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Here Adeimantus interposes:-'No man can answer you, Socrates; but

every man feels that this is owing to his own deficiency in

argument. He is driven from one position to another, until he has

nothing more to say, just as an unskilful player at draughts is

reduced to his last move by a more skilled opponent. And yet all

the time he may be right. He may know, in this very instance,

that those who make philosophy the business of their lives,

generally turn out rogues if they are bad men, and fools if they

are good. What do you say?' I should say that he is quite right.

'Then how is such an admission reconcileable with the doctrine

that philosophers should be kings?'