Schroeder's Quæstiones Isocrateæ (Utrecht, 1859), and Spengel's work, Isokrates und Plato, are instructive in regard to these two contemporary luminaries of the intellectual world at Athens. But, unfortunately, we can make out few ascertainable facts. When I read the Oration De Permut., Or. xv. (composed by Isokrates about fifteen years before his own death, and about five years before the death of Plato, near 353 B.C.), I am impressed with the belief that many of his complaints about unfriendly and bitter criticism refer to the Platonic School of that day, Aristotle being one of its members. See sections 48-90-276, and seq. He certainly means the Sokratic men, and Plato as the most celebrated of them, when he talks of [Greek: oi( peri\ ta\s e)rôtê/seis kai\ a)pokri/seis, ou(\s a)ntilogikou\s kalou=sin--oi( peri\ ta\s e)/ridas spouda/zontes]--those who are powerful in contentious dialectic, and at the same time cultivate geometry and astronomy, which others call [Greek: a)doleschi/a] and [Greek: mikrologi/a] (280)--those who exhorted hearers to virtue about which others knew nothing, and about which they themselves were in dispute. When he complains of the [Greek: perittolo/giai] of the ancient Sophists, Empedokles, Ion, Parmenides, Melissus, &c., we cannot but suppose that he had in his mind the Timæus of Plato also, though he avoids mention of the name.] [Footnote 93: Athenæus, iii. p. 122, ii. 60; Dionys. Hal. Epistol. ad Cn. Pomp. p. 757.] [Side-note: The Dialectician and Cross-Examiner is the only man who can really teach. If the writer can do this, he is more than a writer.] This is the true philosopher (continues Sokrates)--the man who alone is competent to teach truth about the just, good, and honourable.[94] He who merely writes, must not delude himself with the belief that upon these important topics his composition can impart any clear or lasting instruction. To mistake fancy for reality hereupon, is equally disgraceful, whether the mistake be made by few or by many persons. If indeed the writer can explain to others orally the matters written--if he can answer all questions, solve difficulties, and supply the deficiencies, of each several reader--in that case he is something far more and better than a writer, and ought to be called a philosopher. But if he can do no more than write, he is no philosopher: he is only a poet, or nomographer, or logographer.[95] [Footnote 94: Plato, Phædrus, p. 277 D-E.] [Footnote 95: Plato, Phædrus, pp. 278-279.] [Side-note: Lysias is only a logographer: Isokrates promises to become a philosopher.] In this latter class stands Lysias. I expect (concludes Sokrates) something better from Isokrates, who gives promise of aspiring one day to genuine philosophy.[96] [Footnote 96: Respecting the manner in which Plato speaks of Isokrates in the Phædrus, see what I have already observed upon the Euthydêmus, vol. ii. ch. xxi. pp. 227-229.] * * * * *