‘They urged moreover, when they were not too busy to discuss the point, that a law among them is not at all the same as a law among the Athenians. They said that perhaps in Athens, which was small, the people made the law knowing what they did, but that in America thousands and thousands of laws were made every year. America was equally the paradise of her who would make a law and him who would break one, and in proportion as the existing laws were not kept was there a clamour for fresh laws. But there is no sense of responsibility, either in the making or the breaking. And we would do well, my wonderful friends, to give this advice to the Americans that they should treat a law as a great luxury, to be cherished as Helen herself was cherished. Then when they find they are observing all, or some part at least, of the laws they have, they may reward themselves by a new law. Do those who juggle and balance plates seek to add another plate to the row standing edgeways on their noses or foreheads before they can balance those they already have?’ ‘Indeed, no, Socrates,’ they replied. ‘And if they did,’ I continued, ‘would they not break all their plates and not receive any plaudits from the spectators?’ ‘Such,’ said Lysis, ‘would be their deserved misfortune.’ ‘And should we not call such jugglers presumptuous fools and men unskilled in their art?’ ‘What else, indeed, O Socrates?’ ‘And yet is their case any different from that of these Americans who before they can well keep ten laws will make fifty more? So that the law ceases to hold authority among them and they are careless who makes it and who breaks it. For there can be no more grievous ill done to any state than that its citizens should not think rightly about the laws, and should forget that a good law is the expression of Justice, allotting to each man what is his, and is deserving of all reverence, while a bad law destroys the life of the state and ought by all means to be abolished as soon as possible.’ ‘We agree,’ they said. BOOK V ‘Does it not seem to you, O Lysis and Phaelon, that these Americans suffer many grievous evils, and do not know where they are, and may truly be called Atlantis, the Lost Continent?’ ‘Lost, indeed, Socrates,’ answered Lysis, ‘and I pity them, though it is largely their own fault.’ ‘And do you not think,’ I asked, ‘that education might help them, if it were begun when they were quite young and kept up till thirty-five?’ ‘It would be worth trying,’ they said, ‘but not safe to stop at thirty-five.’ ‘You remember,’ I continued, ‘how in our ideal State we used to agree that there must be a guardian class chosen from those of the best natures and trained up to watch over the life of the state and to govern the ordinary citizens.’ ‘Yes, Socrates.’