opinions unverified and contradictory to unpopular truths which
are assured to us by the most certain proofs: that our preachers are
in the habit of praising God 'without regard to truth and falsehood,
attributing to Him every species of greatness and glory, saying that He
is all this and the cause of all that, in order that we may exhibit Him
as the fairest and best of all' (Symp.) without any consideration of
His real nature and character or of the laws by which He governs the
world--seeking for a 'private judgment' and not for the truth or 'God's
judgment.' What would he say of the Church, which we praise in like
manner, 'meaning ourselves,' without regard to history or experience?
Might he not ask, whether we 'care more for the truth of religion, or
for the speaker and the country from which the truth comes'? or, whether
the 'select wise' are not 'the many' after all? (Symp.) So we may fill
up the sketch of Socrates, lest, as Phaedrus says, the argument should
be too 'abstract and barren of illustrations.' (Compare Symp., Apol.,
Euthyphro.)

He next proceeds with enthusiasm to define the royal art of dialectic as
the power of dividing a whole into parts, and of uniting the parts in a
whole, and which may also be regarded (compare Soph.) as the process of
the mind talking with herself. The latter view has probably led Plato
to the paradox that speech is superior to writing, in which he may seem
also to be doing an injustice to himself. For the two cannot be fairly
compared in the manner which Plato suggests. The contrast of the living
and dead word, and the example of Socrates, which he has represented
in the form of the Dialogue, seem to have misled him. For speech and
writing have really different functions; the one is more transitory,
more diffuse, more elastic and capable of adaptation to moods and times;
the other is more permanent, more concentrated, and is uttered not to
this or that person or audience, but to all the world. In the Politicus
the paradox is carried further; the mind or will of the king is
preferred to the written law; he is supposed to be the Law personified,
the ideal made Life.

Yet in both these statements there is also contained a truth; they may
be compared with one another, and also with the other famous paradox,
that 'knowledge cannot be taught.' Socrates means to say, that what is
truly written is written in the soul, just as what is truly taught grows
up in the soul from within and i