You would best perceive the inanity of your defense of Busiris if you should imagine
 yourself in his position. Just suppose this case: if you had been accused of grave and
 terrible crimes and an advocate should defend you in this fashion, what would be your
 state of mind? I know very well that you would detest him more heartily than your
 accusers. And yet is it not disgraceful to compose for others a plea in defense of such
 kind that it would arouse your extreme anger if spoken on your own behalf? Again, consider this, and meditate upon it. If one of your pupils should be induced to
 do those things which you praise, would he not be the most wretched of men who are now
 alive and, in truth, of all who ever have lived? Is it right, therefore,to compose
 discourses such that they will do the most good if they succeed in convincing no one among
 those who hear them? But perhaps you will say that you too were not unaware of all this but that you wished
 to bequeath to men of learning an example of how pleas in defense of shameful charges and
 difficult causes ought to be made. But I think it has now been made clear to you, even if
 you were previously in ignorance, that an accused person would sooner gain acquittal by
 not uttering a word than by pleading his cause in this way. And, furthermore, this too is evident, that philosophy By
 “philosophy” Isocrates means τὴν περὶ τοὺς λόγους
 παίδευσιν of §49, fin.—the training in, and cultivation of, the art of
 discourse. , which is already in mortal jeopardy and is hated, will be detested
 even more because of such discourses. If, then, you will listen to me, you will preferably
 not deal in future with such base subjects, but if that cannot be, you will seek to speak
 of such things as will neither injure your own reputation, nor corrupt your imitators, nor
 bring the teaching of rhetoric into disrepute. And do not be astonished if I, who am younger than you and unrelated to you, essay so
 lightly to admonish you; for, in my opinion, giving good counsel on such subjects is not
 the function of older men or of the most intimate friends, but of those who know most and
 desire most to render service.