_Sokr._--Still--I think, myself, that law is opinion of some sort; and since it is not evil opinion, it must be good opinion. Now good opinion is true opinion: and true opinion is, the finding out of reality. _Comp._--I admit it. _Sokr._--Law therefore wishes or tends to be, the finding out of reality.[19] _Comp._--But, Sokrates, if law is the finding out of reality--if we have therein already found out realities--how comes it that all communities of men do not use the same laws respecting the same matters? _Sokr._--The law does not the less wish or tend to find out realities; but it is unable to do so. That is, if the fact be true as you state--that we change our laws, and do not all of us use the same. _Comp._--Surely, the fact as a fact is obvious enough.[20] [Footnote 19: Plato, Minos, 315 A. [Greek: Ou)kou=n ê( a)lêthê\s do/xa tou= o)/ntos e)stin e)xeu/resis? . . . o( no/mos a)/ra bou/letai tou= o)/ntos ei)=nai e)xeu/resis?]] [Footnote 20: Plato, Minos, 315 A-B.] [Side-note: Objection taken by the Companion--That there is great discordance of laws in different places--he specifies several cases of such discordance at some length. Sokrates reproves his prolixity, and requests him to confine himself to question or answer.] (The Companion here enumerates some remarkable local rites, venerable in one place, abhorrent in another, such as the human sacrifices at Carthage, &c., thus lengthening his answer much beyond what it had been before. Sokrates then continues): _Sokr._--Perhaps you are right, and these matters have escaped me. But if you and I go on making long speeches each for ourselves, we shall never come to an agreement. If we are to carry on our research together, we must do so by question and answer. Question me, if you prefer:--if not, answer me. _Comp._--I am quite ready, Sokrates, to answer whatever you ask. [Side-note: Farther questions by Sokrates--Things heavy and light, just and unjust, honourable and dishonourable, &c., are so, and are accounted so everywhere. Real things are always accounted real. Whoever fails in attaining the real, fails in attaining the lawful.]