The process of thought which should be latent in the mind of the writer appears on the surface.

In several passages the Athenian praises himself in the most unblushing manner, very unlike the irony of the earlier dialogues, as when he declares that 'the laws are a divine work given by some inspiration of the Gods,' and that 'youth should commit them to memory instead of the compositions of the poets.' The prosopopoeia which is adopted by Plato in the Protagoras and other dialogues is repeated until we grow weary of it.

The legislator is always addressing the speakers or the youth of the state, and the speakers are constantly making addresses to the legislator.

A tendency to a paradoxical manner of statement is also observable.

'We must have drinking,' 'we must have a virtuous tyrant'-- this is too much for the duller wits of the Lacedaemonian and Cretan, who at first start back in surprise.