It is impossible, Sokrates (remarks Adeimantus), to answer in the negative to your questions. Nevertheless we who hear and answer, are not convinced of the truth of your conclusion. Unskilled as we are in the interrogatory process, we feel ourselves led astray little by little at each successive question; until at length, through the accumulated effect of such small deviations, we are driven up into a corner without the power of moving, like a bad player at draughts defeated by one superior to himself.[154] Here in this particular case your conclusion has been reached by steps to which we cannot refuse assent. Yet if we look at the facts, we see something quite the reverse as to the actual position of philosophers. Those who study philosophy, not simply as a branch of juvenile education but as a continued occupation throughout life, are in most cases strange creatures, not to say thoroughly unprincipled: while the few of them who are most reasonable, derive nothing from this pursuit which you so much extol, except that they become useless in their respective cities.[155] [Footnote 154: Plato, Republic, vi. p. 487 B. [Greek: Pro\s me\n tau=ta soi ou)dei\s a)\n oi(=o/s t' ei)/ê a)nteipei=n; a)lla\ ga\r toio/nde ti pa/schousin oi( a)kou/ontes e(ka/stote a)\ nu=n le/geis; ê(gou=ntai di' a)peiri/an tou= e)rôta=|n te kai\ a)pokri/nesthai u(po\ tou= lo/gou par' e(/kaston to\ e)rô/têma smikro\n parago/menoi, a)throisthe/ntôn tô=n smikrô=n e)pi\ teleutê=s tô=n lo/gôn, me/ga to\ spha/lma kai\ e)nanti/on toi=s prô/tois a)naphai/nesthai], &c. This is an interesting remark on the effect produced upon many hearers by the Sokratic and Platonic dialogues,--puzzling, silencing, and ultimately stimulating the mind, but not satisfying or convincing, rather raising suspicions as to the trustworthiness of the process, which suspicions have to be turned over and scrutinised by subsequent meditation.] [Footnote 155: Plato, Republic, vi. p. 487 D.] [Side-note: Sokrates admits the fact to be so--His simile of the able steersman on shipboard, among a disobedient crew.]