together for such a purpose, nor, if they did, could they ever agree. Who, then, do you think laid down these laws? In my opinion, the gods; for amongst all men the universal instinct is to acknowledge the gods. Reverence to parents, I presume, falls under the same category--for this is a universal practice. I agree. Then shall we say that the gods are also the authors of the law forbidding sexual intercourse between parents and their offspring? No; I cannot call this a law coming directly from the gods. Why not? Because I see certain, men transgressing this law; it is not universal. But the transgression of a law does not make it less a law; men break many laws; but in the case of the divine laws a penalty waits on the transgressor which it is impossible to escape, as men may, and not seldom do, escape the consequences of violated human laws, whether by persistently undermining or violently overriding them. But what penalty, Socrates, I should like to know, do parents and children incur who practise incestuous intercourse? The greatest of all penalties, the begetting of children in a bad way. But how bad? for being good themselves, that is in good health and of a good stock, what comes from good must of necessity be good. But you forget, rejoined Socrates, that in the procreation of children we must consider not only the original goodness of the stock, but also {97} that the bodies of both individuals concerned in the act should be in their prime; or do you perhaps imagine that from unripe bodies, or bodies sinking into decay, an equally vigorous and healthy seed can flow, as from those which are in their best condition? Certainly not, said Hippias. Then it is plain, said Socrates, that the offspring of such intercourse would not be procreated under favourable natural conditions, and according to the unwritten law of nature are for this reason bad and wrong. Take now another instance: ingratitude, I presume, you will grant is always and everywhere wrong, while to repay kindness by kindness is everywhere an act in harmony with law. Certainly; but this law also is frequently transgressed. Yes; and the transgression brings with it its own punishment, in that the violators of this law are at once deprived of good friends, and forced to cultivate the goodwill of those who they know must hate them;--for are not those who confer benefits on their friends good friends, and do not those who never return obligations to such friends, make themselves hated by them, while, at the same time, on account of the benefits which may accrue from such connexion, they are obliged to go on courting those very persons by whom they are hated? Now, by Jove, said Hippias, I must confess that here I do see plain traces of a divine law; for that laws should bring along with them their own penalty when broken, is a most rare device, to which no mere human legislator has ever yet been able to attain. Well then, Hippias, do you think that the gods, when they make laws,