[411d]
is not the result that even if there
was some principle of the love of knowledge in his soul, since it tastes of
no instruction nor of any inquiry and does not participate in any discussion
or any other form of culture, it becomes feeble, deaf, and blind, because it
is not aroused or fed nor are its perceptions purified and
quickened?” “That is so,” he said.
“And so such a man, I take it, becomes a misologist1 and stranger to the Muses. He no longer makes
any use of persuasion by speech but achieves all his ends
1 A hater of rational discussion, as explained in Laches 188 C, and the beautiful passage in the Phaedo 89 D ff. Cf. Minucius Felix, Octavius 14. 6 “Igitur nobis providendum est ne odio identidem sermonum laboremus.” John Morley describes obscurantists as “sombre hierophants of misology.”
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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