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1 Plato takes for granted as obvious the general correspondence which some modern philosophers think it necessary to reaffirm. Cf. Mill, Logic, vi. 7. 1 “Human beings in society have no properties, but those which are derived from and may be resolved into the laws and the nature of individual man”; Spencer, Autobiog. ii. p. 543 “Society is created by its units. . . . The nature of its organization is determined by the nature of its units.” Plato illustrates the commonplace in a slight digression on national characteristics, with a hint of the thought partially anticipated by Hippocrates and now identified with Buckle's name, that they are determined by climate and environment. Cf. Newman, Introduction to Aristotle Politics pp. 318-320.
2 αἰτιάσαιτο: this merely varies the idiom αἰτίαν ἔχειν, “predicate of,” “say of.” Cf. 599 E. It was a common boast of the Athenians that the fine air of Athens produced a corresponding subtlety of wit. Cf. Euripides Medea 829-830, Isocrates vii. 74, Roberts, The Ancient Boeotians, pp. 59, 76.
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