'I am a maiden of bronze and lie on the tomb of Midas; So long as water
flows and tall trees grow, So long here on this spot by his sad tomb
abiding, I shall declare to passers-by that Midas sleeps below.'
Now in this rhyme whether a line comes first or comes last, as you will
perceive, makes no difference.
PHAEDRUS: You are making fun of that oration of ours.
SOCRATES: Well, I will say no more about your friend's speech lest I
should give offence to you; although I think that it might furnish many
other examples of what a man ought rather to avoid. But I will proceed
to the other speech, which, as I think, is also suggestive to students
of rhetoric.
PHAEDRUS: In what way?
SOCRATES: The two speeches, as you may remember, were unlike; the one
argued that the lover and the other that the non-lover ought to be
accepted.
PHAEDRUS: And right manfully.
SOCRATES: You should rather say 'madly;' and madness was the argument of
them, for, as I said, 'love is a madness.'
PHAEDRUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And of madness there were two kinds; one produced by human
infirmity, the other was a divine release of the soul from the yoke of
custom and convention.
PHAEDRUS: True.
SOCRATES: The divine madness was subdivided into four kinds, prophetic,
initiatory, poetic, erotic, having four gods presiding over them; the
first was the inspiration of Apollo, the second that of Dionysus, the
third that of the Muses, the fourth that of Aphrodite and Eros. In the
description of the last kind of madness, which was also said to be
the best, we spoke of the affection of love in a figure, into which we
introduced a tolerably credible and possibly true though partly erring
myth, which was also a hymn in honour of Love, who is your lord and also
mine, Phaedrus, and the guardian of fair children, and to him we sung
the hymn in measured and solemn strain.
PHAEDRUS: I know that I had great pleasure in listening to you.
SOCRATES: Let us take this instance and note how the transition was made
from blame to praise.
PHAEDRUS: What do you mean?
SOCRATES: I mean to say that the composition was mostly playful. Yet in
these chance fancies of the hour were involved two principles of which
we should be too glad to have a clearer description if art could give us
one.
PHAEDRUS: What are they?
SOCRATES: First, the comprehension of scattered particulars in one idea;
as in our definition of love, which whether true or false certainly gave
clearness and consistency to the discourse, the speaker should define
his several notions and so make his meaning clear.
PHAEDRUS: What is the other principle, Socrates?
SOCRATES: The second principle is that of division into species
according to the natural formation, where the joint is, not breaking any
part as a bad carver might. Just as our two discourses, alike assumed,
first of all, a single form of unreason; and then, as the body which
from being one becomes double and may be divided into a left side and
right side, each having parts right and left of the same name--after
this manner the speaker proceeded to divide the parts of the left side
and did not desist until he found in them an evil or left-handed love
which he justly reviled; and the other discourse leading us to the
madness which lay on the right side, found another love, also having the
same name, but divine, which the speaker held up before us and applauded
and affirmed to be the author of the greatest benefits.
PHAEDRUS: Most true.
SOCRATES: I am myself a great lover of these processes of division and
generalization; they help me to speak and to think. And if I find any
man who is able to see 'a One and Many' in nature, him I follow, and
'walk in his footsteps as if he were a god.' And those who have this
art, I have hitherto been in the habit of calling dialecticians; but God
knows whether the name is right or not. And I should like to know what
name you would give to your or to Lysias' disciples, and whether this
may not be that famous art of rhetoric which Thrasymachus and others
teach and practise? Skilful speakers they are, and impart their skill to
any who is willing to make kings of them and to bring gifts to them.
PHAEDRUS: Yes, they are royal men; but their art is not the same
with the art of those whom you call, and rightly, in my opinion,
dialecticians:--Still we are in the dark about rhetoric.
SOCRATES: What do you mean? The remains of it, if there be anything
remaining which can be brought under rules of art, must be a fine thing;
and, at any rate, is not to be despised by you and me. But how much is
left?
PHAEDRUS: There is a great deal surely to be found in books of rhetoric?
SOCRATES: Yes; thank you for reminding me:--There is the exordium,
showing how the speech should begin, if I remember rightly; that is what
you mean--the niceties of the art?
PHAEDRUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then follows the statement of facts, and upon that witnesses;
thirdly, proofs; fourthly, probabilities are to come; the great
Byzantian word-maker also speaks, if I am not mistaken, of confirmation
and further confirmation.
PHAEDRUS: You mean the excellent Theodorus.
SOCRATES: Yes; and he tells how refutation or further refutation is to
be managed, whether in accusation or defence. I ought also to mention
the illustrious Parian, Evenus, who first invented insinuations and
indirect praises; and also indirect censures, which according to some
he put into verse to help the memory. But shall I 'to dumb forgetfulness
consign' Tisias and Gorgias, who are not ignorant that probability is
superior to truth, and who by force of argument make the little appear
great and the great little, disguise the new in old fashions and the old
in new fashions, and have discovered forms for everything, either short
or going on to infinity. I remember Prodicus laughing when I told him of
this; he said that he had himself discovered the true rule of art, which
was to be neither long nor short, but of a convenient length.
PHAEDRUS: Well done, Prodicus!
SOCRATES: Then there is Hippias the Elean stranger, who probably agrees
with him.
PHAEDRUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And there is also Polus, who has treasuries of diplasiology,
and gnomology, and eikonology, and who teaches in them the names of
which Licymnius made him a present; they were to give a polish.
PHAEDRUS: Had not Protagoras something of the same sort?
SOCRATES: Yes, rules of correct diction and many other fine precepts;
for the 'sorrows of a poor old man,' or any other pathetic case, no one
is better than the Chalcedonian giant; he can put a whole company of
people into a passion and out of one again by his mighty magic, and
is first-rate at inventing or disposing of any sort of calumny on any
grounds or none. All of them agree in asserting that a speech should end
in a recapitulation, though they do not all agree to use the same word.
PHAEDRUS: You mean that there should be a summing up of the arguments in
order to remind the hearers of them.
SOCRATES: I have now said all that I have to say of the art of rhetoric:
have you anything to add?
PHAEDRUS: Not much; nothing very important.
SOCRATES: Leave the unimportant and let us bring the really important
question into the light of day, which is: What power has this art of
rhetoric, and when?
PHAEDRUS: A very great power in public meetings.
SOCRATES: It has. But I should like to know whether you have the same
feeling as I have about the rhetoricians? To me there seem to be a great
many holes in their web.
PHAEDRUS: Give an example.
SOCRATES: I will. Suppose a person to come to your friend Eryximachus,
or to his father Acumenus, and to say to him: 'I know how to apply drugs
which shall have either a heating or a cooling effect, and I can give
a vomit and also a purge, and all that sort of thing; and knowing all
this, as I do, I claim to be a physician and to make physicians by
imparting this knowledge to others,'--what do you suppose that they
would say?
PHAEDRUS: They would be sure to ask him whether he knew 'to whom' he
would give his medicines, and 'when,' and 'how much.'
SOCRATES: And suppose that he were to reply: 'No; I know nothing of all
that; I expect the patient who consults me to be able to do these things
for himself'?
PHAEDRUS: They would say in reply that he is a madman or a pedant who
fancies that he is a physician because he has read something in a
book, or has stumbled on a prescription or two, although he has no real
understanding of the art of medicine.
SOCRATES: And suppose a person were to come to Sophocles or Euripides
and say that he knows how to make a very long speech about a small
matter, and a short speech about a great matter, and also a sorrowful
speech, or a terrible, or threatening speech, or any other kind of
speech, and in teaching this fancies that he is teaching the art of
tragedy--?
PHAEDRUS: They too would surely laugh at him if he fancies that tragedy
is anything but the arranging of these elements in a manner which will
be suitable to one another and to the whole.
SOCRATES: But I do not suppose that they would be rude or abusive to
him: Would they not treat him as a musician a man who thinks that he is
a harmonist because he knows how to pitch the highest and lowest note;
happening to meet such an one he would not say to him savagely, 'Fool,
you are mad!' But like a musician, in a gentle and harmonious tone of
voice, he would answer: 'My good friend, he who would be a harmonist
must certainly know this, and yet he may understand nothing of harmony
if he has not got beyond your stage of knowledge, for you only know the
preliminaries of harmony and not harmony itself.'
PHAEDRUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: And will not Sophocles say to the display of the would-be
tragedian, that this is not tragedy but the preliminaries of tragedy?
and will not Acumenus say the same of medicine to the would-be
physician?
PHAEDRUS: Quite true.
SOCRATES: And if Adrastus the mellifluous or Pericles heard of these
wonderful arts, brachylogies and eikonologies and all the hard names
which we have been endeavouring to draw into the light of day, what
would they say? Instead of losing temper and applying uncomplimentary
epithets, as you and I have been doing, to the authors of such an
imaginary art, their superior wisdom would rather censure us, as well
as them. 'Have a little patience, Phaedrus and Socrates, they would say;
you should not be in such a passion with those who from some want of
dialectical skill are unable to define the nature of rhetoric, and
consequently suppose that they have found the art in the preliminary
conditions of it, and when these have been taught by them to others,
fancy that the whole art of rhetoric has been taught by them; but as
to using the several instruments of the art effectively, or making the
composition a whole,--an application of it such as this is they regard
as an easy thing which their disciples may make for themselves.'
PHAEDRUS: I quite admit, Socrates, that the art of rhetoric which these
men teach and of which they write is such as you describe--there I
agree with you. But I still want to know where and how the true art of
rhetoric and persuasion is to be acquired.
SOCRATES: The perfection which is required of the finished orator is,
or rather must be, like the perfection of anything else; partly given by
nature, but may also be assisted by art. If you have the natural power
and add to it knowledge and practice, you will be a distinguished
speaker; if you fall short in either of these, you will be to that
extent defective. But the art, as far as there is an art, of rhetoric
does not lie in the direction of Lysias or Thrasymachus.
PHAEDRUS: In what direction then?
SOCRATES: I conceive Pericles to have been the most accomplished of
rhetoricians.
PHAEDRUS: What of that?
SOCRATES: All the great arts require discussion and high speculation
about the truths of nature; hence come loftiness of thought and
completeness of execution. And this, as I conceive, was the quality
which, in addition to his natural gifts, Pericles acquired from his
intercourse with Anaxagoras whom he happened to know. He was thus imbued
with the higher philosophy, and attained the knowledge of Mind and the
negative of Mind, which were favourite themes of Anaxagoras, and applied
what suited his purpose to the art of speaking.
PHAEDRUS: Explain.
SOCRATES: Rhetoric is like medicine.
PHAEDRUS: How so?
SOCRATES: Why, because medicine has to define the nature of the body
and rhetoric of the soul--if we would proceed, not empirically but
scientifically, in the one case to impart health and strength by giving
medicine and food, in the other to implant the conviction or virtue
which you desire, by the right application of words and training.
PHAEDRUS: There, Socrates, I suspect that you are right.
SOCRATES: And do you think that you can know the nature of the soul
intelligently without knowing the nature of the whole?
PHAEDRUS: Hippocrates the Asclepiad says that the nature even of the
body can only be understood as a whole. (Compare Charmides.)
SOCRATES: Yes, friend, and he was right:--still, we ought not to be
content with the name of Hippocrates, but to examine and see whether his
argument agrees with his conception of nature.
PHAEDRUS: I agree.
SOCRATES: Then consider what truth as well as Hippocrates says about
this or about any other nature. Ought we not to consider first whether
that which we wish to learn and to teach is a simple or multiform thing,
and if simple, then to enquire what power it has of acting or being
acted upon in relation to other things, and if multiform, then to number
the forms; and see first in the case of one of them, and then in the
case of all of them, what is that power of acting or being acted upon
which makes each and all of them to be what they are?
PHAEDRUS: You may very likely be right, Socrates.
SOCRATES: The method which proceeds without analysis is like the groping
of a blind man. Yet, surely, he who is an artist ought not to admit of
a comparison with the blind, or deaf. The rhetorician, who teaches his
pupil to speak scientifically, will particularly set forth the nature of
that being to which he addresses his speeches; and this, I conceive, to
be the soul.
PHAEDRUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: His whole effort is directed to the soul; for in that he seeks
to produce conviction.
PHAEDRUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then clearly, Thrasymachus or any one else who teaches
rhetoric in earnest will give an exact description of the nature of the
soul; which will enable us to see whether she be single and same, or,
like the body, multiform. That is what we should call showing the nature
of the soul.
