In fact, the Platonic Sokrates expressly proclaims himself (in the Apology as well as in the other dialogues just named) to be ignorant and incapable of teaching anything. His mission was to expose the ignorance of those, who fancy that they know without really knowing: he taught no one anything, but he cross-examined every one who would submit to it, before all the world, and in a manner especially interesting to young men. Sokrates mentions that these young men not only listened with delight, but tried to imitate him as well as they could, by cross-examining others in the same manner:[186] and in mentioning the fact, he expresses neither censure nor regret, but satisfaction in the thought that the chance would be thereby increased, of exposing that false persuasion of knowledge which prevailed so widely everywhere. Now Plato, in the passage just cited from the Republic, blames this contagious spirit of cross-examination on the part of young men, as a vice which proved the mischief of dialectic debate addressed to them at that age. He farther deprecates the disturbance of "those opinions which they have heard from the lawgiver respecting what is just and honourable". But it is precisely these opinions which, in the Alkibiadês, Menon, Protagoras, and other dialogues, the Platonic Sokrates treats as untaught, if not unteachable:--as having been acquired, no man knew how, without the lessons of any assignable master and without any known period of study:--lastly, as constituting that very illusion of false knowledge without real knowledge, of which Sokrates undertakes to purge the youthful mind, and which must be dispelled before any improvement can be effected in it.[187] [Footnote 186: Plato, Apolog. Sokrat c. 10, p. 23 D, c. 22, p. 33 C, c. 27, p. 37 E, c. 30, p. 39 C.] [Footnote 187: Plato, Sophist. p. 230.] [Side-note: The remarks here made upon the effect of Dialectic upon youth coincide with the accusation of Melêtus against Sokrates.]