However, the hopes and aspirations I have described filled the schools first of the philosophers, then of the sophists. And this is the natural course of things. Few pursue wisdom for its own sake, in order that it may purify and render holy their own minds. And by this dispensation of Providence society is a gainer; for, as man is constituted, no sooner does he possess any mental excellence, any knowledge or art or experience, which can be rendered available, than he comes eagerly forward with it to extort praise or reward from the community by conferring benefits upon it. The examples of reserve in this matter are few, nor, in fact, are they to be commended who in this or in any thing else hide their light under a bushel; and therefore Plato is wrong when he teaches that wise men will as a rule abstain from intermeddling with state affairs, unless constrained thereto by fines and menaces. He confesses, indeed, that the worst of all punishments is to be governed by evil men, and that to avoid this even philosophers will consent to hold the reins of government.[806] But where they do not, they are always in free states the masters of those who do. Their schools were the colleges and universities of the ancient world, and so long as freedom endured the great object of their philosophy was to create able citizens and a happy state. On this account their remains are still instinct with life. Their object was gradually to ripen human nature into perfection by perfecting its education and its institutions. They knew how completely a people is in the power of its teachers for good or for evil, and accordingly, with some few exceptions, applied themselves to elevate the conceptions, the moral tone, the feelings of their countrymen, seldom descending to trifling disquisitions excepting for relaxation in the intervals of more important inquiries. Footnote 806: Repub. i. t. vi. p. 42. seq. Bekk.