Page:Alerielorvoyaget00lach.djvu/165

Rh the Tower of Doom out of our world. We pray for them, but we slay them. There is no room in our world either for liars or selfish people."

"It would be well if they could get rid of them on earth also. Men suffer crime to fester in their midst, and to pollute society. But tell me how do you govern your state?"

"By the rule of the wisest. Those who excel in wisdom and virtue are promoted to power; but they are never suffered to use their power for their own advantage, but for that of the community. We do not choose by popular election, but by competitive examination. The wisest of our mathematicians, and those who excel in calculation, are given the care of the treasures; those physicians who are proved to excel above others in physiology are given the care of sanitation; the most able architects the care of public buildings; the greatest botanists the care of the forests. The chief object of the state is to secure the greatest possible happiness to the greatest possible number, and to do this we require the highest available scientific knowledge in each department."

"I think you are wise. One of the greatest thinkers on earth—Plato—thought it would