Page:Plato (IA platocollins00colliala).pdf/134

 banish from our State all those lying fables of our mythology, as well as the terrific descriptions of the lower world. We will lay down, instead, types to which all tales told to children must conform. Our music, too, shall be simple and spirited strains after the "Dorian mood;" and in sculpture and in art we will encourage the same pure taste. Thus, with fair and graceful forms everywhere around them, our youth will drink into their souls, "like gales blowing from healthy lands," all inspirations of truth and beauty.

In their bodily training, we will encourage a plain and healthy diet, and there shall be no sauces or made dishes. Thus we shall want few lawyers and few physicians: no sleepy judges, or doctors whose skill only teaches them how to prolong worthless lives. Our citizens will have no time to be invalids; with us it must be either "kill or cure," and the evil body must be left to die, and the evil soul must be put to death.

Our Rulers must be chosen from our Guardians—the best and oldest of the number; and they must be tested—as gold is tried in the furnace—by pleasure and fear; and if they come forth unstained and unscathed from this trial, they shall be honoured both in life and death, And in order that we may secure a proper esprit de corps among them, we will invent and impress upon them a "noble falsehood." "Ye are children of earth (we will tell them), all brethren from the same great mother, whom you are in duty bound to protect. Your creator mingled gold in the nature of your chiefs; silver in that of the soldiers; bronze and iron went to form the artisans and labourers. It