PHAEDRUS: Exactly.
SOCRATES: He will explain, secondly, the mode in which she acts or is
acted upon.
PHAEDRUS: True.
SOCRATES: Thirdly, having classified men and speeches, and their kinds
and affections, and adapted them to one another, he will tell the
reasons of his arrangement, and show why one soul is persuaded by a
particular form of argument, and another not.
PHAEDRUS: You have hit upon a very good way.
SOCRATES: Yes, that is the true and only way in which any subject can
be set forth or treated by rules of art, whether in speaking or writing.
But the writers of the present day, at whose feet you have sat, craftily
conceal the nature of the soul which they know quite well. Nor, until
they adopt our method of reading and writing, can we admit that they
write by rules of art?
PHAEDRUS: What is our method?
SOCRATES: I cannot give you the exact details; but I should like to
tell you generally, as far as is in my power, how a man ought to proceed
according to rules of art.
PHAEDRUS: Let me hear.
SOCRATES: Oratory is the art of enchanting the soul, and therefore he
who would be an orator has to learn the differences of human souls--they
are so many and of such a nature, and from them come the differences
between man and man. Having proceeded thus far in his analysis, he
will next divide speeches into their different classes:--'Such and such
persons,' he will say, are affected by this or that kind of speech in
this or that way,' and he will tell you why. The pupil must have a good
theoretical notion of them first, and then he must have experience of
them in actual life, and be able to follow them with all his senses
about him, or he will never get beyond the precepts of his masters. But
when he understands what persons are persuaded by what arguments, and
sees the person about whom he was speaking in the abstract actually
before him, and knows that it is he, and can say to himself, 'This is
the man or this is the character who ought to have a certain argument
applied to him in order to convince him of a certain opinion;'--he who
knows all this, and knows also when he should speak and when he should
refrain, and when he should use pithy sayings, pathetic appeals,
sensational effects, and all the other modes of speech which he has
learned;--when, I say, he knows the times and seasons of all these
things, then, and not till then, he is a perfect master of his art; but
if he fail in any of these points, whether in speaking or teaching or
writing them, and yet declares that he speaks by rules of art, he who
says 'I don't believe you' has the better of him. Well, the teacher will
say, is this, Phaedrus and Socrates, your account of the so-called art
of rhetoric, or am I to look for another?
PHAEDRUS: He must take this, Socrates, for there is no possibility of
another, and yet the creation of such an art is not easy.
SOCRATES: Very true; and therefore let us consider this matter in every
light, and see whether we cannot find a shorter and easier road; there
is no use in taking a long rough roundabout way if there be a shorter
and easier one. And I wish that you would try and remember whether
you have heard from Lysias or any one else anything which might be of
service to us.
PHAEDRUS: If trying would avail, then I might; but at the moment I can
think of nothing.
SOCRATES: Suppose I tell you something which somebody who knows told me.
PHAEDRUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: May not 'the wolf,' as the proverb says, 'claim a hearing'?
PHAEDRUS: Do you say what can be said for him.
SOCRATES: He will argue that there is no use in putting a solemn face
on these matters, or in going round and round, until you arrive at first
principles; for, as I said at first, when the question is of justice and
good, or is a question in which men are concerned who are just and good,
either by nature or habit, he who would be a skilful rhetorician has
no need of truth--for that in courts of law men literally care
nothing about truth, but only about conviction: and this is based on
probability, to which he who would be a skilful orator should therefore
give his whole attention. And they say also that there are cases in
which the actual facts, if they are improbable, ought to be withheld,
and only the probabilities should be told either in accusation or
defence, and that always in speaking, the orator should keep probability
in view, and say good-bye to the truth. And the observance of this
principle throughout a speech furnishes the whole art.
PHAEDRUS: That is what the professors of rhetoric do actually say,
Socrates. I have not forgotten that we have quite briefly touched upon
this matter already; with them the point is all-important.
SOCRATES: I dare say that you are familiar with Tisias. Does he not
define probability to be that which the many think?
PHAEDRUS: Certainly, he does.
