[Footnote 83: Plato, Phædrus, p. 278 C. [Greek: ei) me\n ei)dô\s ê(=| ta)lêthe\s e)/chei sune/thêke tau=ta (ta\ suggra/mmata) kai\ e)/chôn boêthei=n, ei)s e)/legchon i)ô\n peri\ ô(=n e)/grapse, kai\ le/gôn au)to\s dunato\s ta\ gegramme/na phau=la a)podei=xai], &c.] [Footnote 84: Plato, Phædrus, p. 276 A.] [Footnote 85: Plato, Phædrus, pp. 276-277.] This blending of philosophy with rhetoric, which pervades the criticisms on Lysias in the Phædrus, is farther illustrated by the praise bestowed upon Isokrates in contrast with Lysias. Isokrates occupied that which Plato in Euthydêmus calls "the border country between philosophy and politics". Many critics declare (and I think with probable reason[86]) that Isokrates is the person intended (without being named) in the passage just cited from the Euthydêmus. In the Phædrus, Isokrates is described as the intimate friend of Sokrates, still young; and is pronounced already superior in every way to Lysias--likely to become superior in future to all the rhetors that have ever flourished--and destined probably to arrive even at the divine mysteries of philosophy.[87] [Footnote 86: See above, vol. ii. ch. xxi. p. 227.] [Footnote 87: Plato, Phædrus, p. 279 A.] When we consider that the Phædrus was pretty sure to bring upon Plato a good deal of enmity--since it attacked, by name, both Lysias, a resident at Athens of great influence and ability, and several other contemporary rhetors more or less celebrated--we can understand how Plato became disposed to lighten this amount of enmity by a compliment paid to Isokrates. This latter rhetor, a few years older than Plato, was the son of opulent parents at Athens, and received a good education; but when his family became impoverished by the disasters at the close of the Peloponnesian war, he established himself as a teacher of rhetoric at Chios: after some time, however, he returned to Athens, and followed the same profession there. He engaged himself also, like Lysias, in composing discourses for pleaders before the dikastery[88] and for speakers in the assembly; by which practice he acquired both fortune and reputation. Later in life, he relinquished these harangues destined for real persons on real occasions, and confined himself to the composition of discourses (intended, not for contentious debate, but for the pleasure and instruction of hearers) on general questions--social, political, and philosophical: at the same time receiving numerous pupils from different cities of Greece. Through such change, he came into a sort of middle position between the rhetoric of Lysias and the dialectic of Plato: insomuch that the latter, at the time when he composed the Phædrus, had satisfaction in contrasting him favourably with Lysias, and in prophesying that he would make yet greater progress towards philosophy. But at the time when Plato composed the Euthydêmus, his feeling was different.[89] In the Phædrus, Isokrates is compared with Lysias and other rhetors, and