[492e]
will prevail in opposition to
these?” “None, I fancy,” said he.
“No,” said I, “the very attempt1 is the
height of folly. For there is not, never has been and never will be,2 a divergent type of character and virtue
created by an education running counter to theirs3—humanly speaking, I mean, my
friend; for the divine, as the proverb says, all rules fail.4
And you may be sure that, if anything is saved and turns out well
1 Cf. Protag. 317 A-B, Soph. 239 C, Laws 818 D.
2 Cf. Od. xvi. 437. See Friedländer, Platon, ii. 386 n. who says ἀλλοῖον γίγνεσθαι can only =ἀλλοιοῦσθαι, “be made different.”
3 Cf. 429 C for the idiom, and Laws 696 Aοὐ γὰρ μή ποτε γένηται παῖς καὶ ἀνὴρ καὶ γέρων ἐκ ταύτης τῆς τροφῆς διαφέρων πρὸς ἀρετήν.
4 Cf. Symp. 176 C (of Socrates), Phaedr. 242 B, Theaet. 162 D-E.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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