evil in the soul,--the one answering to disease in the body, and the other
to deformity. Disease is the discord or war of opposite principles in the
soul; and deformity is the want of symmetry, or failure in the attainment
of a mark or measure. The latter arises from ignorance, and no one is
voluntarily ignorant; ignorance is only the aberration of the soul moving
towards knowledge. And as medicine cures the diseases and gymnastic the
deformity of the body, so correction cures the injustice, and education
(which differs among the Hellenes from mere instruction in the arts) cures
the ignorance of the soul. Again, ignorance is twofold, simple ignorance,
and ignorance having the conceit of knowledge. And education is also
twofold: there is the old-fashioned moral training of our forefathers,
which was very troublesome and not very successful; and another, of a more
subtle nature, which proceeds upon a notion that all ignorance is
involuntary. The latter convicts a man out of his own mouth, by pointing
out to him his inconsistencies and contradictions; and the consequence is
that he quarrels with himself, instead of quarrelling with his neighbours,
and is cured of prejudices and obstructions by a mode of treatment which is
equally entertaining and effectual. The physician of the soul is aware
that his patient will receive no nourishment unless he has been cleaned
out; and the soul of the Great King himself, if he has not undergone this
purification, is unclean and impure.

And who are the ministers of the purification? Sophists I may not call
them. Yet they bear about the same likeness to Sophists as the dog, who is
the gentlest of animals, does to the wolf, who is the fiercest.
Comparisons are slippery things; but for the present let us assume the
resemblance of the two, which may probably be disallowed hereafter. And
so, from division comes purification; and from this, mental purification;
and from mental purification, instruction; and from instruction, education;
and from education, the nobly-descended art of Sophistry, which is engaged