Section 1ƒ

The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality. Phaedr. Yes, Socrates, you can easily invent tales of Egypt, or of any other country. Soc. There was a tradition in the temple of Dodona that oaks first gave prophetic utterances. The men of old, unlike in their simplicity to young philosophy, deemed that if they heard the truth even from "oak or rock," it was enough for them; whereas you seem to consider not whether a thing is or is not true, but who the speaker is and from what country the tale comes. Phaedr. I acknowledge the justice of your rebuke; and I think that the Theban is right in his view about letters. Soc. He would be a very simple person, and quite a stranger to the oracles of Thamus or Ammon, who should leave in writing or receive in writing any art under the idea that the written word would be intelligible or certain; or who deemed that writing was at all better than knowledge and recollection of the same matters? Phaedr. That is most true. Soc. I cannot help feeling, Phaedrus, that writing is unfortunately like painting; for the creations of the painter have the attitude of life, and yet if you ask them a question they preserve a solemn silence. And the same may be said of speeches. You would imagine that they had intelligence, but if you want to know anything and put a question to one of them, the speaker always gives one unvarying answer. And when they have been once written down they are tumbled about anywhere among those who may or may not understand them, and know not to whom they should reply, to whom not: and, if they are maltreated or abused, they have no parent to protect them; and they cannot protect or defend themselves. Phaedr. That again is most true. Soc. Is there not another kind of word or speech far better than this, and having far greater power-a son of the same family, but lawfully begotten? Phaedr. Whom do you mean, and what is his origin? Soc. I mean an intelligent word graven in the soul of the learner, which can defend itself, and knows when to speak and when to be silent. Phaedr. You mean the living word of knowledge which has a soul, and of which written word is properly no more than an image? Soc. Yes, of course that is what I mean. And now may I be allowed to ask you a question: Would a husbandman, who is a man of sense, take the seeds, which he values and which he wishes to bear fruit, and in sober seriousness plant them during the heat of summer, in some garden of Adonis, that he may rejoice when he sees them in eight days appearing in beauty? at least he would do so, if at all, only for the sake of amusement and pastime. But when he is in earnest he sows in fitting soil, and practises husbandry, and is satisfied if in eight months the seeds which he has sown arrive at perfection? Phaedr. Yes, Socrates, that will be his way when he is in earnest; he will do the other, as you say, only in play. Soc. And can we suppose that he who knows the just and good and honourable has less understanding, than the husbandman, about his own seeds? Phaedr. Certainly not. Soc.