Perhaps Plato intended the above argument as a derisory taunt against the Sophist Hippias, for being vain enough to think his own tuition better than that of the Spartan community. If such was his intention, the argument might have been retorted against Plato himself, for his propositions in the Republic and Leges: and we know that the enemies of Plato did taunt him with his inability to get these schemes adopted in any actual community. But the argument becomes interesting when we compare it with the debate before referred to in the Xenophontic Memorabilia, where Sokrates maintains against Hippias that the Just is equivalent to the Lawful. In that Xenophontic dialogue, all the difficulties which embarrass this explanation are kept out of sight, and Sokrates is represented as gaining an easy victory over Hippias. In this Platonic dialogue, the equivocal use of the word [Greek: no/mimon] is expressly adverted to, and Sokrates reduces Hippias to a supposed absurdity, by making him pronounce the Spartans to be enemies of law: [Greek: paranomou/s] bearing a double sense, and the proposition being true in one sense, false in the other. In the argument of the Platonic Sokrates, a law which does not attain its intended purpose of benefiting the community, is no law at all,--not lawful:[9] so that we are driven back again upon the objections of Alkibiades against Perikles (in the Xenophontic Memorabilia) in regard to what constitutes a law. In the argument of the Xenophontic Sokrates, law means a law actually established, by official authority or custom--and the Spartans are produced as eminent examples of a lawfully minded community. As far as we can assign positive opinion to the Platonic Sokrates in the Hippias Major, he declares that the profitable or useful (being that which men always aim at in making law) is The Lawful, whether actually established or not: and that the unprofitable or hurtful (being that which men always intend to escape) is The Unlawful, whether prescribed by any living authority or not. This (he says) is the opinion of the wise men who know: though the ignorant vulgar hold the contrary opinion. The explanation of [Greek: to\ di/kaion] given by the Xenophontic Sokrates ([Greek: to\ di/kaion = to\ no/mimon]), would be equivalent, if we construe [Greek: to\ no/mimon] in the sense of the Platonic Sokrates (in Hippias Major) as an affirmation that The Just was the generally useful--[Greek: To\ di/kaion = to\ koinê=| su/mphoron]. [Footnote 9: Compare a similar argument of Sokrates against Thrasymachus--Republic, i. 339.] [Side-note: The Just or Good is the beneficial or profitable. This is the only explanation which Plato ever gives and to this he does not always adhere.]