and this along with argumentative encouragement. Now I know that
Socrates disclosed himself to his companions as a beautiful and noble
being, who would reason and debate with them concerning virtue and
other human interests in the noblest manner. And of these two I know
that as long as they were companions of Socrates even they were
temperate, not assuredly from fear of being fined or beaten by
Socrates, but because they were persuaded for the nonce of the
excellence of such conduct.

[6] {sophrosune} = "sound-mindedness," "temperence." See below, IV.
iii. 1.

Perhaps some self-styled philosophers[7] may here answer: "Nay, the
man truly just can never become unjust, the temperate man can never
become intemperate, the man who has learnt any subject of knowledge
can never be as though he had learnt it not." That, however, is not my
own conclusion. It is with the workings of the soul as with those of
the body; want of exercise of the organ leads to inability of
function, here bodily, there spiritual, so that we can neither do the
things that we should nor abstain from the things we should not. And
that is why fathers keep their sons, however temperate they may be,
out of the reach of wicked men, considering that if the society of the
good is a training in virtue so also is the society of the bad its
dissolution.

[7] In reference to some such tenet as that of Antisthenes ap. Diog.
Laert. VI. ix. 30, {areskei d' autois kai ten areten didakten
einai, katha phesin 'Antisthenes en to 'Rraklei kai anapobleton
uparkhein}. Cf. Plat. "Protag." 340 D, 344 D.