And I shall try first of all to persuade the rulers themselves and our soldiers, and afterwards the rest of the community, as to the matter of the rearing and the education we gave them, that in fact it did but seem to happen with them, they seemed to experience all that, only as in dreams. They were then in very truth nourished and fashioned beneath the earth within, and the armour upon them and their equipment put together; and when they were perfectly wrought out the earth even their mother put them forth. Now, therefore, it is their duty to think concerning the land in which they are as of a mother, or foster-mother, and to protect it if any foe come against it, and to think of their fellow-citizens as being their brothers, born of the earth as they. All ye in the city, therefore, are brothers, we shall say to them proceeding with our story; but God, when he made you, mixed gold in the generation of those among you fit to be our kings, for which cause they are the most precious of all; and silver in those fit to be our guards; and in the husbandmen and all other handicraftsmen iron and brass. Forasmuch then as ye are all of one kindred, for the most part ye would beget offspring like to yourselves; but at times a silver child will come of one golden, and from the silver a child of gold, and so forth, interchangeably. To those who rule, then, first and above all God enjoins that of nothing shall they be so careful guardians, nothing shall they so earnestly regard, as the young children--what metal has been mixed to their hands in the souls of these. And if a child of their own be born with an alloy of iron or brass, they shall by no means have pity upon it, but, allotting unto it the value which befits its nature, they shall thrust it into the class of husbandmen or artisans. And if, again, of these a child be born with gold or silver in him, with due estimate they shall promote such to wardenship or to arms, inasmuch as an oracular saying declares that the city is perished already when it has iron or brass to guard it. Can you suggest a way of getting them to believe this mythus? Republic, 414.