SOCRATES: I believe that he has a clever and ingenious case of this
sort:--He supposes a feeble and valiant man to have assaulted a strong
and cowardly one, and to have robbed him of his coat or of something or
other; he is brought into court, and then Tisias says that both parties
should tell lies: the coward should say that he was assaulted by more
men than one; the other should prove that they were alone, and should
argue thus: 'How could a weak man like me have assaulted a strong man
like him?' The complainant will not like to confess his own cowardice,
and will therefore invent some other lie which his adversary will thus
gain an opportunity of refuting. And there are other devices of the same
kind which have a place in the system. Am I not right, Phaedrus?
PHAEDRUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Bless me, what a wonderfully mysterious art is this which
Tisias or some other gentleman, in whatever name or country he rejoices,
has discovered. Shall we say a word to him or not?
PHAEDRUS: What shall we say to him?
SOCRATES: Let us tell him that, before he appeared, you and I were
saying that the probability of which he speaks was engendered in the
minds of the many by the likeness of the truth, and we had just been
affirming that he who knew the truth would always know best how to
discover the resemblances of the truth. If he has anything else to say
about the art of speaking we should like to hear him; but if not, we
are satisfied with our own view, that unless a man estimates the various
characters of his hearers and is able to divide all things into classes
and to comprehend them under single ideas, he will never be a skilful
rhetorician even within the limits of human power. And this skill he
will not attain without a great deal of trouble, which a good man ought
to undergo, not for the sake of speaking and acting before men, but in
order that he may be able to say what is acceptable to God and always
to act acceptably to Him as far as in him lies; for there is a saying of
wiser men than ourselves, that a man of sense should not try to please
his fellow-servants (at least this should not be his first object)
but his good and noble masters; and therefore if the way is long and
circuitous, marvel not at this, for, where the end is great, there we
may take the longer road, but not for lesser ends such as yours. Truly,
the argument may say, Tisias, that if you do not mind going so far,
rhetoric has a fair beginning here.
PHAEDRUS: I think, Socrates, that this is admirable, if only
practicable.
SOCRATES: But even to fail in an honourable object is honourable.
PHAEDRUS: True.
SOCRATES: Enough appears to have been said by us of a true and false art
of speaking.
PHAEDRUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: But there is something yet to be said of propriety and
impropriety of writing.
PHAEDRUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Do you know how you can speak or act about rhetoric in a
manner which will be acceptable to God?
PHAEDRUS: No, indeed. Do you?
SOCRATES: I have heard a tradition of the ancients, whether true or not
they only know; although if we had found the truth ourselves, do you
think that we should care much about the opinions of men?
PHAEDRUS: Your question needs no answer; but I wish that you would tell
me what you say that you have heard.
SOCRATES: At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god,
whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred
to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and
calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his
great discovery was the use of letters. Now in those days the god Thamus
was the king of the whole country of Egypt; and he dwelt in that great
city of Upper Egypt which the Hellenes call Egyptian Thebes, and the
god himself is called by them Ammon. To him came Theuth and showed his
inventions, desiring that the other Egyptians might be allowed to have
the benefit of them; he enumerated them, and Thamus enquired about
their several uses, and praised some of them and censured others, as he
approved or disapproved of them. It would take a long time to repeat all
that Thamus said to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts. But
when they came to letters, This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians
wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the
memory and for the wit. Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the
parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility
or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this
instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of
your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which
they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness
in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories;
they will trust to the external written characters and not remember
of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to
memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but
only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and
will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will
generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show
of wisdom without the reality.
PHAEDRUS: Yes, Socrates, you can easily invent tales of Egypt, or of any
other country.
SOCRATES: There was a tradition in the temple of Dodona that oaks first
gave prophetic utterances. The men of old, unlike in their simplicity to
young philosophy, deemed that if they heard the truth even from 'oak or
rock,' it was enough for them; whereas you seem to consider not whether
a thing is or is not true, but who the speaker is and from what country
the tale comes.
PHAEDRUS: I acknowledge the justice of your rebuke; and I think that the
Theban is right in his view about letters.
SOCRATES: He would be a very simple person, and quite a stranger to the
oracles of Thamus or Ammon, who should leave in writing or receive
in writing any art under the idea that the written word would be
intelligible or certain; or who deemed that writing was at all better
than knowledge and recollection of the same matters?
