Note 5 — Chapter XXIII · PROTAGORAS.

Plato, Protag. p. 312 A. σὺ δέ, ἦν δ’ ἐγώ, πρὸς θεῶν, οὐκ ἂν αἰσχύνοιο εἰς τοὺς Ἕλληνας σαυτὸν σοφιστὴν παρέχων; Νὴ τὸν Δί’, ὦ Σώκρατες, εἴπερ γε ἂ διανοοῦμαι χρὴ λέγειν. Ast (Platon’s Leben, p. 78) and other Platonic critics treat this Sophistomanie (as they call it) of an Athenian youth as something ludicrous and contemptible: all the more ludicrous because (they say) none of them goes to qualify himself for becoming a Sophist, but would even be ashamed of the title. Yet if we suppose the same question addressed to a young Englishman of rank and fortune (as Hippokrates was at Athens), “Why do you put yourself under the teaching of Dr. — — at Eton or Professor — — at Oxford? Do you intend to qualify yourself for becoming a schoolmaster or a professor?” He will laugh at you for the question; if he answers it seriously, he will probably answer as Hippokrates does. But there is nothing at all in the question to imply that the schoolmaster or the professor is a worthless pretender — or the youth foolish, for being anxious to obtain instruction from him; which is the inference that Ast and other Platonic critics desire us to draw about the Athenian Sophists.