They, too, might be banished, if the feeling that they were unholy and abominable could sink into the minds of men.

The legislator is to cry aloud, and spare not, 'Let not men fall below the level of the beasts.' Plato does not shrink, like some modern philosophers, from 'carrying on war against the mightiest lusts of mankind;' neither does he expect to extirpate them, but only to confine them to their natural use and purpose, by the enactments of law, and by the influence of public opinion.

He will not feed them by an over-luxurious diet, nor allow the healthier instincts of the soul to be corrupted by music and poetry.

The prohibition of excessive wealth is, as he says, a very considerable gain in the way of temperance, nor does he allow of those enthusiastic friendships between older and younger persons which in his earlier writings appear to be alluded to with a certain degree of amusement and without reproof (compare Introduction to the Symposium).
Sappho and Anacreon are celebrated by him in the Charmides and the Phaedrus; but they would have been expelled from the Magnesian state.
Yet he does not suppose that the rule of absolute purity can be enforced on all mankind.

Something must be conceded to the weakness of human nature.