CLEINIAS: What is it?
ATHENIAN: That all the matters which we are now describing are commonly
called by the general name of unwritten customs, and what are termed the
laws of our ancestors are all of similar nature. And the reflection which
lately arose in our minds, that we can neither call these things laws, nor
yet leave them unmentioned, is justified; for they are the bonds of the
whole state, and come in between the written laws which are or are
hereafter to be laid down; they are just ancestral customs of great
antiquity, which, if they are rightly ordered and made habitual, shield and
preserve the previousl
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