The virtue of Tyrtaeus, although needful enough in his own time, is really of a fourth-rate description.

'You are degrading our legislator to a very low level.' Nay, we degrade not him, but ourselves, if we believe that the laws of Lycurgus and Minos had a view to war only.

A divine lawgiver would have had regard to all the different kinds of virtue, and have arranged his laws in corresponding classes, and not in the modern fashion, which only makes them after the want of them is felt,--about inheritances and heiresses and assaults, and the like.

As you truly said, virtue is the business of the legislator; but you went wrong when you referred all legislation to a part of virtue, and to an inferior part.

For the object of laws, whether the Cretan or any other, is to make men happy.