YOUNG SOCRATES: Worse and worse.

STRANGER: But hear what follows:--When the year of office has expired,

the pilot or physician has to come before a court of review, in which

the judges are either selected from the wealthy classes or chosen by lot

out of the whole people; and anybody who pleases may be their accuser,

and may lay to their charge, that during the past year they have not

navigated their vessels or healed their patients according to the letter

of the law and the ancient customs of their ancestors; and if either of

them is condemned, some of the judges must fix what he is to suffer or

pay.

YOUNG SOCRATES: He who is willing to take a command under such

conditions, deserves to suffer any penalty.

STRANGER: Yet once more, we shall have to enact that if any one is

detected enquiring into piloting and navigation, or into health and the

true nature of medicine, or about the winds, or other conditions of the

atmosphere, contrary to the written rules, and has any ingenious notions

about such matters, he is not to be called a pilot or physician, but a

cloudy prating sophist;--further, on the ground that he is a corrupter

of the young, who would persuade them to follow the art of medicine or

piloting in an unlawful manner, and to exercise an arbitrary rule over

their patients or ships, any one who is qualified by law may inform

against him, and indict him in some court, and then if he is found to

be persuading any, whether young or old, to act contrary to the written

Statesman