Now Plato, it is true, did not imitate the political part of the Pythagorean scheme. It was only upon paper that he set forth his ideal republic. But the same conception as to the manner of communicating a doctrine lay in his mind as in that of Pythagoras. He did not look to writing as a primary instrument of communicating thought. He places it himself in a relation of dependence upon oral dialectic instruction. It is only to serve as a reminder of what had been otherwise taught: and, moreover, it is quite subordinate to his first postulate, the earnestness of a life devoted to inquiry and education.(388) These principles are set forth with great lucidity in his dialogue Phædrus, where he introduces by the mouth of Socrates the Egyptian god Thoth, the inventor of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, drafts and dice, and also of letters. With these inventions in his hand the god approached the then king of Egypt Thamous, recommending him to make them known to his subjects. But Thamous was by no means inclined to receive these inventions unconditionally: he praises or blames them, as he judges of them, and at last he comes to the letters.(389) “This discovery,” says Thoth, “O king, will make the Egyptians wiser, and improve their memory. It is of sovereign effect in both things.” “Most ingenious Thoth,” replies the king, “one man is made to give birth to art, and another to judge what good or what harm it will do to those who use it. And now you, being the father of letters, out of natural affection assert of them that which is just the contrary to their real office. For they will breed forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn them, who will slight the faculty of memory, inasmuch as relying on what is written externally in the types of others they do not exercise remembrance by an inward act of their own. The spell you have found is good not for fixing in the mind, but for reminding. And as to wisdom, you offer to those who learn them not its reality but its appearance. For they will indeed hear much, but as this will be without teaching, they will seem to have many minds but generally no judgment, and be hard to comprehend, having become wiseacres instead of wise men. O Socrates, says Phædrus, you are one who can easily tell stories from Egypt or any other country. My dear Phædrus, it was in the temple of Dodonean Jupiter that they made the first oracular words to proceed from an oak. The men of that day, not being wise as you young men, were satisfied in their simplicity to listen to an oak or a rock, if they only spoke the truth. Perhaps it makes a difference to you who the speaker is, and from what country; for you do not look merely whether it is true or not. Your rebuke, says Phædrus, is just, and what the Theban says about letters seems to me to be right. Well then, says Socrates, the man who thinks to leave an art in writing, and he also who receives it as being, when written, something