 Book 5 continues the Great Prelude to the laws in general which started with the discussion of gods and ancestors in Book 4. The Athenian begins this next phase of the address by telling the citizens that they ought to honor their souls above all their other possessions, as their souls are both most their own and the most divine of all their possessions. To honor one’s soul, he tells them, is to follow virtue and, in general, good things, rather than to allow it to satisfy any desires and to enjoy any pleasures it might want; and, at the end of the discussion, this ability of the soul to follow the good is identified as that which explains why the soul is to be so highly honored. Next on the list comes the body, which ought to be honored by being put in a moderate state, as that is what best supports the good state of the soul; third are money and property, which also ought to be held in moderation, for the same reason. After a very brief discussion of relations with friends and strangers, the Athenian turns to the character of the person who leads the finest or most noble (kallista) life. There, he describes various praiseworthy or blameworthy traits of character, before giving a general warning to all citizens to avoid excessive self-love as “the greatest of all evils” and “the cause of all of each man’s wrongdoings on every occasion” (Laws 731D6–E5). Instead, he encourages each citizen to love not himself or his own possessions but rather what is just, whether it belongs to himself or to someone else. This claim will be discussed further in section 9 (Ethics).