YOUNG SOCRATES: Worse and worse.
STRANGER: But hear what follows:--When the year of office has expired, the
pilot or physician has to come before a court of review, in which the
judges are either selected from the wealthy classes or chosen by lot out of
the whole people; and anybody who pleases may be their accuser, and may lay
to their charge, that during the past year they have not navigated their
vessels or healed their patients according to the letter of the law and the
ancient customs of their ancestors; and if either of them is condemned,
some of the judges must fix what he is to suffer or pay.
YOUNG SOCRATES: He who is willing to take a command under such conditions,
deserves to suffer any penalty.
STRANGER: Yet once more, we shall have to enact that if any one is
detected enquiring into piloting and navigation, or into health and the
true nature of medicine, or about the winds, or other conditions of the
atmosphere, contrary to the written rules, and has any ingenious notions
about such matters, he is not to be called a pilot or physician, but a
cloudy prating sophist;--further, on the ground that he is a corrupter of
the young, who would persuade them to follow the art of medicine or
piloting in an unlawful manner, and to exercise an arbitrary rule over
their patients or ships, any one who is qualified by law may inform against
him, and indict him in some court, and then if he is found to be persuading
any, whether young or old, to act contrary to the written law, he is to be
punished with the utmost rigour; for no one should presume to be wiser than
the laws; and as touching healing and health and piloting and navigation,
the nature of them is known to all, for anybody may learn the written laws
and the national customs.
Pages:
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161