On the other hand, the conflux of several populations might be more disposed to listen to new laws; but then, to make them combine and pull together, as they say of horses, is a most difficult task, and the work of years.

And yet there is nothing which tends more to the improvement of mankind than legislation and colonization.
CLEINIAS: No doubt; but I should like to know why you say so.
ATHENIAN: My good friend, I am afraid that the course of my speculations is leading me to say something depreciatory of legislators; but if the word be to the purpose, there can be no harm.

And yet, why am I disquieted, for I believe that the same principle applies equally to all human things?
CLEINIAS: To what are you referring?
ATHENIAN: I was going to say that man never legislates, but accidents of all sorts, which legislate for us in all sorts of ways.

The violence of war and the hard necessity of poverty are constantly overturning governments and changing laws.

And the power of disease has often caused innovations in the state, when there have been pestilences, or when there has been a succession of bad seasons continuing during many years.
Any one who sees all this, naturally rushes to the conclusion of which I was speaking, that no mortal legislates in anything, but that in human affairs chance is almost everything.