Phaedrus (267-271)

Socrates. Of course. And he tells how refutation and further refutation must be accomplished, both in accusation and in defence. Shall we not bring the illustrious Parian, Evenus, into our discussion, who invented covert allusion and indirect praises? And some say that he also wrote indirect censures, composing them in verse as an aid to memory; for he is a clever man. And shall we leave Gorgias and Tisias undisturbed, who saw that probabilities are more to be esteemed than truths, who make small things seem great and great things small by the power of their words, and new things old and old things the reverse, and who invented conciseness of speech and measureless length on all subjects? And once when Prodicus heard these inventions, he laughed, and said that he alone had discovered the art of proper speech, that discourses should be neither long nor short, but of reasonable length.

Phaedrus. O Prodicus! How clever!

Socrates. And shall we not mention Hippias, our friend from Elis? I think he would agree with him.

Phaedrus. Oh yes.

Socrates. And what shall we say of Polus and his shrines of learned speech, such as duplication and sententiousness and figurativeness, and what of the names with which Licymnius presented him to effect beautiful diction?

Phaedrus. Were there not some similar inventions of Protagoras, Socrates?

Socrates. Yes, my boy, correctness of diction, and many other fine things. For tearful speeches, to arouse pity for old age and poverty, I think the precepts of the mighty Chalcedonian hold the palm, and he is also a genius, as he said, at rousing large companies to wrath, and soothing them again by his charms when they are angry, and most powerful in devising and abolishing calumnies on any grounds whatsoever. But all seem to be in agreement concerning the conclusion of discourses, which some call recapitulation, while others give it some other name.

Phaedrus. You mean making a summary of the points of the speech at the end of it, so as to remind the hearers of what has been said?

Socrates. These are the things I mean, these and anything else you can mention concerned with the art of rhetoric.

Phaedrus. There are only little things, not worth mentioning.

Socrates. Never mind the little things; let us bring these other things more under the light and see what force of art they have and when.

Phaedrus. They have a very powerful force, at least in large assemblies.

Socrates. They have; but my friend, see if you agree with me in thinking that their warp has gaps in it.

Phaedrus. Go on and show them.

Socrates. Tell me; if anyone should go to your friend Eryximachus or to his father Acumenus and should say I know how to apply various drugs to people, so as to make them warm or, if I wish, cold, and I can make them vomit, if I like, or can make their bowels move, and all that sort of thing; and because of this knowledge I claim that I am a physician and can make any other man a physician, to whom I impart the knowledge of these things; what do you think they would say?

Phaedrus. They would ask him, of course, whether he knew also whom he ought to cause to do these things, and when, and how much.

Socrates. If then he should say: No, not at all; but I think that he who has learned these things from me will be able to do by himself the things you ask about?

Phaedrus. They would say, I fancy, that the man was crazy and, because he had read something in a book or had stumbled upon some medicines, imagined that he was a physician when he really had no knowledge of the art.

Socrates. And what if someone should go to Sophocles or Euripides and should say that he knew how to make very long speeches about a small matter, and very short ones about a great affair, and pitiful utterances, if he wished, and again terrible and threatening ones, and all that sort of thing, and that he thought by imparting those things he could teach the art of writing tragedies?

Phaedrus. They also, I fancy, Socrates, would laugh at him, if he imagined that tragedy was anything else than the proper combination of these details in such a way that they harmonize with each other and with the whole composition.

Socrates. But they would not, I suppose, rebuke him harshly, but they would behave as a musician would, if he met a man who thought he understood harmony because he could strike the highest and lowest notes. He would not say roughly, You wretch, you are mad, but being a musician, he would say in gentler tones, My friend, he who is to be a harmonist must know these things you mention, but nothing prevents one who is at your stage of knowledge from being quite ignorant of harmony. You know the necessary preliminaries of harmony, but not harmony itself.

Phaedrus. Quite correct.

Socrates. So Sophocles would say that the man exhibited the preliminaries of tragedy, not tragedy itself, and Acumenus that he knew the preliminaries of medicine, not medicine itself.

Phaedrus. Exactly so.

Socrates. Well then, if the mellifluous Adrastus[*] or Pericles heard of the excellent accomplishments which we just enumerated, brachylogies and figurative speech and all the other things we said we must bringto the light and examine, do we suppose they would, like you and me, be so ill-bred as to speak discourteously of those who have written and taught these things as the art of rhetoric? Would they not, since they are wiser than we, censure us also and say, Phaedrus and Socrates, we ought not to be angry, but lenient, if certain persons who are ignorant of dialectics have been unable to define the nature of rhetoric and on this account have thought, when they possessed the knowledge that is a necessary preliminary to rhetoric, that they had discovered rhetoric, and believe that by teaching these preliminaries to others they have taught them rhetoric completely, and that the persuasive use of these details and the composition of the whole discourse is a small matter which their pupils must supply of themselves in their writings or speeches.

