in any other view without being ridiculous. The
profession of ignorance reminds us of the earlier and more exclusively
Socratic Dialogues. But neither in them, nor in the Apology, nor in
the Memorabilia of Xenophon, does Socrates express any doubt of the
fundamental truths of morality. He evidently regards this 'among the
multitude of questions' which agitate human life 'as the principle which
alone remains unshaken.' He does not insist here, any more than in the
Phaedo, on the literal truth of the myth, but only on the soundness of
the doctrine which is contained in it, that doing wrong is worse than
suffering, and that a man should be rather than seem; for the next best
thing to a man's being just is that he should be corrected and become
just; also that he should avoid all flattery, whether of himself or of
others; and that rhetoric should be employed for the maintenance of the
right only. The revelation of another life is a recapitulation of the
argument in a figure.

(2) Socrates makes the singular remark, that he is himself the only true
politician of his age. In other passages, especially in the Apology, he
disclaims being a politician at all. There he is convinced that he or
any other good man who attempted to resist the popular will would be
put to death before he had done any good to himself or others. Here he
anticipates such a fate for himself, from the fact that he is 'the only
man of the present day who performs his public duties at all.' The two
points of view are not really inconsistent, but the difference between
them is worth noticing: Socrates is and is not a public man. Not in the
ordinary sense, like Alcibiades or Pericles, but in a higher one; and
this will sooner or later entail the same consequences on him. He
cannot be a private man if he would; neither can he separate morals from
politics. Nor is he unwilling to be a politician, although he foresees
the dangers which await him; but he must first become a better and
wiser man, for he as well as Callicles is in a state of perplexity and
uncertainty. And yet there is an inconsistency: for should not Socrates
too have taught the citizens better than to put him to death?

And now, as he himself says, we will 'resume the argument from the
beginning.'

Socrates, who is attended by his inseparable disciple, Chaerephon, meets
Callicles in the streets of Athens. He is informed that he has just
missed an exhibition of Gorgias, which he regrets, because