Such were the misadventures of these two. Is the sequel extraordinary?
Inflated with the pride of ancestry,[15] exalted by their wealth,
puffed up by power, sapped to the soul's core by a host of human
tempters, separate moreover for many a long day from Socrates--what
wonder that they reached the full stature of arrogancy! And for the
offences of these two Socrates is to be held responsible! The accuser
will have it so. But for the fact that in early days, when they were
both young and of an age when dereliction from good feeling and self-
restraint might have been expected, this same Socrates kept them
modest and well-behaved, not one word of praise is uttered by the
accuser for all this. That is not the measure of justice elsewhere
meted. Would a master of the harp or flute, would a teacher of any
sort who has turned out proficient pupils, be held to account because
one of them goes away to another teacher and turns out to be a
failure? Or what father, if he have a son who in the society of a
certain friend remains an honest lad, but falling into the company of
some other becomes a good-for-nothing, will that father straightway
accuse the earlier instructor? Will not he rather, in proportion as
the boy deteriorates in the company of the latter, bestow more
heartfelt praise upon the former? What father, himself sharing the
society of his own children, is held to blame for their
transgressions, if only his own goodness be established? Here would
have been a fair test to apply to Socrates: Was he guilty of any base
conduct himself? If so let him be set down as a knave, but if, on the
contrary, he never faltered in sobriety from beginning to end, how in
the name of justice is he to be held to account for a baseness which
was not in him?

[15] Or, "became overweening in arrogance." Cf. "Henry VIII. II. iv.