Phaedrus
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