But,before all this,comes the following consideration:-The shepherd or herdsman,or breeder of horses or the like,when he has received his animals will not begin to train them until he has first purified them in a manner which befits a community of animals;he will divide the healthy and unhealthy,and the good breed and the bad breed,and will send away the unhealthy and badly bred to other herds,and tend the rest,reflecting that his labours will be vain and have no effect,either on the souls or bodies of those whom nature and ill nurture have corrupted,and that they will involve in destruction the pure and healthy nature and being of every other animal,if he should neglect to purify them.Now the case of other animals is not so important-they are only worth introducing for the sake of illustration;but what relates to man is of the highest importance;and the legislator should make enquiries,and indicate what is proper for each one in the way of purification and of any other procedure.Take,for example,the purification of a city-there are many kinds of purification,some easier and others more difficult;and some of them,and the best and most difficult of them,the legislator,if he be also a despot,may be able to effect;but the legislator,who,not being a despot,sets up a new government and laws,even if he attempt the mildest of purgations,may think himself happy if he can complete his work.The best kind of purification is painful,like similar cures in medicine,involving righteous punishment and inflicting death or exile in the last resort.
For in this way we commonly dispose of great sinners who are incurable,and are the greatest injury of the whole state.But the milder form of purification is as follows:-when men who have nothing,and are in want of food,show a disposition to follow their leaders in an attack on the property of the rich-these,who are the natural plague of the state,are sent away by the legislator in a friendly spirit as far as he is able;and this dismissal of them is euphemistically termed a colony.And every legislator should contrive to do this at once.Our present case,however,is peculiar.
For there is no need to devise any colony or purifying separation under the circumstances in which we are placed.But as,when many streams flow together from many sources,whether springs or mountain torrents,into a single lake,we ought to attend and take care that the confluent waters should be perfectly clear,and in order to effect this,should pump and draw off and divert impurities,so in every political arrangement there may be trouble and danger.But,seeing that we are now only discoursing and not acting,let our selection be supposed to be completed,and the desired purity attained.Touching evil men,who want to join and be citizens of our state,after we have tested them by every sort of persuasion and for a sufficient time,we will prevent them from coming;but the good we will to the utmost of our ability receive as friends with open arms.
Another piece of good fortune must not be forgotten,which,as we were saying,the Heraclid colony had,and which is also ours-that we have escaped division of land and the abolition of debts;for these are always a source of dangerous contention,and a city which is driven by necessity to legislate upon such matters can neither allow the old ways to continue,nor yet venture to alter them.We must have recourse to prayers,so to speak,and hope that a slight change may be cautiously effected in a length of time.And such a change can be accomplished by those who have abundance of land,and having also many debtors,are willing,in a kindly spirit,to share with those who are in want,sometimes remitting and sometimes giving,holding fast in a path of moderation,and deeming poverty to be the increase of a man's desires and not the diminution of his property.
For this is the great beginning of salvation to a state,and upon this lasting basis may be erected afterwards whatever political order is suitable under the circumstances;but if the change be based upon an unsound principle,the future administration of the country will be full of difficulties.That is a danger which,as I am saying,is escaped by us,and yet we had better say how,if we had not escaped,we might have escaped;and we may venture now to assert that no other way of escape,whether narrow or broad,can be devised but ******* from avarice and a sense of justice-upon this rock our city shall be built;for there ought to be no disputes among citizens about property.If there are quarrels of long standing among them,no legislator of any degree of sense will proceed a step in the arrangement of the state until they are settled.But that they to whom God has given,as he has to us,to be the founders of a new state as yet free from enmity-that they should create themselves enmities by their mode of distributing lands and houses,would be superhuman folly and wickedness.
How then can we rightly order the distribution of the land?In the first place,the number of the citizens has to be determined,and also the number and size of the divisions into which they will have to be formed;and the land and the houses will then have to be apportioned by us as fairly as we can.The number of citizens can only be estimated satisfactorily in relation to the territory and the neighbouring states.The territory must be sufficient to maintain a certain number of inhabitants in a moderate way of life-more than this is not required;and the number of citizens should be sufficient to defend themselves against the injustice of their neighbours,and also to give them the power of rendering efficient aid to their neighbours when they are wronged.After having taken a survey of theirs and their neighbours'territory,we will determine the limits of them in fact as well as in theory.And now,let us proceed to legislate with a view to perfecting the form and outline of our state.