Plutarch observes that Plato felt a proud consciousness of philosophical dignity in disdaining respect to persons, and in refusing to the defects of Dionysius any greater measure of indulgence than he would have shown to an ordinary pupil of the Academy.[153] If we allow him credit for a sentiment in itself honorable, it can only be at the expense of his fitness for dealing with practical life; by admitting (to quote a remarkable phrase from one of his own dialogues) that “he tried to deal with individual men without knowing those rules of art or practice which bear on human affairs.[154]” Dionysius was not a common pupil, nor could Plato reasonably expect the like unmeasured docility from one for whose ear so many hostile influences were competing. Nor were Plato and Dionysius the only parties concerned. There was, besides, in the first place, Dion, whose whole position was at stake—next, and of yet greater moment, the relief of the people of Syracuse and Sicily. For them, and on their behalf, Dion had been laboring with such zeal, that he had inspired Dionysius with readiness to execute the two best resolves which the situation admitted; resolves not only pregnant with benefit to the people, but also insuring the position of Dion—since if Dionysius had once entered upon this course of policy, Dion would have been essential to him as an auxiliary and man of execution. [153] Plutarch, De Adulator, et Amici Discrimine, p. 52 E. We may set against this, however, a passage in one of the other treatises of Plutarch (Philosophand. cum Principibus, p. 779 _ad finem_), in which he observes, that Plato, coming to Sicily with the hope of converting his political doctrines into laws through the agency of Dionysius, found the latter already corrupted by power, unsusceptible of cure, and deaf to admonition. [154] Plato, Phædon, c. 88. p. 89 D. Οὐκοῦν αἰσχρόν; καὶ δῆλον, ὅτι ἄνευ τέχνης τῆς περὶ τἀνθρώπεια ὁ τοιοῦτος χρῆσθαι ἐπιχειρεῖ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις; He is expounding the causes and growth of misanthropic dispositions; one of the most striking passages in his dialogues.