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    little else . ' c Let us then leave that very little alone , and examine theee things a little more closely , that we may see what power the art has , ' Very great power indeed in a popular assembly / * Let us see . * If any one were to come to your friend Eryximachus , or to his father , Acumenus-, and sav , I know how to produce any effect I please

    upon the body , I can cool it or heat it , give it an emetic or a purge , and I therefore think myself a physician , and capable of making others so what would they say ? ' * They would ask him whether he likewise knows upon whom to produce these different effects , and when , and to what degree , ' And what if he were to answer—By no means ; I insist that he who has learned from me what I before mentioned , will have that other sort of knowledge as a matter of course . '—* They would reply , The man is mad , and because he has accidentally discovered or read of some

    drug or other , fancies himself a physician , knowing nothing at all of the art / c And what if a man should go to Sophocles or Euripides , and say , I know how to make a long speech on a small matter , and a short one about a great matter , and I can make a pathetic speech , or a menacing one , or a fearful one , and being able to teach all this I can enable any man to write a tragedy V They too would laugh at the absurdity of supposing that tragedy consists in any thing but the pulling together of these things so as to be suitable to one another and to the whole . ' 'And if a musician met with a man who thought himself a harmonist because he could draw from the strings the most acute and the gravest sounds possible , he would not say to him fiercely , You stupid fellow ! you are out

    of your wits ; but , as being a musician , and therefore of a softer and less inflammable temperament , he would answer , My good friend , it is necessary for a harmonist to know these things , but a man may know all that you know and be not the least of a harmonist notwithstanding .

    You possess those acquirements which are preliminary to harmony , but not harmony itself . ' * Very right . ' * Sophocles would say , in like manner , You know the preliminaries to tragedy , but not tragedy itself : and Acumenus would say , You know the preliminaries to medicine , but medicine itself you know not . ' * Most true . '

    ' What then do you think that the sweet voiced Adrastus or Pericles would say , if they heard recited these splendid inventions which we were just now talking of , / 3 paxuAoyicu and elicovoXoyiai and the like ? Would they , like us , say something sharp and coarse to those who write and teach these things under the name of oratory ? or would they , as being wiser than we , reprove us for our violence , and say , O Phaedrus and Socrates , we ought not to be angry , but should excuse , if there be

    persons who , being unversed in dialectics , are unable to define what oratory is , and therefore , being possessed onl y of those acquirements which it is necessary should precede the art , fancy that they have found an art of oratory , and , teaching these things to others , think that they have taug ht them oratory itself ; but think nothing of the power of doing each of these things persuasively , and of putting them together into a whol ^ and hold it unnecessary for their scholars to learn this from their tuition . " I am afraid / observed Phaedrus , * that this art of oratory , as they call it , is indeed no better than you represent it . But from whence might one derive the art of the real orator—the power of per suasion ?'

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    638 Platos Dialogues ; the Phtedrus .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1834, page 638, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2637/page/34/