PHAEDRUS: That is most true.
SOCRATES: I cannot help feeling, Phaedrus, that writing is unfortunately
like painting; for the creations of the painter have the attitude of
life, and yet if you ask them a question they preserve a solemn silence.
And the same may be said of speeches. You would imagine that they had
intelligence, but if you want to know anything and put a question to one
of them, the speaker always gives one unvarying answer. And when they
have been once written down they are tumbled about anywhere among those
who may or may not understand them, and know not to whom they should
reply, to whom not: and, if they are maltreated or abused, they have no
parent to protect them; and they cannot protect or defend themselves.
PHAEDRUS: That again is most true.
SOCRATES: Is there not another kind of word or speech far better than
this, and having far greater power--a son of the same family, but
lawfully begotten?
PHAEDRUS: Whom do you mean, and what is his origin?
SOCRATES: I mean an intelligent word graven in the soul of the learner,
which can defend itself, and knows when to speak and when to be silent.
PHAEDRUS: You mean the living word of knowledge which has a soul, and of
which the written word is properly no more than an image?
SOCRATES: Yes, of course that is what I mean. And now may I be allowed
to ask you a question: Would a husbandman, who is a man of sense, take
the seeds, which he values and which he wishes to bear fruit, and in
sober seriousness plant them during the heat of summer, in some garden
of Adonis, that he may rejoice when he sees them in eight days appearing
in beauty? at least he would do so, if at all, only for the sake of
amusement and pastime. But when he is in earnest he sows in fitting
soil, and practises husbandry, and is satisfied if in eight months the
seeds which he has sown arrive at perfection?
PHAEDRUS: Yes, Socrates, that will be his way when he is in earnest; he
will do the other, as you say, only in play.
SOCRATES: And can we suppose that he who knows the just and good and
honourable has less understanding, than the husbandman, about his own
seeds?
PHAEDRUS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Then he will not seriously incline to 'write' his thoughts
'in water' with pen and ink, sowing words which can neither speak for
themselves nor teach the truth adequately to others?
PHAEDRUS: No, that is not likely.
SOCRATES: No, that is not likely--in the garden of letters he will sow
and plant, but only for the sake of recreation and amusement; he will
write them down as memorials to be treasured against the forgetfulness
of old age, by himself, or by any other old man who is treading the same
path. He will rejoice in beholding their tender growth; and while others
are refreshing their souls with banqueting and the like, this will be
the pastime in which his days are spent.
PHAEDRUS: A pastime, Socrates, as noble as the other is ignoble, the
pastime of a man who can be amused by serious talk, and can discourse
merrily about justice and the like.
SOCRATES: True, Phaedrus. But nobler far is the serious pursuit of the
dialectician, who, finding a congenial soul, by the help of science sows
and plants therein words which are able to help themselves and him who
planted them, and are not unfruitful, but have in them a seed which
others brought up in different soils render immortal, making the
possessors of it happy to the utmost extent of human happiness.
PHAEDRUS: Far nobler, certainly.
SOCRATES: And now, Phaedrus, having agreed upon the premises we may
decide about the conclusion.
PHAEDRUS: About what conclusion?
SOCRATES: About Lysias, whom we censured, and his art of writing, and
his discourses, and the rhetorical skill or want of skill which was
shown in them--these are the questions which we sought to determine, and
they brought us to this point. And I think that we are now pretty well
informed about the nature of art and its opposite.
PHAEDRUS: Yes, I think with you; but I wish that you would repeat what
was said.
SOCRATES: Until a man knows the truth of the several particulars of
which he is writing or speaking, and is able to define them as they are,
and having defined them again to divide them until they can be no longer
divided, and until in like manner he is able to discern the nature
of the soul, and discover the different modes of discourse which are
adapted to different natures, and to arrange and dispose them in such
a way that the simple form of speech may be addressed to the simpler
nature, and the complex and composite to the more complex nature--until
he has accomplished all this, he will be unable to handle arguments
according to rules of art, as far as their nature allows them to
be subjected to art, either for the purpose of teaching or
persuading;--such is the view which is implied in the whole preceding
argument.
