'You mean that a man should pray to have right desires, before he prays that his desires may be fulfilled; and that wisdom should be the first object of our prayers ?' Yes; and you will remember my saying that wisdom should be the principal aim of the legislator; but you said that defence in war came first.

And I replied, that there were four virtues, whereas you acknowledged one only--courage, and not wisdom which is the guide of all the rest.

And I repeat--in jest if you like, but I am willing that you should receive my words in earnest--that 'the prayer of a fool is full of danger.' I will prove to you, if you will allow me, that the ruin of those states was not caused by cowardice or ignorance in war, but by ignorance of human affairs.

'Pray proceed: our attention will show better than compliments that we prize your words.' I maintain that ignorance is, and always has been, the ruin of states; wherefore the legislator should seek to banish it from the state; and the greatest ignorance is the love of what is known to be evil, and the hatred of what is known to be good; this is the last and greatest conflict of pleasure and reason in the soul.

I say the greatest, because affecting the greater part of the soul; for the passions are in the individual what the people are in a state.