imperceptibly into the condition of slaves; and the courageous sort are
always wanting to go to war, even when the odds are against them, and are
soon destroyed by their enemies. But the true art of government, first
preparing the material by education, weaves the two elements into one,
maintaining authority over the carders of the wool, and selecting the
proper subsidiary arts which are necessary for making the web. The royal
science is queen of educators, and begins by choosing the natures which she
is to train, punishing with death and exterminating those who are violently
carried away to atheism and injustice, and enslaving those who are
wallowing in the mire of ignorance. The rest of the citizens she blends
into one, combining the stronger element of courage, which we may call the
warp, with the softer element of temperance, which we may imagine to be the
woof. These she binds together, first taking the eternal elements of the
honourable, the good, and the just, and fastening them with a divine cord
in a heaven-born nature, and then fastening the animal elements with a
human cord. The good legislator can implant by education the higher
principles; and where they exist there is no difficulty in inserting the
lesser human bonds, by which the State is held together; these are the laws
of intermarriage, and of union for the sake of offspring. Most persons in
their marriages seek after wealth or power; or they are clannish, and
choose those who are like themselves,--the temperate marrying the
temperate, and the courageous the courageous. The two classes thrive and
flourish at first, but they soon degenerate; the one become mad, and the
other feeble and useless. This would not have been the case, if they had
both originally held the same notions about the honourable and the good;
for then they never would have allowed the temperate natures to be
separated from the courageous, but they would have bound them together by
common honours and reputations, by intermarriages, and by the choice of
rulers who combine both qualities. The temperate are careful and just, but
are wanting in the power of action; the courageous fall short of them in