like an individual, is injured as a whole when any part is affected. Every
State has subjects and rulers, who in a democracy are called rulers, and in
other States masters: but in our State they are called saviours and
allies; and the subjects who in other States are termed slaves, are by us
termed nurturers and paymasters, and those who are termed comrades and
colleagues in other places, are by us called fathers and brothers. And
whereas in other States members of the same government regard one of their
colleagues as a friend and another as an enemy, in our State no man is a
stranger to another; for every citizen is connected with every other by
ties of blood, and these names and this way of speaking will have a
corresponding reality--brother, father, sister, mother, repeated from
infancy in the ears of children, will not be mere words. Then again the
citizens will have all things in common, in having common property they
will have common pleasures and pains.

Can there be strife and contention among those who are of one mind; or
lawsuits about property when men have nothing but their bodies which they
call their own; or suits about violence when every one is bound to defend
himself? The permission to strike when insulted will be an 'antidote' to
the knife and will prevent disturbances in the State. But no younger man
will strike an elder; reverence will prevent him from laying hands on his
kindred, and he will fear that the rest of the family may retaliate.
Moreover, our citizens will be rid of the lesser evils of life; there will
be no flattery of the rich, no sordid household cares, no borrowing and not
paying. Compared with the citizens of other States, ours will be Olympic
victors, and crowned with blessings greater still--they and their children
having a better maintenance during life, and after death an honourable
burial. Nor has the happiness of the individual been sacrificed to the
happiness of the State; our Olympic victor has not been turned into a
cobbler, but he has a happiness beyond that of any cobbler. At the same