PHAEDRUS: Yes, that was our view, certainly.
SOCRATES: Secondly, as to the censure which was passed on the speaking
or writing of discourses, and how they might be rightly or wrongly
censured--did not our previous argument show--?
PHAEDRUS: Show what?
SOCRATES: That whether Lysias or any other writer that ever was or will
be, whether private man or statesman, proposes laws and so becomes
the author of a political treatise, fancying that there is any great
certainty and clearness in his performance, the fact of his so writing
is only a disgrace to him, whatever men may say. For not to know the
nature of justice and injustice, and good and evil, and not to be able
to distinguish the dream from the reality, cannot in truth be otherwise
than disgraceful to him, even though he have the applause of the whole
world.
PHAEDRUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: But he who thinks that in the written word there is
necessarily much which is not serious, and that neither poetry
nor prose, spoken or written, is of any great value, if, like the
compositions of the rhapsodes, they are only recited in order to be
believed, and not with any view to criticism or instruction; and who
thinks that even the best of writings are but a reminiscence of what we
know, and that only in principles of justice and goodness and nobility
taught and communicated orally for the sake of instruction and graven
in the soul, which is the true way of writing, is there clearness and
perfection and seriousness, and that such principles are a man's own and
his legitimate offspring;--being, in the first place, the word which
he finds in his own bosom; secondly, the brethren and descendants and
relations of his idea which have been duly implanted by him in the souls
of others;--and who cares for them and no others--this is the right sort
of man; and you and I, Phaedrus, would pray that we may become like him.
PHAEDRUS: That is most assuredly my desire and prayer.
SOCRATES: And now the play is played out; and of rhetoric enough. Go and
tell Lysias that to the fountain and school of the Nymphs we went
down, and were bidden by them to convey a message to him and to other
composers of speeches--to Homer and other writers of poems, whether set
to music or not; and to Solon and others who have composed writings in
the form of political discourses which they would term laws--to all of
them we are to say that if their compositions are based on knowledge of
the truth, and they can defend or prove them, when they are put to the
test, by spoken arguments, which leave their writings poor in
comparison of them, then they are to be called, not only poets, orators,
legislators, but are worthy of a higher name, befitting the serious
pursuit of their life.
PHAEDRUS: What name would you assign to them?
SOCRATES: Wise, I may not call them; for that is a great name which
belongs to God alone,--lovers of wisdom or philosophers is their modest
and befitting title.
PHAEDRUS: Very suitable.
SOCRATES: And he who cannot rise above his own compilations and
compositions, which he has been long patching and piecing, adding some
and taking away some, may be justly called poet or speech-maker or
law-maker.
PHAEDRUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Now go and tell this to your companion.
PHAEDRUS: But there is also a friend of yours who ought not to be
forgotten.
SOCRATES: Who is he?
PHAEDRUS: Isocrates the fair:--What message will you send to him, and
how shall we describe him?
SOCRATES: Isocrates is still young, Phaedrus; but I am willing to hazard
a prophecy concerning him.
PHAEDRUS: What would you prophesy?
SOCRATES: I think that he has a genius which soars above the orations of
Lysias, and that his character is cast in a finer mould. My impression
of him is that he will marvellously improve as he grows older, and that
all former rhetoricians will be as children in comparison of him. And I
believe that he will not be satisfied with rhetoric, but that there is
in him a divine inspiration which will lead him to things higher still.
For he has an element of philosophy in his nature. This is the message
of the gods dwelling in this place, and which I will myself deliver to
Isocrates, who is my delight; and do you give the other to Lysias, who
is yours.
PHAEDRUS: I will; and now as the heat is abated let us depart.
SOCRATES: Should we not offer up a prayer first of all to the local
deities?
PHAEDRUS: By all means.
SOCRATES: Beloved Pan, and all ye other gods who haunt this place, give
me beauty in the inward soul; and may the outward and inward man be
at one. May I reckon the wise to be the wealthy, and may I have such
a quantity of gold as a temperate man and he only can bear and
carry.--Anything more? The prayer, I think, is enough for me.
PHAEDRUS: Ask the same for me, for friends should have all things in
common.
SOCRATES: Let us go.