are by walls as if in a mountain pen.

And whenever he hears that a man who has got ten thousand roods of land, or even more, is possessed of an enormous property, he looks upon what he hears of as a very little thing, accustomed as he is to contemplate the whole earth: and when people cant of high birth and say that a man is of noble descent if he can boast of twelve wealthy progenitors, he thinks they show a great dulness and narrowness of perception, when, in consequence of their want of education, they are unable to take a broad view, or to reflect that everyone in the world has had countless thousands of ancestors and progenitors amongst whom there have been numbers of rich men and beggars, kings and slaves, Barbarians and Greeks. And when people pique themselves on a list of twenty-five ancestors and trace their descent from Hercules the son of Amphitryon, their littleness of mind appears to him absurd, and he laughs at their inability to reflect that Amphitryon's ancestor of twenty-five generations back, who was the fiftieth from himself, was just such a man as fortune made him. Well, in all these matters, a man of this sort is ridiculed by the multitude for his apparent pride, as well as for his ignorance of what lies at his feet and his continual embarrassment.

THEO. 'Tis no uncommon character, Socrates.

Soc. But when the philosopher, my friend, draws such a one from the earth, and induces him to leave personal questions of right and wrong, and contemplate justice and injustice in the abstract, to ask what each of them is and wherein they differ from all other things and from each other, to leave such themes as the happiness and richness of a king, for enquiries into the happiness and misery of monarchy and of mankind in general, asking what they

both are and how human nature should seek the one and shun the other-whenever it becomes necessary for that little-minded, sharp, man of law to discourse on any one of these topics, we see the other side of the question: dizzied by the height at which he is suspended, gazing blankly into space from such a strange elevation, by his forlorn dismay and the jargon he utters, he becomes a laughingstock not to Thracian maids or other uneducated persons (they have no eyes to see,) but to all who have received other than a slavish education. Look on this picture and on that, Theodorus; the man who has been nurtured in real freedom and literary ease, the Philosopher, as you name him, to whom it is no discredit to appear simple and worthless when he happens to be engaged in slavish occupations if, for instance, he does not understand how to pack up bedclothes, or to spice a dish, or a fulsome compliment. The other, the man who can perform all such slavish duties with neatness and expedition, but who does not even know how to throw his cloak gracefully over his right shoulder as a gentleman should, much less to use the harmony of language to hymn the true life of gods and heroes.

THEO. If you were to convince every one as you do me, Socrates, there would be more concord and less wickedness in the world.

Soc. Yes, Theodorus; but it is not possible for wickedness to be annihilated, for there needs must always exist something opposed to goodness; neither can it remain firmly fixed in heaven, but of necessity it pervades this mortal nature and this world of ours. Wherefore we must strive to escape hence and fly thitherward as soon as may be. And this flight consists in the becoming as like to God as we can. And to be made like to him is to become just,

and holy, and wise as well.

But, my dear friend, it is far from easy to persuade men that it is not for the reasons vulgarly alleged that we should flee vice and pursue virtue : I mean that we should strive after the one and avoid the other, that we may appear to be good and not appear to be evil. For such talk as this is, in my opinion mere old wives' fables, as the saying is. But let us state the truth thus. God is never in any wise unjust, but he is the very perfection of justice, and there is nothing more like to him than he among us who is himself become as just as possible. And it is herein that a man's real cleverness consists, as well as his real nothingness and baseness: for a knowledge of this is true wisdom and virtue, whilst a want of this knowledge is palpable ignorance and worthlessness. Other apparent acts of cleverness and wisdom when employed in public life are low, when in trade, mechanical. Accordingly, it is by far the best plan not to allow a man who is unjust and impious in word and deed to get a reputation for his wickedness, for such persons glory in their shame, and expect to be called no fools, no mere cumberers of the ground, but rather the salt of the state. If then the truth must be told they are all the more what they think they are not, because they do not think so. For they do not know the penalty which is attached to villainy, though it is the last thing of which they should be ignorant: for it does not consist as they imagine, in stripes and death, for such things are sometimes the lot of those who commit no villainy, but in that from which they are unable to escape. THEO. What do you mean ?

Soc. In this world of ours, my friend, there are two types of being, whereof the one is godlike and most blessed, the other godless and most wretched, and they not perceiv

ing that this is so, by their folly and utter ignorance are made like the one through their unjust actions and unlike the other, though they know it not. For this then they pay the penalty since they lead a life corresponding to that to which they conform. But if we tell them that unless they shake off this cleverness of theirs, even when they are dead they will not be received into that place which is purified from all evil, that after death they will pass an existence like to themselves, and that being themselves evil they will abide with evil-when they hear this from us, they will think that they are clever and shrewd and that we are fools.

THEO. Yes, Socrates, so it is.

There is one thing,

Soc. I am sure of it, my friend. however, that happens to them, and that is that whenever they have to argue in private on these subjects which they condemn, if only they consent manfully to stand their ground for any length of time, instead of flying like cowards, they end by feeling strangely dissatisfied with themselves for saying what they have said. And all their fine rhetoric somehow or other withers up and they seem no better than children. However let us quit this topic, for all that we are saying now is but a digression. Unless we do so the original subject of our discourse will be completely buried by the continual influx of fresh ideas. Let us therefore return to our original argument, if you please. THEO. A conversation of this kind is far from being unpleasant to me, Socrates, for it is easy to follow the lead of one so much older than myself. However, since you wish it, let us go back to our original argument.