And first of the Laws. (1) The Republic, though probably written at intervals, yet speaking generally and judging by the indications of thought and style, may be reasonably ascribed to the middle period of Plato's life: the Laws are certainly the work of his declining years, and some portions of them at any rate seem to have been written in extreme old age. (2) The Republic is full of hope and aspiration: the Laws bear the stamp of failure and disappointment. The one is a finished work which received the last touches of the author: the other is imperfectly executed, and apparently unfinished. The one has the grace and beauty of youth: the other has lost the poetical form, but has more of the severity and knowledge of life which is characteristic of old age. (3) The most conspicuous defect of the Laws is the failure of dramatic power, whereas the Republic is full of striking contrasts of ideas and oppositions of character. (4) The Laws may be said to have more the nature of a sermon, the Republic of a poem; the one is more religious, the other more intellectual. (5) Many theories of Plato, such as the doctrine of ideas, the government of the world by philosophers, are not found in the Laws; the immortality of the soul is first mentioned in xii. 959, 967; the person of Socrates has altogether disappeared. The community of women and children is renounced; the institution of common or public meals for women (Laws vi. 781) is for the first time introduced {ccxv} (Ar. Pol. ii. 6, § 5). (6) There remains in the Laws the old enmity to the poets (vii. 817), who are ironically saluted in high-flown terms, and, at the same time, are peremptorily ordered out of the city, if they are not willing to submit their poems to the censorship of the magistrates (cp. Rep. iii. 398). (7) Though the work is in most respects inferior, there are a few passages in the Laws, such as v. 727 ff. (the honour due to the soul), viii. 835 ff. (the evils of licentious or unnatural love), the whole of Book x. (religion), xi. 918 ff. (the dishonesty of retail trade), and 923 ff. (bequests), which come more home to us, and contain more of what may be termed the modern element in Plato than almost anything in the Republic. The relation of the two works to one another is very well given: (i) by Aristotle in the Politics (ii. 6, §§ 1-5) from the side of the Laws:--