Note 307 — Chapter XXXIX · LEGES AND EPINOMIS. (continued 2)

K. F. Hermann, in his valuable Dissertation, De Vestigiis Institutorum Veterum, imprimis Atticorum, per Platonis de Legibus libros indagandis, Marburg, 1836, p. 55, says:— “Philosophi [Platonis] manum novatricem in iis tantum agnosco, quæ de exsilii tempore pro diversis criminum fontibus diverso argutatur; qui quum omnino omnium, nisi fallor, primus in hoc ipso Legum Opere veterem usuque receptam criminum divisionem in voluntaria et invita reprehenderit, eaque secundum tres animi partes trifariam distribuerit, ita hic quoque mediam inter imprudentiam et dolum malum iracundiam inseruit, quâ quis motus cædem vel extemplo committeret vel etiam posterius animum suum sanguine explêret.”

I do not conceive Plato’s reasoning exactly in the same way as Hermann. Plato denies only the reality of ἑκούσια ἀδικήματα: he considers all ἀδικήματα as essentially ἀκούσια. But he does not deny ἑκούσια ἀδικήματα (which is the large genus comprehending ἀδικήματα as one species): he recognises both ἁμαρτήματα ἑκούσια and ἁμαρτήματα ἀκούσια. And he considers the ἁμαρτήματα arising from θυμὸς to be midway between the two. But he also recognises ἁμαρτήματα as springing from the three different sources in the human mind. The two positions are not incompatible; though the whole discussion is obscured by the perplexing distinction between ἁμαρτήματα and ἀδικήματα.