Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHY.415judge what good or i what harm it will do to thosewho use it. And now you, i being the father ofletters, out of natural affection assert of them thatwhich is just the contrary to their real office. Forthey will breed forgetfulness in the minds of thosewho learn them, who will slight the faculty ofmemory, inasmuch as relying on what is writtenexternally in the types of others they do not exerciseremembrance by an inward act of their own.The spell you have found is good not for fixing inthe mind, but for reminding. And as to wisdom,you offer to those who learn them not its realitybut its appearance. For they will indeed hearmuch, but as this will be without teaching, theywill seem to have many minds but generally nojudgment, and be hard to comprehend, havingbecome wiseacres instead of wise men. 0 Soc-rates, says Phaedrus, you are one who can easilytell stories from Egypt or any other country. Mydear Phsedrus, * it was in the temple of DodoneanJupiter that they made the first oracular wordsto proceed from an oak. The men of that day,not being wise as you young T men, were satisfiedin their simplicity to listen t to an oak or a rock,if they only spoke the truth. Perhaps it makesa difference to you who the speaker is, and fromwhat country; for you do not look merely whetherit is true or not. Your rebuke, says Phse-drus, " is just, and what the Theban says *^ aboutletters seems to me to be right. Well then, says