The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: say, that there were the same readiness and liberality among us in teaching
one another flute-playing, do you imagine, Socrates, that the sons of good
flute-players would be more likely to be good than the sons of bad ones? I
think not. Would not their sons grow up to be distinguished or
undistinguished according to their own natural capacities as flute-players,
and the son of a good player would often turn out to be a bad one, and the
son of a bad player to be a good one, all flute-players would be good
enough in comparison of those who were ignorant and unacquainted with the
art of flute-playing? In like manner I would have you consider that he who
appears to you to be the worst of those who have been brought up in laws
and humanities, would appear to be a just man and a master of justice if he
|