final section of Plato's Phaedrus


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 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 honorable 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 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 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 marvelously 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.

-THE END-