PLATO'S RESTRICTIONS ON PARENTAGE.--The end would hardly seem to justify the means, in these days, at least, when violence to elders is an uncommon incident; but how was the community of wives and children by which it was sought to be attained to be brought about? It is said, "The best of either sex should be united with the best as often, and the inferior with the inferior as seldom, as possible." Thus the people were to be classified into "best" and "inferior," and while the former were to be brought together as often as possible, the latter were not to be united at all if it could be avoided. There was no question of marriage in either case. In the one, the union was for the purpose of obtaining children, and in the other for the simple gratification of the passions; for only the offspring of the union between the sexes in the "best" class were to be reared. The children of the inferior class were not to be reared, "if the flock is to be maintained in first-class condition." This infanticide would matter little to the parents, as they had no control over their coming together, nor concern with the rearing of their offspring. Lots were to be drawn by the "less worthy" on each occasion of their being brought together. This was that they might accuse their ill-luck and not the rulers, in case their partners were not to their liking. The State was to provide not only what men and women were to be sexually united, but the ages within which this was to be permitted for the purpose of obtaining offspring. For a woman, the beginning of childbearing for the State was fixed at twenty years of age, and it was to continue until forty. For men, the period of procreation is said to be between twenty-five and fifty-five years of age. After the specified ages men and women were to be allowed to "range at will," except within certain prescribed degrees, but on the understanding that no children born to such unions were to be reared. It is evident that under such a system the actual relationship between the members of the State family could be known only to its rulers; but to provide against the union of persons too nearly related by blood, all those who were "begotten at the time their fathers and mothers came together" were regarded as brothers and sisters. But even brothers and sisters might be united "if the lot favors them, and they receive the sanction of the Pythian oracle." Thus far for the breeding of children laid down in Plato's "Republic." As to the rearing of them, we need only say that the children allowed to live were to be placed in the custody of guardians, to be appointed by the State from among the most worthy of either sex, who were to bring them up in accordance with the principles of virtue.