This is Dialectic (replies Phædrus); but it is not Rhetoric, as Thrasymachus and other professors teach the art. [Side-note: View of Sokrates--that there is no real Art of Rhetoric, except what is already comprised in Dialectic--The rhetorical teaching is empty and useless.] What else is there worth having (says Sokrates), which these professors teach? The order and distribution of a discourse: first, the exordium, then recital, proof, second proof, refutation, recapitulation at the close: advice how to introduce maxims or similes: receipts for moving the anger or compassion of the dikasts. Such teaching doubtless enables a speaker to produce considerable effect upon popular assemblies:[71] but it is not the art of rhetoric. It is an assemblage of preliminary accomplishments, necessary before a man can acquire the art: but it is not the art itself. You must know when, how far, in what cases, and towards what persons, to employ these accomplishments:[72] otherwise you have not learnt the art of rhetoric. You may just as well consider yourself a physician because you know how to bring about vomit and purging--or a musician, because you know how to wind up or unwind the chords of your lyre. These teachers mistake the preliminaries or antecedents of the art, for the art itself. It is in the right, measured, seasonable, combination and application of these preliminaries, in different doses adapted to each special matter and audience--that the art of rhetoric consists. And this is precisely the thing which the teacher does not teach, but supposes the learner to acquire for himself.[73] [Footnote 71: Plato, Phædrus, pp. 267-268.] [Footnote 72: Plato, Phædrus, p. 268 B. [Greek: e)re/sthai ei) prosepi/statai kai\ ou(sti/nas dei= kai\ o(po/te e(/kasta tou/tôn poiei=n, kai\ me/chri o(po/sou?]] [Footnote 73: Plato, Phædrus, p. 269.] [Side-note: What the Art of Rhetoric ought to be--Analogy of Hippokrates and the medical Art.]