The war is not against a whole nation who are a friendly multitude of men, women, and children, but only against a few guilty persons; when they are punished peace will be restored.

That is the way in which Hellenes should war against one another--and against barbarians, as they war against one another now.
'But, my dear Socrates, you are forgetting the main question: Is such a State possible?
I grant all and more than you say about the blessedness of 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.