protagoras   

like to know what will happen to him if he associates with you. I have

no more to say.

Protagoras answered: Young man, if you associate with me, on the

very first day you will return home a better man than you came, and

better on the second day than on the first, and better every day

than you were on the day before.

When I heard this, I said: Protagoras, I do not at all wonder at

hearing you say this; even at your age, and with all your wisdom, if

any one were to teach you what you did not know before, you would

become better no doubt: but please to answer in a different way-I will

explain how by an example. Let me suppose that Hippocrates, instead of

desiring your acquaintance, wished to become acquainted with the young

man Zeuxippus of Heraclea, who has lately been in Athens, and he had

come to him as he has come to you, and had heard him say, as he has

heard you say, that every day he would grow and become better if he

associated with him: and then suppose that he were to ask him, "In

what shall I become better, and in what shall I grow?"-Zeuxippus would

answer, "In painting." And suppose that he went to Orthagoras the

Theban, and heard him say the same thing, and asked him, "In what

shall I become better day by day?" he would reply, "In flute-playing."

Now I want you to make the same sort of answer to this young man and

to me, who am asking questions on his account. When you say that on

the first day on which he associates with you he will return home a

better man, and on every day will grow in like manner,-In what,

Protagoras, will he be better? and about what?

When Protagoras heard me say this, he replied: You ask questions

fairly, and I like to answer a question which is fairly put. If

Hippocrates comes to me he will not experience the sort of drudgery

with which other Sophists are in the habit of insulting their

pupils; who, when they have just escaped from the arts, are taken

and driven back into them by these teachers, and made to learn

calculation, and astronomy, and geometry, and music (he gave a look at