I think true culture consists not in proficiency in words and speech, but in a condition of mind which has sound intentions and right opinions concerning good and evil, the honorable and the base. Whoever, therefore, thinks one thing and teaches those about him another appears to be as wanting in culture as in honor. If in trifles there is a difference between thought and speech, it is nevertheless an evil in some way to be endured; but if in important matters any one thinks one thing and teaches in opposition to what he thinks, this is the trick of charlatans, the act not of good men, but of those who are thoroughly depraved, especially in the case of those who teach what they regard as most worthless, deceiving and enticing by flattery into evil those whom they wish to use for their own purposes. All those who undertake to teach anything should be upright in life and not cherish in their minds ideas which are in opposition to those commonly received; most of all I think that such they ought to be who converse with the young on learning, or who explain the writings of the ancients, whether they are teachers of eloquence or of rhetoric, and still more if they are sophists. For they aim to be not merely teachers of words but of morals as well, and claim instruction in political science as belonging to their field. Whether this be true, I will leave undetermined. But praising them as those who thus strive for fine professions, I would praise them still more if they neither lied nor contradicted themselves, thinking one thing and teaching their pupils another. Homer, Hesiod, Demosthenes, Herodotus, Thucydides, Isocrates, and Lysias were indebted to the gods for all their science. Did they not think that they were under the protection of Hermes and of the Muses? It seems to me, therefore, absurd that those who explain their writings should despise the gods they honored. But when I think it is absurd, I do not say that, on account of their pupils, they should alter their opinions; but I give them the choice, either not to teach what they do not hold as good, or, if they prefer to teach, first to convince their pupils that Homer, Hesiod, or any of those whom they explain and condemn, is not so godless and foolish in respect to the gods as they represent him to be. For since they draw their support and make gain from what these have written, they confess themselves most sordidly greedy of gain, willing to do anything for a few drachmas. Hitherto there were many causes for the lack of attendance upon the temples, and overhanging fear gave an excuse for keeping secret the right teaching concerning the gods. Now, however, since the gods have granted us freedom, it seems to me absurd that men should teach what they do not regard as good. If they believe that all those men are wise whose writings they expound and as whose prophets they sit, let them first imitate their piety toward the gods; but if they think that these writers