Against the Sophists

But it is not these sophists alone who are open to criticism, but also those who profess to teach political discourse.[*](The whole field of “deliberative” oratory, but the most “useful” branch of it in “litigious Athens” was the forensic.) For the latter have no interest whatever in the truth,[*](Their interest was not in the triumph of justice but in making the “worse reason appear the better.” See General Introd. p. xxii.) but consider that they are masters of an art if they can attract great numbers of students by the smallness of their charges and the magnitude of their professions and get something out of them. For they are themselves so stupid and conceive others to be so dull that, although the speeches which they compose are worse than those which some laymen improvise, nevertheless they promise to make their students such clever orators that they will not overlook any of the possibilities which a subject affords.

More than that, they do not attribute any of this power either to the practical experience or to the native ability of the student, but undertake to transmit the science of discourse as simply as they would teach the letters of the alphabet,[*](See General Introd. p. xxii.) not having taken trouble to examine into the nature of each kind of knowledge, but thinking that because of the extravagance of their promises they themselves will command admiration and the teaching of discourse will be held in higher esteem—oblivious of the fact that the arts are made great, not by those who are without scruple in boasting about them, but by those who are able to discover all of the resources which each art affords.