protagoras   

madness. They say that all men ought to profess honesty whether they

are honest or not, and that a man is out of his mind who says anything

else. Their notion is, that a man must have some degree of honesty;

and that if he has none at all he ought not to be in the world.

I have been showing that they are right in admitting every man as

a counsellor about this sort of virtue, as they are of opinion that

every man is a partaker of it. And I will now endeavour to show

further that they do not conceive this virtue to be given by nature,

or to grow spontaneously, but to be a thing which may be taught; and

which comes to a man by taking pains. No one would instruct, no one

would rebuke, or be angry with those whose calamities they suppose

to be due to nature or chance; they do not try to punish or to prevent

them from being what they are; they do but pity them. Who is so

foolish as to chastise or instruct the ugly, or the diminutive, or the

feeble? And for this reason. Because he knows that good and evil of

this kind is the work of nature and of chance; whereas if a man is

wanting in those good qualities which are attained by study and

exercise and teaching, and has only the contrary evil qualities, other

men are angry with him, and punish and reprove him-of these evil

qualities one is impiety, another injustice, and they may be described

generally as the very opposite of political virtue. In such cases

any man will be angry with another, and reprimand him,-clearly because

he thinks that by study and learning, the virtue in which the other is

deficient may be acquired. If you will think, Socrates, of the

nature of punishment, you will see at once that in the opinion of

mankind virtue may be acquired; no one punishes the evil-doer under

the notion, or for the reason, that he has done wrong, only the

unreasonable fury of a beast acts in that manner. But he who desires

to inflict rational punishment does not retaliate for a past wrong

which cannot be undone; he has regard to the future, and is desirous

that the man who is punished, and he who sees him punished, may be

deterred from doing wrong again. He punishes for the sake of