|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: them is to be corrected, or, in other words, called to account, which is a
term used not only in your country, but also in many others, seeing that
justice calls men to account. Now when there is all this care about virtue
private and public, why, Socrates, do you still wonder and doubt whether
virtue can be taught? Cease to wonder, for the opposite would be far more
surprising.
But why then do the sons of good fathers often turn out ill? There is
nothing very wonderful in this; for, as I have been saying, the existence
of a state implies that virtue is not any man's private possession. If so
--and nothing can be truer--then I will further ask you to imagine, as an
illustration, some other pursuit or branch of knowledge which may be
|
