[14]
Speaking, then, of forms of government （for this was the subject I set out to lay before you）, I imagine that we all believe that it is altogether monstrous1 that the good and the bad should be thought worthy of the same privileges, and that it is of the very essence of justice that distinctions should be made between them, and that those who are unlike should not be treated alike but should fare and be rewarded in each case according to their deserts.
1 A protest against the new “equality.” Cf. Isoc. 2.14. In Isoc. 7.21-22 Isocrates praises the old democracy of Athens for recognizing ability and worth.
Isocrates. Isocrates with an English Translation in three volumes, by George Norlin, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1980.
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