[471c]
for our
guardians that they are not to lay waste the land or burn the
houses?” “Let us so decree,” he said,
“and assume that this and our preceding prescriptions are
right.“But1 I fear, Socrates,that if you are allowed
to go on in this fashion, you will never get to speak of the matter you put
aside in order to say all this, namely, the possibility of such a polity
coming into existence, and the way in which it could be brought to pass. I
too am ready to admit that if it could be realized everything would be
lovely2 for the state that had it, and I will add what you passed
by, that they would also be
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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