Against the Sophists (1-5)

If all who are engaged in the profession of education were willing to state the facts instead of making greater promises than they can possibly fulfill, they would not be in such bad repute with the lay-public. As it is, however, the teachers who do not scruple to vaunt their powers with utter disregard of the truth have created the impression that those who choose a life of careless indolence are better advised than those who devote themselves to serious study. Indeed, who can fail to abhor, yes to contemn, those teachers, in the first place, who devote themselves to disputation,[*] since they pretend to search for truth, but straightway at the beginning of their professions attempt to deceive us with lies?[*]

For I think it is manifest to all that foreknowledge of future events is not vouchsafed to our human nature, but that we are so far removed from this prescience[*] that Homer, who has been conceded the highest reputation for wisdom, has pictured even the gods as at times debating among themselves about the future[*]—not that he knew their minds but that he desired to show us that for mankind this power lies in the realms of the impossible.

But these professors have gone so far in their lack of scruple that they attempt to persuade our young men that if they will only study under them they will know what to do in life and through this knowledge will become happy and prosperous. More than that, although they set themselves up as masters and dispensers of goods so precious, they are not ashamed of asking for them a price of three or four minae![*]

Why, if they were to sell any other commodity for so trifling a fraction of its worth they would not deny their folly; nevertheless, although they set so insignificant a price on the whole stock of virtue and happiness, they pretend to wisdom and assume the right to instruct the rest of the world. Furthermore, although they say that they do not want money and speak contemptuously of wealth as “filthy lucre,” they hold their hands out for a trifling gain and promise to make their disciples all but immortal![*]

But what is most ridiculous of all is that they distrust those from whom they are to get this money—they distrust, that is to say, the very men to whom they are about to deliver the science of just dealing—and they require that the fees advanced by their students be entrusted for safe keeping[*] to those who have never been under their instruction, being well advised as to their security, but doing the opposite of what they preach.