e the
invention of good lawgivers living in the olden time; these are given
to the young man, in order to guide him in his conduct whether he is
commanding or obeying; and he who transgresses them is to be corrected,
or, in other words, called to account, which is a term used not only in
your country, but also in many others, seeing that justice calls men
to account. Now when there is all this care about virtue private and
public, why, Socrates, do you still wonder and doubt whether virtue
can be taught? Cease to wonder, for the opposite would be far more
surprising.

But why then do the sons of good fathers often turn out ill? There
is nothing very wonderful in this; for, as I have been saying, the
existence of a state implies that virtue is not any man's private
possession. If so--and nothing can be truer--then I will further ask
you to imagine, as an illustration, some other pursuit or branch of
knowledge which may be assumed equally to be the condition of the
existence of a state. Suppose that there could be no state unless we
were all flute-players, as far as each had the capacity, and everybody
was freely teaching everybody the art, both in private and public, and
reproving the bad player as freely and openly as every man now teaches
justice and the laws, not concealing them as he would conceal the other
arts, but imparting them--for all of us have a mutual interest in the
justice and virtue of one another, and this is the reason why every one
is so ready to teach justice and the laws;--suppose, I say, that there
were the same readiness and liberality among us in teaching one
another flute-playing, do you imagine, Socrates, that the sons of good
flute-players would be more likely to be good than the sons of bad
ones? I think not. Would not their sons grow up to be distinguished
or undistinguished according to their own natural capacities as
flute-players, and the son of a good player would often turn out to be a
bad one, and the son of a bad player to be a good one, all flute-players
would be good enough in comparison of those who were ignorant and
unacquainted with the art of flute-playing? In like manner I would have
you consider that he who appears to you to be the worst of those who
have been brought up in laws and humanities, would appear to be a just
man and a master of justice if he were to be compared with men who had
no education, or courts of justice, or laws, or any restraints upon them
which compelled