
6. §18234“without formality of mathematical examination”

In this edition

Notes 80, 93, and 10223 offer historical comparisons for penal disabilities, franchise reform, and counter-revolutionary punishment. They are modern contextual annotations. The close verbal parallel between waived measurement in §1023 and waived mathematical examination in §18234 belongs to Abbott's narrative and connects bodily to intellectual policing.

Aristocratic Legislature

The law-making authority organized around noble privilege. Its feared destruction is the narrator’s final measure of the Bill’s danger. Printed form: Aristocratic Legislature (§ 923). See Law and sanction.

Constitution

Flatland’s established political and social order, rather than necessarily a single written document. The Circles invoke its safety when defending rank, suppressing reform, and restricting colour. Printed form: Constitution (§ 1023). See Law and sanction.

Court Martial

A military tribunal. It orders the destruction of suspected Irregular Triangles without the normal exact bodily measurement. Printed form: Court Martial (§ 1023). See Law and sanction.

Expediency

Practical advantage or suitability to an end. The reformers invoke it, together with Nature, to justify distinguishing everyone’s front from back. Printed form: Expediency (§ 923). See Law and sanction.

Sanctioned

Officially permitted or approved. The sense is permission, not punishment, in the reported university exception to the ban on colour. Printed form: sanctioned (§ 1023). See Law and sanction.