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.