He proceeds to criticize various classes: ‘We cannot help hating and despising the professors of contentious argument (eristic), who, while claiming to seek for Truth, introduce falsehood at the very beginning of their pretensions. They profess in a way to read the future, a power which Homer denied even to the gods; for they prophesy for their pupils a full knowledge of right conduct, and promise them happiness in consequence. This invaluable commodity they offer for sale at the ridiculous price of three or four minae. They affect, indeed, to despise money—mere dross of silver or gold as they call it—yet, for the sake of this small profit they will raise their pupils almost to a level with the immortals. They profess to teach all virtue; but it is notable that pupils, before they are admitted to the course, have to give security for the payment of their fees.’ The general tone of this censure recalls the attacks of the Platonic Socrates on the ‘eristic’ Sophists; but it is certain that the ‘eristics,’ whom Isocrates here attacks, are some of the lesser Socratics. This is made obvious by the reference in § 3 to the knowledge (ἐπιστήμη) which, according to these teachers, will lead to right conduct or virtue, and so to happiness. The Socratic view that knowledge is the basis of virtue, and virtue of happiness, is well known. Socrates himself did not profess to teach virtue for a fee; but the Megarians, the followers of his pupil Euclides, did, and at them the sarcasm of Isocrates seems to be directed. Elsewhere, indeed, Isocrates refers definitely to the Platonic school as belonging to the eristic class.[198] The teachers of ‘Political Discourse’ fall next under ban, that is, the teachers of practical rhetoric, whether forensic or deliberative.[199] ‘They care nothing for truth’—whereas the eristics, at any rate, professed to seek it—‘they consider that their profession is to attract as many pupils as possible by the smallness of their fees and the greatness of their promises. They are so dull, and think others so dull, that though the speeches which they write are worse than many non-professionals can improvise, they undertake to make of their pupils orators equal to any emergency. They say that they can teach oratory as easily as the alphabet, which is a subject fixed by unchangeable rules, whereas the conditions for a speaker are never quite the same on two occasions. A speech, to be successful, must be appropriate to the subject, to the occasion, and to the speaker; and in some degree original. Instruction can give us technical skill; but cannot call into existence the oratorical faculty, which a good speaker must have innate in him.’