There is indeed this difference between the Xenophontic Sokrates in his address to Aristippus, and the Platonic Kalliklês in his exhortation to Sokrates: That whereas Kalliklês proclaims and even vindicates it as natural justice and right, that the strong should gratify their desires by oppressing and despoiling the weak--the Xenophontic Sokrates merely asserts such oppression as an actual fact, notorious and undeniable,[158] without either approving or blaming it. Plato, constructing an imaginary conversation with the purpose that Sokrates shall be victorious, contrives intentionally and with dramatic consistency that the argument of Kalliklês shall be advanced in terms so invidious and revolting that no one else would be bold enough to speak it out:[159] which contrivance was the more necessary, as Sokrates is made not only to disparage the poets, rhetors, and most illustrious statesmen of historical Athens, but to sustain a thesis in which he admits himself to stand alone, opposed to aristocrats as well as democrats.[160] Yet though there is this material difference in the manner of handling, the plan of life which the Xenophontic Sokrates urges upon Aristippus, and the grounds upon which he enforces it, are really the same as those which Kalliklês in the Platonic Gorgias urges upon Sokrates. "Labour to qualify yourself for active political power"--is the lesson addressed in the one case to a wealthy man who passed his life in ease and indulgence, in the other case to a poor man who devoted himself to speculative debate on general questions, and to cross-examination of every one who would listen and answer. The man of indulgence, and the man of speculation,[161] were both of them equally destitute of those active energies which were necessary to confer power over others, or even security against oppression by others. [Footnote 158: If we read the conversation alleged by Thucydides (v. 94-105-112) to have taken place between the Athenian generals and the executive council of Melos, just before the siege of that island by the Athenians, we shall see that this same language is held by the Athenians. "You, the Melians, being much weaker, must submit to us who are much stronger; this is the universal law and necessity of nature, which we are not the first to introduce, but only follow out, as others have done before us, and will do after us. Submit--or it will be worse for you. No middle course, or neutrality, is open to you."] [Footnote 159: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 482-487-492.] [Footnote 160: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 472-521.]