meaning of his several cries, and by what sounds, when
another utters them, he is soothed or infuriated; and you may suppose
further, that when, by continually attending upon him, he has become
perfect in all this, he calls his knowledge wisdom, and makes of it a
system or art, which he proceeds to teach, although he has no real
notion of what he means by the principles or passions of which he is
speaking, but calls this honourable and that dishonourable, or good or
evil, or just or unjust, all in accordance with the tastes and tempers
of the great brute. Good he pronounces to be that in which the beast
delights and evil to be that which he dislikes; and he can give no
other account of them except that the just and noble are the necessary,
having never himself seen, and having no power of explaining to others
the nature of either, or the difference between them, which is immense.
By heaven, would not such an one be a rare educator?

Indeed, he would.

And in what way does he who thinks that wisdom is the discernment of
the tempers and tastes of the motley multitude, whether in painting or
music, or, finally, in politics, differ from him whom I have been
describing? For when a man consorts with the many, and exhibits to
them his poem or other work of art or the service which he has done the
State, making them his judges when he is not obliged, the so-called
necessity of Diomede will oblige him to produce whatever they praise.
And yet the reasons are utterly ludicrous which they give in
confirmation of their own notions about the honourable and good. Did
you ever hear any of them which were not?

No, nor am I likely to hear.

You recognise the truth of what I have been saying? Then let me ask
you to consider further whether the world will ever be induced to
believe in the existence of absolute beauty rather than of the many
beautiful, or of the absolute in each kind rather than of the many in
each kind?

Certainly not.

Then the world cannot possibly be a philosopher?

Impossible.

And therefore philosophers must inevitably fall under the censure of
the world?

They must.

And of individuals who consort with the mob and seek to please them?

That is evident.

Then, do you see any way in which the philosopher can be preserved in
his calling to the end? and remember what we were saying of him, that
he was to have quickness and memory and courage and magnificence--these
were admitted by us to be the tru