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
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 d