Polus only meant in a conventional sense has been affirmed by him to be a
law of nature. For convention says that 'injustice is dishonourable,' but
nature says that 'might is right.' And we are always taming down the
nobler spirits among us to the conventional level. But sometimes a great
man will rise up and reassert his original rights, trampling under foot all
our formularies, and then the light of natural justice shines forth.
Pindar says, 'Law, the king of all, does violence with high hand;' as is
indeed proved by the example of Heracles, who drove off the oxen of Geryon
and never paid for them.

This is the truth, Socrates, as you will be convinced, if you leave
philosophy and pass on to the real business of life. A little philosophy
is an excellent thing; too much is the ruin of a man. He who has not
'passed his metaphysics' before he has grown up to manhood will never know
the world. Philosophers are ridiculous when they take to politics, and I
dare say that politicians are equally ridiculous when they take to
philosophy: 'Every man,' as Euripides says, 'is fondest of that in which
he is best.' Philosophy is graceful in youth, like the lisp of infancy,
and should be cultivated as a part of education; but when a grown-up man
lisps or studies philosophy, I should like to beat him. None of those
over-refined natures ever come to any good; they avoid the busy haunts of
men, and skulk in corners, whispering to a few admiring youths, and never
giving utterance to any noble sentiments.

For you, Socrates, I have a regard, and therefore I say to you, as Zethus
says to Amphion in the play, that you have 'a noble soul disguised in a
puerile exterior.' And I would have you consider the danger which you and
other philosophers incur. For you would not know how to defend yourself if
any one accused you in a law-court,--there you would stand, with gaping
mouth and dizzy brain, and might be murdered, robbed, boxed on the ears