“‘Citizens,’ we shall say to them in our tale, ‘you are brothers, yet God has framed you differently. Some of you have the power of command, and in the composition of these he has mingled gold, wherefore also they have the greatest honour; others he has made of silver, to be auxiliaries; others again who are to be husbandmen and craftsmen he has composed of brass and iron; and the species will generally be preserved in the children. But as all are of the same original stock, a golden parent will sometimes have a silver son, or a silver parent a golden son. And God proclaims as a first principle to the rulers, and above all else, that there is nothing which they should so anxiously guard, or of which they are to be such good guardians, as of the purity of the race. They should observe what elements mingle in their offspring; for if the son of a golden or silver parent has an admixture of brass and iron, then nature orders a transposition of ranks, and the eye of the ruler must not be pitiful towards the child because he has to descend in the scale and become a husbandman or artisan, just as there may be sons of artisans who having an admixture of gold or silver in them are raised to honour, and become guardians or auxiliaries. For an oracle says that when a man of brass or iron guards the State, it will be destroyed.’” Plato’s ideal state is thus an aristocracy of intelligence and of virtue. There must be selection of those who are to rule. A series of tests is proposed. Those selected must have shown greatest eagerness to do what is good for their country. The youth are to be subjected to various trials, toils, pains, conflicts, to determine whether they can be forced to change their opinions by suffering pain, or by the influence of enchantments, or the lure of pleasure, or as a result of fear. Only those who come out of the trials victorious are to be made rulers. Their education is to be a rigid discipline, and it is to continue as long as they live. Along with the tests which they must endure, the young are to grow up in a healthy environment, and in an atmosphere of simplicity. First a censorship is established to guard them against evil influences. Only authorized tales are to be told them. Erroneous representation of the gods is forbidden. As the young cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal, the state is to determine the general forms in which the poets may cast their tales. Mothers may not frighten children with myths. The Gods must never be represented as the authors of evil. Nor may one be allowed to say that wicked men are often happy and the good miserable. Elsewhere Plato says that no one shall be permitted to travel abroad until he reaches the age of forty. When he comes home he must tell the youth that the institutions of other states are inferior to their own. If any man blasphemes, he is to be put in the reformatory for five years. If in the end he remains unrepentant he is to be put to death.