‘The gymnastic trainer teaches his pupils first to perform the separate movements, then to combine them. The educator follows the same order, and both insist on long and diligent practice; but the trainer of the body cannot always make a man an athlete, nor can the trainer of the mind make everybody an orator. There are three essentials requisite for success—natural aptitude, proper teaching, and long practice; and moreover there must be a will on the part of both teacher and pupil to persevere. The natural ability is by far the most important element. Training, however complete, may break down utterly if the speaker lacks nerve.[203]
‘Some people expect a marked improvement after a few days of study with a Sophist, and demand a complete training in a year. This is ridiculous; no class of education could produce such results; and there is no need to disparage us as a class because we cannot do more than we profess. We cannot make all men orators, but we can give them culture.
‘Others assert that our philosophy has an immoral tendency. I shall not defend all who claim to be educators, but only those who have a right to the name. We have nothing to gain by making men immoral; on the contrary the greatest satisfaction for a Sophist is that his pupils should become wise and honourable men, respected by their fellows. Our pupils come from Sicily, from Pontus, and from other distant regions; do they come so far to be instructed in wickedness? Surely not; they could find plenty of teaching at home. They incur the trouble and expense because they think that Athens can give them the best education in the world.
‘Again, power in debate is not in itself a demoralizing thing. The greatest statesmen of this and earlier generations studied and practised oratory—Solon, who was called one of the Seven Sophists, Themistocles, Pericles. You blame the Thebans for lacking culture; why blame us who try to impart it? Athens honours with a yearly sacrifice the Goddess Persuasion; our enemies attack us for seeking the faculty which this goddess personifies.
‘We are even attacked by the “Eristics”:[204] far from retorting, I am ready to admit that there is good to be got even from eristic disputation, from astronomy,[205] and from geometry: they are useful as a preliminary to higher studies.
‘My own view of philosophy is a simple one. It is impossible to attain absolute knowledge of what we ought or ought not to do; but the wise man is he who can make a successful guess as a general rule, and philosophers are those who study to attain this practical wisdom. There is not, and never has been, a science which could impart justice and virtue to those who are not by nature inclined towards these qualities; but a man who is desirous of speaking or writing well, and of persuading others, will incidentally become more just and virtuous, for it is character that tells more than anything.
‘Thoughtful speaking leads to careful action. Your superior culture raises you above the rest of Greece, just as mankind is superior to the lower animals and Greeks to barbarians: do not, then, punish those who would give you this culture.’[206]
These two treatises taken together, and supplemented by a few passages from other speeches, give us a fair idea of Isocrates’ system. His ‘Philosophy’ is to be distinguished from all merely theoretical speculation, such as the physical theories of the Ionians, or the logic of Parmenides; from ‘eristic’—the art of arguing for argument’s sake—from geometry and astronomy; from literary work which has no practical use; from the rhetoric of the law-courts. Boys at school may profitably study grammar and poetry; at a later age the applied mathematics, and even ‘eristic,’ are good mental training; but it must be recognized that they are only a preparation for the Isocratean ‘philosophy,’ which is for the soul what gymnastic is for the body.
As the gymnastic-master teaches first the various thrusts and parries, so to speak, the teacher of philosophy makes his pupils learn first all the styles of prose composition.[207] He then makes them combine (συνείρειν) the things which they have learnt. The subjects for such exercises must be properly chosen—they must be practical and must deal with wide interests.
Practice on these lines will prepare a man, as far as his nature allows, for speaking and acting in a public capacity; so that what Isocrates calls his ‘philosophy’ is really a science of practical politics.