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Will not then our next business be to enquire from what sources,

or how one may acquire this faculty of Legislation; or shall we

say, that, as in similar cases, Statesmen are the people to learn

from, since this faculty was thought to be a part of the Social

Science? Must we not admit that the Political Science plainly

does not stand on a similar footing to that of other sciences and

faculties?

I mean, that while in all other cases those who impart the

faculties and themselves exert them are identical (physicians and

painters for instance) matters of Statesmanship the Sophists

profess to teach, but not one of them practises it, that being

left to those actually engaged in it: and these might really very

well be thought to do it by some singular knack and by mere

practice rather than by any intellectual process: for they

neither write nor speak on these matters (though it might be more

to their credit than composing speeches for the courts or the

assembly), nor again have they made Statesmen of their own sons

or their friends.