_Socr._ And yet this too saves men from death, when they fall into such a danger as requires this science. But if this appears to you to be mean, I will mention to you one more important than this, namely that of piloting a ship, which not only saves lives, but also bodies and property from extreme danger, just as rhetoric does. And this art is moderate and modest, and does not brag and strut as if it accomplished something wonderful, but when it has accomplished the same thing as the forensic art, if it has brought us safe here from Ægina, it demands, I think, two oboli, and if from Egypt or the Pontus, for so great a benefit in having brought safe what I now mention, ourselves and children, our property and wives, and in having landed them in port, it usually demands two drachms, and the man who possesses this art, and accomplishes these things, when he has disembarked, walks by the sea and his ship, with a modest gait. 144. For he knows, I think, how to reason with himself, that it is uncertain whom of his passengers he has benefited by not allowing them to be drowned, and whom he has injured, knowing that he has not put them ashore in any respect better than they were when they went on board, either as to their souls or bodies. He therefore reasons with himself, that if one who is afflicted in his body with severe and incurable diseases should happen not to be drowned, such a man is indeed miserable for having escaped death, and has received no benefit from him; but if any one labours under many and incurable diseases in that which is more precious than the body, his soul, such a one ought[77] not to live, nor would he benefit him, if he saved him from the sea, or from a court of justice, or from any other danger, for he knows that it is not better for a depraved man to live, because he must needs live badly. For this reason, it is not usual for a pilot to boast, although he saves our lives; nor, my admirable friend, is it usual for an engineer who is sometimes able to save, no less than a general of an army, not to mention a pilot or any other person; for sometimes he saves whole cities. Does it not appear to you that he is fit to be compared with a forensic orator? though, if he chose to speak, Callicles, as you do, extolling his own art, he would overwhelm you with words, urging and exhorting you to the fitness of your becoming an engineer, for that other things are of no consequence; and he would have enough to say. 145. You, however, would nevertheless despise him and his art, and, by way of reproach would call him an engineer, and would neither give your daughter to his son, nor accept his daughter for your son. Though, if from the reasons for which you praise your own art, on what just pretext do you despise the engineer, and the others whom I have just now mentioned? I know that you would say you are better, and of a better family. But if that which is better is not what I say it is,