the life of cowardice; one of each pair
exceeding in pleasure and the other in pain, the courageous surpassing
the cowardly, and the wise exceeding the foolish. And so the one
class of lives exceeds the other class in pleasure; the temperate and
courageous and wise and healthy exceed the cowardly and foolish and
intemperate and diseased lives; and generally speaking, that which has
any virtue, whether of body or soul, is pleasanter than the vicious
life, and far superior in beauty and rectitude and excellence and
reputation, and causes him who lives accordingly to be infinitely
happier than the opposite.

Enough of the preamble; and now the laws should follow; or, to speak
more correctly, an outline of them. As, then, in the case of a web
or any other tissue, the warp and the woof cannot be made of the same
materials (compare Statesman), but the warp is necessarily superior as
being stronger, and having a certain character of firmness, whereas
the woof is softer and has a proper degree of elasticity;--in a
similar manner those who are to hold great offices in states, should be
distinguished truly in each case from those who have been but slenderly
proven by education. Let us suppose that there are two parts in the
constitution of a state--one the creation of offices, the other the laws
which are assigned to them to administer.

But, before all this, comes the following consideration:--The shepherd
or herdsman, or breeder of horses or the like, when he has received his
animals will not begin to train them until he has first purified them in
a manner which befits a community of animals; he will divide the healthy
and unhealthy, and the good breed and the bad breed, and will send
away the unhealthy and badly bred to other herds, and tend the rest,
reflecting that his labours will be vain and have no effect, either on
the souls or bodies of those whom nature and ill nurture have corrupted,
and that they will involve in destruction the pure and healthy nature
and being of every other animal, if he should neglect to purify them.
Now the case of other animals is not so important--they are only worth
introducing for the sake of illustration; but what relates to man is of
the highest importance; and the legislator should make enquiries, and
indicate what is proper for each one in the way of purification and
of any other procedure. Take, for example, the purification of a
city--there are many kinds of purification, some easier