'I am ready to pursue any method which is likely to lead us to the truth.' Let me put the matter thus: Somebody praises the useful qualities of a goat; another has seen goats running about wild in a garden, and blames a goat or any other animal which happens to be without a keeper.

'How absurd!' Would a pilot who is sea-sick be a good pilot?
'No.' Or a general who is sick and drunk with fear and ignorant of war a good general?
'A general of old women he ought to be.' But can any one form an estimate of any society, which is intended to have a ruler, and which he only sees in an unruly and lawless state?
'No.' There is a convivial form of society--is there not?
'Yes.' And has this convivial society ever been rightly ordered?
Of course you Spartans and Cretans have never seen anything of the kind, but I have had wide experience, and made many enquiries about such societies, and have hardly ever found anything right or good in them.

'We acknowledge our want of experience, and desire to learn of you.' Will you admit that in all societies there must be a leader?
'Yes.' And in time of war he must be a man of courage and absolutely devoid of fear, if this be possible?
'Certainly.' But we are talking now of a general who shall preside at meetings of friends--and as these have a tendency to be uproarious, they ought above all others to have a governor.

'Very good.' He should be a sober man and a man of the world, who will keep, make, and increase the peace of the society; a drunkard in charge of drunkards would be singularly fortunate if he avoided doing a serious mischief.

'Indeed he would.' Suppose a person to censure such meetings--he may be right, but also he may have known them only in their disorderly state, under a drunken master of the feast; and a drunken general or pilot cannot save his army or his ships.