RATES: And when he speaks in the assembly, he will make the same
things seem good to the city at one time, and at another time the
reverse of good?

PHAEDRUS: That is true.

SOCRATES: Have we not heard of the Eleatic Palamedes (Zeno), who has an
art of speaking by which he makes the same things appear to his hearers
like and unlike, one and many, at rest and in motion?

PHAEDRUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: The art of disputation, then, is not confined to the courts
and the assembly, but is one and the same in every use of language; this
is the art, if there be such an art, which is able to find a likeness of
everything to which a likeness can be found, and draws into the light of
day the likenesses and disguises which are used by others?

PHAEDRUS: How do you mean?

SOCRATES: Let me put the matter thus: When will there be more chance of
deception--when the difference is large or small?

PHAEDRUS: When the difference is small.

SOCRATES: And you will be less likely to be discovered in passing by
degrees into the other extreme than when you go all at once?

PHAEDRUS: Of course.

SOCRATES: He, then, who would deceive others, and not be deceived, must
exactly know the real likenesses and differences of things?

PHAEDRUS: He must.

SOCRATES: And if he is ignorant of the true nature of any subject, how
can he detect the greater or less degree of likeness in other things to
that of which by the hypothesis he is ignorant?

PHAEDRUS: He cannot.

SOCRATES: And when men are deceived and their notions are at
variance with realities, it is clear that the error slips in through
resemblances?

PHAEDRUS: Yes, that is the way.

SOCRATES: Then he who would be a master of the art must understand the
real nature of everything; or he will never know either how to make
the gradual departure from truth into the opposite of truth which is
effected by the help of resemblances, or how to avoid it?

PHAEDRUS: He will not.

SOCRATES: He then, who being ignorant of the truth aims at appearances,
will only attain an art of rhetoric which is ridiculous and is not an
art at all?

PHAEDRUS: That may be expected.

SOCRATES: Shall I propose that we look for examples of art and want of
art, according to our notion of them, in the speech of Lysias which you
have in your hand, and in my own speech?

PHAEDRUS: Nothing could be better; and indeed I think that our previous
argument has been too abstract and wanting in illustrations.

S