ut the chief study of all
is the picture of the two brothers, who are unapproachable in their
effrontery, equally careless of what they say to others and of what is
said to them, and never at a loss. They are 'Arcades ambo et cantare
pares et respondere parati.' Some superior degree of wit or subtlety is
attributed to Euthydemus, who sees the trap in which Socrates catches
Dionysodorus.

The epilogue or conclusion of the Dialogue has been criticised as
inconsistent with the general scheme. Such a criticism is like similar
criticisms on Shakespeare, and proceeds upon a narrow notion of the
variety which the Dialogue, like the drama, seems to admit. Plato in the
abundance of his dramatic power has chosen to write a play upon a play,
just as he often gives us an argument within an argument. At the same
time he takes the opportunity of assailing another class of persons
who are as alien from the spirit of philosophy as Euthydemus and
Dionysodorus. The Eclectic, the Syncretist, the Doctrinaire, have been
apt to have a bad name both in ancient and modern times. The persons
whom Plato ridicules in the epilogue to the Euthydemus are of this
class. They occupy a border-ground between philosophy and politics; they
keep out of the dangers of politics, and at the same time use philosophy
as a means of serving their own interests. Plato quaintly describes them
as making two good things, philosophy and politics, a little worse by
perverting the objects of both. Men like Antiphon or Lysias would be
types of the class. Out of a regard to the respectabilities of life,
they are disposed to censure the interest which Socrates takes in the
exhibition of the two brothers. They do not understand, any more than
Crito, that he is pursuing his vocation of detecting the follies of
mankind, which he finds 'not unpleasant.' (Compare Apol.)

Education is the common subject of all Plato's earlier Dialogues. The
concluding remark of Crito, that he has a difficulty in educating his
two sons, and the advice of Socrates to him that he should not give
up philosophy because he has no faith in philosophers, seems to be a
preparation for the more peremptory declaration of the Meno that 'Virtue
cannot be taught because there are no teachers.'

The reasons for placing the Euthydemus early in the series are: (1)
the similarity in plan and style to the Protagoras, Charmides, and
Lysis;--the relation of Socrates to the Sophists is still that of
humorous antag