cal 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 goodnes