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ey not educate to pe rfection young and old, men and women alike, and fashion them after their own hearts? When is this acplished? 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 roc ks and the place in which they are assembled redoubles the sound of the praise or blame at such a time will not a young man39。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 pel 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 overe 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 inc luded: for I w ould not have you ignorant that, in the present evil state of governments, whatever is saved and es 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 they deem to be their adversaries, do, in fac t, teach nothing but the opinion of the many, that is to say, the opinions of their assemblies。 and this is their w isdom. I might pare them to a man who should study the tempers and desires of a mighty strong beast w ho is fed by him he would learn how to approach and handle him, also at what times and from what causes he is dangerous or the reverse, and what is the meaning of his several cries, and by what sounds, when another utters them, he is soothed or infuriated。 and you may suppose further, that when, by continually attending upon him, he has bee perfect in all this, he calls his knowledge wisdom, and makes of it a system or art, which he proceeds to teach, although he has no real notion of wha t he means by the principles or passions of which he is spea king, but calls this honourable and that dishonourable, or good or evil, or just or unjust, all in accordance with the tastes and tempers of the great brute. Good he pronounces to be that in which the beast delights and evil to be that which he dislikes。 and he can give no other account of them except that the just and noble are the necessary, having never himself seen, and having no power of explaining to others the nature of either, or the difference between them, which is immense. By heaven, would not such an one be a rare educator? Indeed, he would. And in what way does he who thinks that w isdom is the discernment of the tempers and tastes of the motley multitude, w hether in painting or music, or, finally, in politics, differ from him whom I have been describing For when a man consorts with the many, and exhibits to them his poem or other wor k of art or the servic e which he has done the State, ma king them his judges when he is not obliged, the socalled necessity of Diomede will oblige him to produce whatever they praise. And yet the reasons are utterly ludicrous which they give in confirmation of their own notions about the honourable and good. Did you ever hear any of them which were not? No, nor am I likely to hear. You recognise the truth of what I have been saying? Then let me ask you to consider further whether the world will ever be induced to believe in the existence of absolute beauty rather than of the many beautiful, or of the absolute in each kind rather than of the many in each kind? Certainly not. Then the world cannot possibly be a philosopher? Impossible. And therefore philosophers must inevitably fall under the censure of the world? They must. And of individuals who consort with the mob and seek to please them? That is evident. Then, do you see any way in which the philosopher can be preserved in his calling to the end? and remember what we were saying of him, that he was to have quickness and memory and courage and magnificence these were admitted by us to be the true philosopher39。s gifts. Yes. Will not such an one from his early childhood be in all things first among all, especially if his bodily endowments are like his mental ones? Certainly, he said. And his friends and fellowcitizens will want to use him as he gets older for their own purposes? No question. Falling at his feet, they will ma ke requests to him and do him honour and flatter him, because they want to get into their hands now, the power which he will one day p, could ask on the subject was sufficient to draw from her husband any satisfactory description of Mr. Bingley. They attac ked him in various ways。 with barefaced questions, ingenious suppositions, and distant surmises。 but he eluded the skill of them all。 and they were at last obliged to accept the secondhand intelligence of their neighbour Lady Lucas. Her report was highly favourable. Sir William had been delighted with him. H e was quite young, wonderfully handsome, extremely ag