and with the flourish of music. For gold and silver are reck-
oned of little value among them except as material for their
vessels and ornaments, which are common to all.


G.M. Tell me, I pray you, is there no jealousy among them
or disappointment to that one who has not been elected to a
magistracy, or to any other dignity to which he aspires?


Capt. Certainly not. For no one wants either necessaries
or luxuries. Moreover, the race is managed for the good of
the commonwealth, and not of private individuals, and the mag-
istrates must be obeyed. They deny what we hold -- viz., that it
is natural to man to recognize his offspring and to educate them,
and to use his wife and house and children as his own. For
they say that children are bred for the preservation of the
species and not for individual pleasure, as St. Thomas also as-
serts. Therefore the breeding of children has reference to the
commonwealth, and not to individuals, except in so far as they
are constituents of the commonwealth. And since individuals
for the most part bring forth children wrongly and educate
them wrongly, they consider that they remove destruction from
the State, and therefore for this reason, with most sacred fear,
they commit the education of the children, who, as it were, are
the element of the republic, to the care of magistrates; for the
safety of the community is not that of a few. And thus they
distribute male and female breeders of the best natures accord-
ing to philosophical rules. Plato thinks that this distribution
ought to be made by lot, lest some men seeing that they are kept