Of a supreme or master science which was to be the 'coping-stone' of the rest, few traces appear in the Laws.

He seems to have lost faith in it, or perhaps to have realized that the time for such a science had not yet come, and that he was unable to fill up the outline which he had sketched.

There is no requirement that the guardians of the law shall be philosophers, although they are to know the unity of virtue, and the connexion of the sciences.

Nor are we told that the leisure of the citizens, when they are grown up, is to be devoted to any intellectual employment.

In this respect we note a falling off from the Republic, but also there is 'the returning to it' of which Aristotle speaks in the Politics.