ed that if his pupil
did not know justice the rhetorician must teach him; and Polus has been
similarly entangled, because his modesty led him to admit that to suffer
is more honourable than to do injustice. By custom 'yes,' but not by
nature, says Callicles. And Socrates is always playing between the two
points of view, and putting one in the place of the other. In this
very argument, what Polus only meant in a conventional sense has
been affirmed by him to be a law of nature. For convention says that
'injustice is dishonourable,' but nature says that 'might is right.'
And we are always taming down the nobler spirits among us to the
conventional level. But sometimes a great man will rise up and reassert
his original rights, trampling under foot all our formularies, and then
the light of natural justice shines forth. Pindar says, 'Law, the
king of all, does violence with high hand;' as is indeed proved by the
example of Heracles, who drove off the oxen of Geryon and never paid for
them.

This is the truth, Socrates, as you will be convinced, if you leave
philosophy and pass on to the real business of life. A little philosophy
is an excellent thing; too much is the ruin of a man. He who has not
'passed his metaphysics' before he has grown up to manhood will never
know the world. Philosophers are ridiculous when they take to politics,
and I dare say that politicians are equally ridiculous when they take to
philosophy: 'Every man,' as Euripides says, 'is fondest of that in which
he is best.' Philosophy is graceful in youth, like the lisp of infancy,
and should be cultivated as a part of education; but when a grown-up man
lisps or studies philosophy, I should like to beat him. None of those
over-refined natures ever come to any good; they avoid the busy haunts
of men, and skulk in corners, whispering to a few admiring youths, and
never giving utterance to any noble sentiments.

For you, Socrates, I have a regard, and therefore I say to you,
as Zethus says to Amphion in the play, that you have 'a noble soul
disguised in a puerile exterior.' And I would have you consider the
danger which you and other philosophers incur. For you would not know
how to defend yourself if any one accused you in a law-court,--there you
would stand, with gaping mouth and dizzy brain, and might be murdered,
robbed, boxed on the ears with impunity. Take my advice, then, and get a
little common sense; leave to others these frivolities; walk in the wa