it accustomed them to canvass human conduct, with the causes and obstructions of human well-being, both public and private: it even suggested to them indirectly lessons of duty and prudence, from which their social position tended to estrange them, and which they would hardly have submitted to hear except from the lips of one whom they intellectually admired. In learning to talk, they were forced to learn more or less to think, and familiarized with the difference between truth and error: nor would an eloquent lecturer fail to enlist their feelings in the great topics of morals and politics. Their thirst for mental stimulus and rhetorical accomplishments had thus, as far as it went, a moralizing effect, though this was rarely their purpose in the pursuit.[59] [55] See the description in the Protagoras of Plato, c. 8, p. 317. [56] See Xenophon, Memorab. i, 2, 12-24, 39-47. Κριτίας μὲν καὶ Ἀλκιβιάδης, οὐκ ἀρέσκοντος αὐτοῖς Σωκράτους ὡμιλησάτην, ὃν χρόνον ὡμιλείτην αὐτῷ, ἀλλ’ εὐθὺς ἐξ ἀρχῆς ὡρμηκότε προεστάναι τῆς πόλεως. Ἔτι γὰρ Σωκράτει ξυνόντες οὐκ ἄλλοις τισὶ μᾶλλον ἐπεχείρουν διαλέγεσθαι ἢ τοῖς μάλιστα πράττουσι τὰ πολιτικά.... Ἐπεὶ τοίνυν τάχιστα τῶν πολιτευομένων ὑπέλαβον κρείττονες εἶναι, Σωκράτει μὲν οὐκ ἔτι προσῄεσαν, οὐδὲ γὰρ αὐτοῖς ἄλλως ἤρεσκεν· εἴτε προσέλθοιεν, ὑπὲρ ὧν, ἡμάρτανον ἐλεγχόμενοι ἤχθοντο· τὰ δὲ τῆς πóλεως ἔπραττον, ὧνπερ ἕνεκεν καὶ Σωκράτει προσῆλθον. Compare Plato, Apolog. Sokrat. c. 10, p. 23; c. 22, p. 33. Xenophon represents Alkibiadês and Kritias as frequenting the society of Sokratês, for the same reason and with the same objects as Plato affirms that young men generally went to the Sophists: see Plato, Sophist. c. 20, p. 232 D. “Nam et Socrati (observes Quintilian, Inst. Or. ii, 16) objiciunt comici, docere cum, quomodo pejorem causam meliorem reddat; et contra Tisiam et Gorgiam similia dicit polliceri Plato.” The representation given by Plato of the great influence acquired by Sokratês over Alkibiadês, and of the deference and submission of the latter, is plainly not to be taken as historical, even if we had not the more simple and trustworthy picture of Xenophon. Isokratês goes so far as to say that Sokratês was never known by any one as teacher of Alkibiadês: which is an exaggeration in the other direction. Isokratês, Busiris, Or. xi. sect. 6, p. 222. [57] Plato, Symposium, c. 35-36, p. 220, etc. [58] See the representation, given in the Protagoras of Plato, of the temper in which the young and wealthy Hippokratês goes to seek instruction from Protagoras, and of the objects which Protagoras proposes to himself in imparting the instruction. Plato, Protagoras, c. 2, p. 310 D.; c. 8, p. 316 C.; c. 9, p. 318, etc.: compare also Plato, Meno. p. 91, and Gorgias, c. 4. p. 449 E., asserting the connection, in the mind of Gorgias, between teaching to speak and teaching to think—λέγειν καὶ φρονεῖν, etc.