to impose laws about them on good men; what regulations are necessary they will find out soon enough for themselves.
Yes, I said, my friend, if God will only preserve to them the laws which we have given them.
And without divine help, said Adeimantus, they will go on for ever making and mending their laws and their lives in the hope of attaining perfection.
Illustration of reformers of the law taken from invalids who are always doctoring themselves, but will never listen to the truth. You would compare them, I said, to those invalids who, having no self-restraint, will not leave off their habits of intemperance?
Exactly.
Yes, I said; and what a delightful life they lead! they are always doctoring and increasing and complicating their disorders, and always fancying that they