Having arrived at the conclusion that each law should have a preamble, the lucky thought occurs to him at the end of the fourth book that the preceding discourse is the preamble of the whole.

This preamble or introduction may be abridged as follows:-- The institutions of Sparta and Crete are admitted by the Lacedaemonian and Cretan to have one aim only: they were intended by the legislator to inspire courage in war.

To this the Athenian objects that the true lawgiver should frame his laws with a view to all the virtues and not to one only.

Better is he who has temperance as well as courage, than he who has courage only; better is he who is faithful in civil broils, than he who is a good soldier only.

Better, too, is peace than war; the reconciliation than the defeat of an enemy.