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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: attributing to the Lacedaemonians this excellence in philosophy and
speculation: If a man converses with the most ordinary Lacedaemonian, he
will find him seldom good for much in general conversation, but at any
point in the discourse he will be darting out some notable saying, terse
and full of meaning, with unerring aim; and the person with whom he is
talking seems to be like a child in his hands. And many of our own age and
of former ages have noted that the true Lacedaemonian type of character has
the love of philosophy even stronger than the love of gymnastics; they are
conscious that only a perfectly educated man is capable of uttering such
expressions. Such were Thales of Miletus, and Pittacus of Mitylene, and
Bias of Priene, and our own Solon, and Cleobulus the Lindian, and Myson the
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