These are the requirements they set up, and yet they have never heard me make such promises, nor have they ever seen like results in the other arts and disciplines. On the contrary, all knowledge yields itself up to us only after great effort on our part, and we are by no means all equally capable of working out in practice what we learn. Nay, from all our schools only two or three students turn out to be real champions,That is, champions in the contests of oratory. the rest retiring from their studies into private life.As distinguished from the professional life of public orators and teachers of oratory. Cf. 204.

And yet how can we fail to deny intelligence to those who have the effrontery to demand powers which are not found in the recognized arts of this which they declare is not an art and who expect greater advantages to come from an art in which they do not believe than from arts which they regard as thoroughly perfected?

Men of intelligence ought not to form contrary judgements about similar thingsCf. 253; Isoc. 8.114. nor refuse to recognize a discipline which accomplishes the same results as most of the arts. For who among you does not know that most of those who have sat under the sophists have not been duped nor affected as these men claim,

but that some of them have been turned out competent champions and others able teachers; while those who have preferred to live in private have become more gracious in their social intercourseSee General Introd. p. xxvi. than before, and keener judges and more prudent counsellors than the great majority? How then is it possible to scorn a discipline which is able to make of those who have taken advantage of it men of that kind?

Furthermore, this also will be agreed to by all men, namely, that in all the arts and crafts we regard those as the most skilled who turn out pupils who all work as far as possible in the same manner. Now it will be seen that this is the case with philosophy.

For all who have been under a true and intelligent guide will be found to have a power of speech so similar that it is evident to everyone that they have shared the same training. And yet, had not a common habit and a common technique of training been instilled into them, it is inconceivable that they should have taken on this likeness.

Again, every one of you could name many of your schoolfellows who when they were boys seemed to be the dullest among their companions, but who, growing older, outstripped them farther in intelligence and in speech than they had lagged behind them when they were boys. From this fact you can best judge what training can do; for it is evident that when they were young they all possessed such mental powers as they were born with, but as they grew to be men, these outstripped the others and changed places with them in intelligence, because their companions lived dissolutely and softly, while they gave heed to their own opportunities and to their own welfare.

But when people succeed in making progress through their own diligence alone, how can they fail to improve in a much greater degree both over themselves and over others if they put themselves under a master who is mature, of great experience, and learned not only in what has been handed down to him but in what he has discovered for himself?

But there remain still other reasons why everyone may well be astonished at the ignorance in men who venture so blindly to condemn philosophy. For, in the first place, they know that pains and industry give proficiency in all other activities and arts, yet deny that they have any such power in the training of the intellect;

secondly, they admit that no physical weakness is so hopeless that it cannot be improved by exercise and effort, but they do not believe that our minds, which are naturally superior to our bodies, can be made more serviceable through education and suitable training;

again, they observe that some people possess the art of training horses and dogs and most other animals by which they make them more spirited, gentle or intelligent, as the case may be, yet they do not think that any education has been discovered for training human nature, such as can improve men in any of those respects in which we improve the beasts.

Nay, so great is the misfortune which they impute to us all, that while they would acknowledge that it is by our mental powers that every creature is improved and made more useful, yet they have the hardihood to claim that we ourselves, who are endowed with an intelligence through which we render all creatures of greater worth, cannot help each other to advance in excellence.See Isoc. 2.12 and note, Vol. I. p. 47.

But most absurd of all, they behold in the shows which are held year after year lions which are more gentle toward their trainers than some people are toward their benefactors, and bears which dance about and wrestle and imitate our skill,

and yet they are not able to judge even from these instances the power which education and training have, nor can they see that human nature will respond more promptly than the animals to the benefits of education. In truth, I cannot make up my mind which should astonish us the more—the gentleness which is implanted in the fiercest of wild beasts or the brutishness which resides in the souls of such men.

One might say more upon this head, but if I say too much on questions about which most men are agreed, I fear you may suspect that I have little to say on questions which are in dispute. Therefore I shall leave this subject and turn my attention to a class of people who do not, to be sure, contemn philosophy but condemn it much more bitterly since they attribute the iniquities of those who profess to be sophists,That is, teachers of wisdom. He means so-called sophists, such as teachers of forensic skill, who bring all sophists into disrepute. but in practice are far different, to those whose ways have nothing in common with them.

But I am speaking, not in behalf of all those who pretend to be able to educate the young, but in behalf of those only who have justly earned this reputation, and I think that I shall convince you that my accusers have shot very wide of the truth if only you are willing to hear me to the end.

In the first place, then, we must determine what are the objects which make people venture to do evil; for if we define these correctly, you will be better able to make up your minds whether the charges which have been made against us are true or false. Well then, I maintain that everyone does everything which he does for the sake of pleasure or gain or honor; for I observe that no desire springs up in men save for these objects.

If this be so, it only remains to consider which of these objects we should attain by corrupting the young. Do you suppose it would give us pleasure to see or hear that our pupils were bad and in evil repute with their fellow-citizens? And who is so insensate that he would not be distressed to have such things reported about himself?

But surely we could not expect to be admired nor to enjoy great honor for sending out disciples of that sort; on the contrary, we should be much more despised and hated than those who are charged with other forms of villainy. And, mark you, even if we could shut our eyes to these consequences, we could not gain the most money by directing a training of that character;

for, I suppose, all men are aware that a sophist reaps his finest and his largest reward when his pupils prove to be honorable and intelligent and highly esteemed by their fellow-citizens, since pupils of that sort inspire many with the desire to enjoy his teaching, while those who are depraved repel even those who were formerly minded to join his classes. Who, then, could be blind to the more profitable course, when there is so vast a difference between the two?