[Footnote 25: Thucyd. ii. 39 fin.--40. [Greek: kai\ e)/n te tou/tois tê\n po/lin a)xi/an ei)=nai thauma/zesthai, kai\ e)/ti e)n a)/llois. philokalou=men ga\r met' eu)telei/as kai\ philosophou=men a)/neu malaki/as], &c., and the remarkable sequel of the same chapter about the intimate conjunction of abundant speech with energetic action in the Athenian character.] [Footnote 26: Xen. Mem. iii. 10; iii. 11; iii. 12.] [Footnote 27: The [Greek: pe/ntathlos] or [Greek: u(/pakros] whom Plato criticises in this dialogue, coincides with what Aristotle calls "the man of universal education or culture".--Ethic. Nikom. I. i. 1095, a. 1. [Greek: e(/kastos de\ kri/nei kalô=s a(\ gignô/skei, kai\ tou/tôn e)sti\n a)gatho\s kritê/s; kath' e(/kaston a)/ra, o( pepaideume/nos; a(plô=s de/, o( peri\ pa=n pepaideume/nos.]] [Side-note: Plato's view--that the philosopher has a province special to himself, distinct from other specialties--dimly indicated--regal or political art.] Plato undoubtedly did not conceive the definition of the philosopher in the same way as Sokrates. The close of the Erastæ is employed in opening a distant and dim view of the Platonic conception. We are given to understand, that the philosopher has a province of his own, wherein he is not second-best, but a first-rate actor and adviser. To indicate, in many different ways, that there is or must be such a peculiar, appertaining to philosophy--distinct from, though analogous to, the peculiar of each several art--is one leading purpose in many Platonic dialogues. But what is the peculiar of the philosopher? Here, as elsewhere, it is marked out in a sort of misty outline, not as by one who already knows and is familiar with it, but as one who is trying to find it without being sure that he has succeeded. Here, we have it described as the art of discriminating good from evil, governing, and applying penal sanctions rightly. This is the supreme art or science, of which the philosopher is the professor; and in which, far from requiring advice from others, he is the only person competent both to advise and to act: the art which exercises control over all other special arts, directing how far, and on what occasions, each of them comes into appliance. It is philosophy, looked at in one of its two aspects: not as a body of speculative truth, to be debated, proved, and discriminated from what cannot be proved or can be disproved--but as a critical judgment bearing on actual life, prescribing rules or giving directions in particular cases, with a view to the attainment of foreknown ends, recognised as _expetenda_.[28] This is what Plato understands by the measuring or calculating art, the regal or political art, according as we use the language of the Protagoras, Politikus, Euthydêmus, Republic. Both justice and sobriety are branches of this art; and the distinction between the two loses its importance when the art is considered as a whole--as we find both in the Erastæ and in the Republic.[29]