44
Be convinced too that all philosophical learning confers precious benefits upon those who take advantage of it, but especially is this true of the knowledge that deals with practical affairs and political discussions. No doubt it is disgraceful to be quite ignorant of geometry and other such subjects of study, but to become a topmost contender in this field is too low an ambition for merit like yours.Blass cites Isoc. 15.267, where the statement is made that cultural studies do not directly prepare the candidate for public life but do increase his power to learn. In that kind of philosophy, however, not only is it a worthy ambition to excel, but to remain ignorant is altogether ridiculous.
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You may infer this to be true on many other grounds and especially by scanning the careers of those who have become eminent before your time. You will hear first that Pericles, who is thought to have far surpassed all men of his age in intellectual grasp, addressed himself to Anaxagoras of Clazomenae and only after being his pupilBlass notes the same information in Isoc. 15.235. acquired this power of judgement. You will next discover that Alcibiades, though his natural disposition was far inferior in respect to virtue and it was his pleasure to behave himself now arrogantly, now obsequiously,Isocrates employs the same words of Persian satraps, Isoc. 4.152, as Blass notes. now licentiously, yet, as a fruit of his association with Socrates, he made correction of many errors of his life and over the rest drew a veil of oblivion by the greatness of his later achievements.
