abstinence, he believed, he was best consulting his own freedom; in so
much that he stigmatised those who condescended to take wages for
their society as vendors of their own persons, because they were
compelled to discuss for the benefits of their paymasters. What
surprised him was that any one possessing virtue should deign to ask
money as its price instead of simply finding his rward in the
acquisition of an honest friend, as if the new-fledged soul of honour
could forget her debt of gratitude to her greatest benefactor.

For himself, without making any such profession, he was content to
believe that those who accepted his views would play their parts as
good and true friends to himself and one another their lives long.
Once more then: how should a man of this character corrupt the young?
unless the careful cultivation of virtue be corruption.

But, says the accuser,[2] by all that's sacred! did not Socrates cause
his associates to despise the established laws when he dwelt on the
folly of appointing state officers by ballot?[3] a principle which, he
said, no one would care to apply in selecting a pilot or a flute-
player or in any similar case, where a mistake would be far less
disastrous than in matters political. Words like these, according to
the accuser, tended to incite the young to contemn the established
constitution, rendering them violent and headstrong. But for myself I
think that those who cultivate wisdom and believe themselves able to
instruct their fellow-citizens as to their interests are least likely
to become partisans of violence. They are too well aware that to
violence attach enmities and dangers, whereas results as good may be
obtained by persuasion safely and amicably. For the victim of violence
hates with vindictiveness as one from whom something precious has been
stolen, while the willing subject of persuasion is ready to kiss the