Phaedrus. Well, Socrates, it does seem as if that which those men teach and write about as the art of rhetoric were such as you describe. I think you are right. But how and from whom is the truly rhetorical and persuasive art to be acquired?

Socrates. Whether one can acquire it, so as to become a perfect orator, Phaedrus, is probably, and perhaps must be, dependent on conditions, like everything else. If you are naturally rhetorical, you will become a notable orator, when to your natural endowments you have added knowledge and practice; at whatever point you are deficient in these, you will be incomplete. But so far as the art is concerned, I do not think the quest of it lies along the path of Lysias and Thrasymachus.

Phaedrus. Where then?

Socrates. I suppose, my friend, Pericles is the most perfect orator in existence.

Phaedrus. Well?

Socrates. All great arts demand discussion and high speculation about nature; for this loftiness of mind and effectiveness in all directions seem somehow to come from such pursuits. This was in Pericles added to his great natural abilities; for it was, I think, his falling in with Anaxagoras, who was just such a man, that filled him with high thoughts and taught him the nature of mind and of lack of mind, subjects about which Anaxagoras used chiefly to discourse, and from these speculations he drew and applied to the art of speaking what is of use to it.

Phaedrus. What do you mean by that?

Socrates. The method of the art of healing is much the same as that of rhetoric.

Phaedrus. How so?

Socrates. In both cases you must analyze a nature, in one that of the body and in the other that of the soul, if you are to proceed in a scientific manner, not merely by practice and routine, to impart health and strength to the body by prescribing medicine and diet, or by proper discourses and training to give to the soul the desired belief and virtue.

Phaedrus. That, Socrates, is probably true.

Socrates. Now do you think one can acquire any appreciable knowledge of the nature of the soul without knowing the nature of the whole man?

Phaedrus. If Hippocrates the Asclepiad is to be trusted, one cannot know the nature of the body, either, except in that way.

Socrates. He is right, my friend; however, we ought not to be content with the authority of Hippocrates, but to see also if our reason agrees with him on examination.

Phaedrus. I assent.

Socrates. Then see what Hippocrates and true reason say about nature. In considering the nature of anything, must we not consider first, whether that in respect to which we wish to be learned ourselves and to make others learned is simple or multiform, and then, if it is simple, enquire what power of acting it possesses, or of being acted upon, and by what, and if it has many forms, number them, and then see in the case of each form, as we did in the case of the simple nature, what its action is and how it is acted upon and by what?

Phaedrus. Very likely, Socrates.

Socrates. At any rate, any other mode of procedure would be like the progress of a blind man. Yet surely he who pursues any study scientifically ought not to be comparable to a blind or a deaf man, but evidently the man whose rhetorical teaching is a real art will explain accurately the nature of that to which his words are to be addressed, and that is the soul, is it not?

Phaedrus. Of course.

Socrates. Then this is the goal of all his effort; he tries to produce conviction in the soul. Is not that so?

Phaedrus. Yes.

Socrates. So it is clear that Thrasymachus, or anyone else who seriously teaches the art of rhetoric, will first describe the soul with perfect accuracy and make us see whether it is one and all alike, or, like the body, of multiform aspect; for this is what we call explaining its nature.

Phaedrus. Certainly.

Socrates. And secondly he will say what its action is and toward what it is directed, or how it is acted upon and by what.

Phaedrus. To be sure.

Socrates. Thirdly, he will classify the speeches and the souls and will adapt each to the other, showing the causes of the effects produced and why one kind of soul is necessarily persuaded by certain classes of speeches, and another is not.

Phaedrus. That would, I think, be excellent.

Socrates. By no other method of exposition or speech will this, or anything else, ever be written or spoken with real art. But those whom you have heard, who write treatises on the art of speech nowadays, are deceivers and conceal the nature of the soul, though they know it very well. Until they write and speak by this method we cannot believe that they write by the rules of art.

Phaedrus. What is this method?

Socrates. It is not easy to tell the exact expressions to be used; but I will tell how one must write, if one is to do it, so far as possible, in a truly artistic way.

Phaedrus. Speak then.

Socrates. Since it is the function of speech to lead souls by persuasion, he who is to be a rhetorician must know the various forms of soul. Now they are so and so many and of such and such kinds, wherefore men also are of different kinds: these we must classify. Then there are also various classes of speeches, to one of which every speech belongs. So men of a certain sort are easily persuaded by speeches of a certain sort for a certain reason to actions or beliefs of a certain sort, and men of another sort cannot be so persuaded. The student of rhetoric must, accordingly, acquire a proper knowledge of these classes and then be able to follow them accurately with his senses when he sees them in the practical affairs of life; otherwise he can never have any profit from the lectures he may have heard.