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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: answer that question by asking you whether the training master gives a
different discipline to each of his pupils, or whether he has a general
rule of diet and exercise which is suited to the constitutions of the
majority? 'The latter.' The legislator, too, is obliged to lay down
general laws, and cannot enact what is precisely suitable to each
particular case. He cannot be sitting at every man's side all his life,
and prescribe for him the minute particulars of his duty, and therefore he
is compelled to impose on himself and others the restriction of a written
law. Let me suppose now, that a physician or trainer, having left
directions for his patients or pupils, goes into a far country, and comes
back sooner than he intended; owing to some unexpected change in the
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