[Side-note: No fair comparison can be taken between this exercise of Lysias and the discourses delivered by Sokrates in the Phædrus.] The first discourse assigned by Plato to Sokrates professes to be placed in competition with the discourse of Lysias, and to aim at the same object. But in reality it aims at a different object: it gives the dissuasive arguments, but omits the persuasive--as Phædrus is made to point out: so that it cannot be fairly compared with the discourse of Lysias. Still more may this be said respecting the second discourse of Sokrates: which is of a character and purpose so totally disparate, that no fair comparison can be taken between it and the ostensible competitor. The mixture of philosophy, mysticism, and dithyrambic poetry, which the second discourse of Sokrates presents, was considered by a rhetorical judge like Dionysius as altogether inconsistent with the scope and purpose of reasonable discourse.[122] In the Menexenus, Plato has brought himself again into competition with Lysias, and there the competition is fairer:[123] for Plato has there entirely neglected the exigencies enforced in the Phædrus, and has composed a funeral discourse upon the received type; which Lysias and other orators before him had followed, from Perikles downward. But in the Phædrus, Plato criticises Lysias upon principles which are a medley between philosophy and rhetoric. Lysias, in defending himself, might have taken the same ground as we find Sokrates himself taking in the Euthydêmus. "Philosophy and politics are two distinct walks, requiring different aptitudes, and having each its own practitioners. A man may take whichever he pleases; but he must not arrogate to himself superiority by an untoward attempt to join the two together."[124] [Footnote 122: See the Epistol. of Dion. Halikarn. to Cneius Pompey--De Platone--pp. 755-765.] [Footnote 123: Plato, Menexen. p. 237 seq. Stallbaum, Comm. in Menexenum, pp. 10-11.] [Footnote 124: Plato, Euthydêm. p. 306 A-C.] [Side-note: Continuous discourse, either written or spoken, inefficacious as a means of instruction to the ignorant.]