he be preserved by some divine power. Do you really
think, as people so often say, that our youth are corrupted by Sophists,
or that private teachers of the art corrupt them in any degree worth
speaking of? Are not the public who say these things the greatest of all
Sophists? And do they not educate to perfection young and old, men and
women alike, and fashion them after their own hearts?

When is this accomplished? he said.

When they meet together, and the world sits down at an assembly, or in
a court of law, or a theatre, or a camp, or in any other popular resort,
and there is a great uproar, and they praise some things which are
being said or done, and blame other things, equally exaggerating both,
shouting and clapping their hands, and the echo of the rocks and the
place in which they are assembled redoubles the sound of the praise or
blame--at such a time will not a young man's heart, as they say, leap
within him? Will any private training enable him to stand firm against
the overwhelming flood of popular opinion? or will he be carried away
by the stream? Will he not have the notions of good and evil which the
public in general have--he will do as they do, and as they are, such
will he be?

Yes, Socrates; necessity will compel him.

And yet, I said, there is a still greater necessity, which has not been
mentioned.

What is that?

The gentle force of attainder or confiscation or death, which, as you
are aware, these new Sophists and educators, who are the public, apply
when their words are powerless.

Indeed they do; and in right good earnest.

Now what opinion of any other Sophist, or of any private person, can be
expected to overcome in such an unequal contest?

None, he replied.

No, indeed, I said, even to make the attempt is a great piece of folly;
there neither is, nor has been, nor is ever likely to be, any different
type of character which has had no other training in virtue but that
which is supplied by public opinion--I speak, my friend, of human virtue
only; what is more than human, as the proverb says, is not included:
for I would not have you ignorant that, in the present evil state of
governments, whatever is saved and comes to good is saved by the power
of God, as we may truly say.

I quite assent, he replied.

Then let me crave your assent also to a further observation.

What are you going to say?

Why, that all those mercenary individuals, whom the many call Sophists
and whom the