being one family--fathers, brothers, mothers, daughters, going out to war
together; but I want to ascertain the possibility of this ideal State.'
You are too unmerciful. The first wave and the second wave I have hardly
escaped, and now you will certainly drown me with the third. When you see
the towering crest of the wave, I expect you to take pity. 'Not a whit.'

Well, then, we were led to form our ideal polity in the search after
justice, and the just man answered to the just State. Is this ideal at all
the worse for being impracticable? Would the picture of a perfectly
beautiful man be any the worse because no such man ever lived? Can any
reality come up to the idea? Nature will not allow words to be fully
realized; but if I am to try and realize the ideal of the State in a
measure, I think that an approach may be made to the perfection of which I
dream by one or two, I do not say slight, but possible changes in the
present constitution of States. I would reduce them to a single one--the
great wave, as I call it. Until, then, kings are philosophers, or
philosophers are kings, cities will never cease from ill: no, nor the
human race; nor will our ideal polity ever come into being. I know that
this is a hard saying, which few will be able to receive. 'Socrates, all
the world will take off his coat and rush upon you with sticks and stones,
and therefore I would advise you to prepare an answer.' You got me into
the scrape, I said. 'And I was right,' he replied; 'however, I will stand
by you as a sort of do-nothing, well-meaning ally.' Having the help of
such a champion, I will do my best to maintain my position. And first, I
must explain of whom I speak and what sort of natures these are who are to
be philosophers and rulers. As you are a man of pleasure, you will not
have forgotten how indiscriminate lovers are in their attachments; they
love all, and turn blemishes into beauties. The snub-nosed youth is said
to have a winning grace; the beak of another has a royal look; the
featureless are faultless; the dark are manly, the fair angels; the sickly