But the milder form of purification is as follows:--when men who have nothing, and are in want of food, show a disposition to follow their leaders in an attack on the property of the rich--these, who are the natural plague of the state, are sent away by the legislator in a friendly spirit as far as he is able; and this dismissal of them is euphemistically termed a colony.

And every legislator should contrive to do this at once.

Our present case, however, is peculiar.

For there is no need to devise any colony or purifying separation under the circumstances in which we are placed.

But as, when many streams flow together from many sources, whether springs or mountain torrents, into a single lake, we ought to attend and take care that the confluent waters should be perfectly clear, and in order to effect this, should pump and draw off and divert impurities, so in every political arrangement there may be trouble and danger.