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But above all things we must remind them that statesmanship consists, not only in holding office, being ambassador, vociferating in the assembly, and ranting round the speakers’ platform proposing laws and making motions. Most people think all this is part of statesmanship, just as they think of course that those are philosophers who sit in a chair and converse and prepare their lectures over their books; but the continuous practice of statesmanship and philosophy, which is every day alike seen in acts and deeds, they fail to perceive. For, as Dicaearchus used to remark, those who circulate in the porticoes are said to be promenading,This is a play on the name of the Peripatetic school of philosophy. Cf. Müller, Frag. Hist. Graec. ii. p. 226. but those who walk into the country or to see a friend are not. Now being a statesman is like being a philosopher. Socrates at any rate was a philosopher, although he did not set out benches or seat himself in an armchair or observe a fixed hour for conversing or promenading with his pupils, but jested with them, when it so happened, and drank with them, served in the army or lounged in the market-place with some of them, and finally was imprisoned and drank the poison. He was the first to show that life at all times and in all parts, in all experiences and activities, universally admits philosophy. So this is what we must understand concerning statesmanship also: that foolish men, even when they are generals or secretaries or public orators, do not act as statesmen, but court the mob, deliver harangues, arouse factions, or under compulsion perform public services; but that the man who is really public-spirited and who loves mankind and the State and is careful of the public welfare and truly statesmanlike, that man, although he never put on a uniform, is always acting as a statesman by urging those on who have power, guiding those who need guidance, assisting those who are deliberating, reforming those who act wrongly, encouraging those who are right-minded, making it plain that he is not just casually interested in public affairs and that he goes to the assembly or the council, not for the sake of getting the first seat when there is something serious in prospect or he is summoned, but that when he goes there he goes not merely for amusement as if to see or hear a performance, and that even when he is not there in person he is present in thought and through inquiry, thus approving of some of the proceedings and disapproving of others.
