But, I beg of you, do not, before you have heard me, judge that I could have been so mad as to choose deliberately, when my fate is in your hands, to express to you ideas which are repugnant to your opinions if I had not believed that these ideas follow logically on what I have previously said, and that I could support them with true and convincing proofs.

I consider that the kind of art which can implant honesty and justice in depraved natures has never existed and does not now exist, and that people who profess that power will grow weary and cease from their vain pretensions before such an education is ever found.Cf. Isoc. 13.21; Theog. 429 ff.; Xen. Mem. 1.2.19 ff.; Plat. Meno 95 ff.

But I do hold that people can become better and worthier if they conceive an ambition to speak well,Cf. Isoc. 13.15. if they become possessed of the desire to be able to persuade their hearers, and, finally, if they set their hearts on seizing their advantage—I do not mean “advantage” in the sense given to that word by the empty-minded, but advantage in the true meaning of that term;Compare his discussion of true advantage in Isoc. 3.2; Isoc. 8.28-35.