res 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