[15] Cf. "Symp." iv. 38.

[16] L. Dindorf [brackets] this passage as spurious.

[17] On the principle "enough is as good as a feast," {arkountos}.


IV

A belief is current, in accordance with views maintained concerning
Socrates in speech and writing, and in either case conjecturally,
that, however powerful he may have been in stimulating men to virtue
as a theorist, he was incapable of acting as their guide himself.[1]
It would be well for those who adopt this view to weigh carefully not
only what Socrates effected "by way of castigation" in cross-
questioning whose who conceived themselves to be possessed of all
knowledge, but also his everyday conversation with those who spent
their time in close intercourse with himself. Having done this, let
them decide whether he was incapable of making his companions better.

[1] Al. "If any one believes that Socrates, as represented in certain
dialogues (e.g. of Plato, Antisthenes, etc.) of an imaginary
character, was an adept ({protrepsasthai}) in the art of
stimulating people to virtue negatively but scarcely the man to
guide ({proagein}) his hearers on the true path himself." Cf.
(Plat.) "Clitophon," 410 B; Cic. "de Or." I. xlvii. 204; Plut.
"Mor." 798 B. See Grote, "Plato," iii. 21; K. Joel, op. cit. p. 51
foll.; Cf. below, IV. iii. 2.

I will first state what I once heard fall from his lips in a