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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: Dionysodorus, I earnestly request you to do myself and the company the
favour to exhibit. There may be some trouble in giving the whole
exhibition; but tell me one thing,--can you make a good man of him only who
is already convinced that he ought to learn of you, or of him also who is
not convinced, either because he imagines that virtue is a thing which
cannot be taught at all, or that you are not the teachers of it? Has your
art power to persuade him, who is of the latter temper of mind, that virtue
can be taught; and that you are the men from whom he will best learn it?
Certainly, Socrates, said Dionysodorus; our art will do both.
And you and your brother, Dionysodorus, I said, of all men who are now
living are the most likely to stimulate him to philosophy and to the study
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