writing, showing his invention to the god Thamus, who told him that he
would only spoil men's memories and take away their understandings. From
this tale, of which young Athens will probably make fun, may be gathered
the lesson that writing is inferior to speech. For it is like a picture,
which can give no answer to a question, and has only a deceitful likeness
of a living creature. It has no power of adaptation, but uses the same
words for all. It is not a legitimate son of knowledge, but a bastard, and
when an attack is made upon this bastard neither parent nor anyone else is
there to defend it. The husbandman will not seriously incline to sow his
seed in such a hot-bed or garden of Adonis; he will rather sow in the
natural soil of the human soul which has depth of earth; and he will
anticipate the inner growth of the mind, by writing only, if at all, as a
remedy against old age. The natural process will be far nobler, and will
bring forth fruit in the minds of others as well as in his own.

The conclusion of the whole matter is just this,--that until a man knows
the truth, and the manner of adapting the truth to the natures of other
men, he cannot be a good orator; also, that the living is better than the
written word, and that the principles of justice and truth when delivered
by word of mouth are the legitimate offspring of a man's own bosom, and
their lawful descendants take up their abode in others. Such an orator as
he is who is possessed of them, you and I would fain become. And to all
composers in the world, poets, orators, legislators, we hereby announce
that if their compositions are based upon these principles, then they are
not only poets, orators, legislators, but philosophers. All others are
mere flatterers and putters together of words. This is the message which
Phaedrus undertakes to carry to Lysias from the local deities, and Socrates
himself will carry a similar message to his favourite Isocrates, whose
future distinction as a great rhetorician he prophesies. The heat of the
day has passed, and after offering up a prayer to Pan and the nymphs,