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390 390 PLATO

Crito. I think that they do.

Socrates. Then the laws will say : " Consider, Soc- rates, if we are speaking truly that in your present at- tempt you are going to do us an injury. For, having brought you into the world, and nurtured and educated you, and given you and every other citizen a share in every good which we had to give, we further proclaim to any Athenian by the liberty which we allow him, that if he does not like us when he has become of age and has seen the ways of the city, and made our acquaint- ance, he may go where he pleases and take his goods with him. None of us laws will forbid him or inter- fere with him. Any one who does not like us and the city, and who wants to emigrate to a colony or to any other city, may go where he likes, retaining his property. But he who has experience of the manner in which we order justice and administer the State, and still remains, has entered into an implied contract that he will do as we command him. And he who disobeys us is, as we maintain, thrice wrong ; first, because in disobeying us he is disobeying his parents ; secondly, because we are the. authors of his education ; thirdly, because he has made an agreement with us that he will duly obey our commands ; and he neither obeys them nor convinces us that our commands are unjust ; and we do not rudely impose them, but give him the alternative of obeying or convincing us ; that is what we ofPer, and he does neither.

" These are the sort of accusations to which, as we were saying, you, Socrates, will be exposed if you ac- complish your intentions ; you, above all other Atheni- ans." Suppose now I ask, " Why I rather than anybody else? " they will justly retort upon me that I above all other men have acknowledged the agreement. " There