47
Of these examples not one worked out contrary to reasonWith a difference of one word this sentence is found in Isoc. 4.150, as Blass notes. It looks, however, like a commonplace.; for it would be much stranger if we were obliged to achieve paltry ends through acquiring knowledge and putting it into practice, but were capable of accomplishing the big things without this effort.
47
Now I do not know what call there is to say more on these topics, for not even at the outset did I introduce them because I assumed you were absolutely ignorant, but because I thought that such exhortations both arouse those who lack knowledge and spur on those who possess it;.Writings that urged young men to study philosophy formed a distinct literary genre among the ancients under the name protreptics. The Epistle to Menoeceus of Epicurus is an extant example.
