Works (Laws, Definitions)

SOC. And perhaps you speak well. But perhaps we shall know better in this way. Do you call some people wise? — COMP. I do. — SOC. Are not the wise wise by wisdom? — COMP. Yes. — SOC. What then? Are the just just by justice? — COMP. Certainly. — SOC. Are not the lawful also lawful by law? — COMP. Yes. — SOC. And are the lawless lawless by lawlessness? — COMP. Yes. — SOC. And are the lawful just? — COMP. Yes. — SOC. And are the lawless unjust? — COMP. Unjust. — SOC. Is not justice and law the most beautiful thing? — COMP. It is so. — SOC. And is injustice and lawlessness the most shameful thing? — COMP. Yes. — SOC. And does the one preserve cities and all other things, while the other destroys and overturns them? — COMP. Yes. — SOC. We must therefore consider law to be something beautiful and seek it as something good. — COMP. How could it be otherwise?
SOC. Did we not say that law is a decree of the city? — COMP. We did. — SOC. What then? Are there not some good decrees and others evil? — COMP. There are indeed. — SOC. And yet, law was not evil. — COMP. Indeed not. — SOC. It is not correct, therefore, to answer so simply that law is a decree of the city. — COMP. It does not seem so to me. — SOC. So it would not fit for an evil decree to be law. — COMP. Certainly not. — SOC. But indeed, law also appears to me to be a certain opinion original: "δόξα". Since it is not an evil opinion, is it not already clear that it is a good one, if law is an opinion? — COMP. Yes. — SOC. And what is a good opinion? Is it not the true one? — COMP. Yes. — SOC. Is not the true opinion the discovery of what is? — COMP. It is. — SOC. Therefore, law aims to be the discovery of what is.
COMP. How then, Socrates, if law is the discovery of what is, do we not always use the same laws regarding the same things, if the realities have been discovered by us?