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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: evil that physicians should kill their patients or captains cast away their
ships, but it would be a far greater evil if each particular in the
practice of medicine or seamanship were regulated by law. Much has been
said in modern times about the duty of leaving men to themselves, which is
supposed to be the best way of taking care of them. The question is often
asked, What are the limits of legislation in relation to morals? And the
answer is to the same effect, that morals must take care of themselves.
There is a one-sided truth in these answers, if they are regarded as
condemnations of the interference with commerce in the last century or of
clerical persecution in the Middle Ages. But 'laissez-faire' is not the
best but only the second best. What the best is, Plato does not attempt to
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