Phaedrus — Plato

XXXVIU GENERAL INTRODUCTION apparatus ? Are all the informal ways by which statesmen from Moses to Lincoln have led the folk too informal and unscientific for little folk ? Is that surely the best way of " leading the child mind to take the necessary steps," by which you would not dare try to elicit the necessary steps, if you were applying for a position, — or a wife ?

Whatever the modern professor of didactics may think of these things, it is certain that the power of Socrates himself did not lie wholly in his gift for catechising. He did not cast a spell over the men of his generation— business men, soldiers, politicians, philosophers, and rakes — simply by subjecting them to logical inquisition. If Plato affirmed this of his master, those who know human nature would not believe it.

But Plato says nothing of the sort. Let us turn Jrom the hand-books on didactics to Plato for an account of th© real Socratic Art. In Phaedrus, 271-272, Plato says that the orator (and the orator in this case is essentially a teacher) should have three degrees of knowledge of the soul. 1. He should know the " true nature of the soul, how she acts or is acted upon.

If Plato's philosophy of teaching had stopped here, perhaps he would have supposed that his systematic questioning was the whole art of teaching. But he went farther. 2. The orator or teacher should know the several classes of men, and " why one sort of soul is persuaded by one argument, and another not. 3.

He is to become acquainted with men in actual life, and " be able to follow them with all his wits about him, or he will never get beyond the precepts of his masters. He must in this way at last be able,

GENERAL INTRODUCTION XXXIX when confronting an actual man, to say, " This is the man who needs this argument to be convinced of this thing/* " When he has attained the knowledge of all this and knows when he should speak, and when he should abstain from speaking, when he should make use of pithy sayings, pathetic appeals, aggravated effects and all the other figures of speech, when he knows the times and seasons of all these things, then, and not till then, is he perfect master of the art.'/ This wonderfully inclusive Psychology of Education, embracing at the one extreme the essential nature of the soul and at the other the infinitely varied peculiarities of individuals, was not with Plato a mere theory.

He practiced the theory even better than he preached it. As I have shown, in speaking of Plato as dramatist and as lover, there are many illustrations of this. Perhaps none of them is better than the Phaedrus, taken as a whole. Socrates finds Phaedrus full of a youth's enthusiasm for a piece of brilliant rhetoric about love. There is little true insight and no sincerity in the speech, and the prose is not really good.

How shall the youth be sobered from his perilous intoxication and given. taste for wine of better vintage ? How shall he be directed toward the acquisition of true artistic power and how shall he be led into knowledge and reverence for the best thing in the world, which is love. The dialogue as a whole tells how Socrates actually did this.

It takes the dialogue as a whole, its story, its arguments, its orations, and the criticisms upon them, its myths, and above all, its free and joyous conversation — it takes all to explain how Socrates went about to win a man.

xl GENERAL INTRODUCTION This is the true Socratic Art. It is determined by the philosophic insight that art must adapt itself not only to the common nature of man, but also to the varying natures, and even to the var3'ing moods of men. It is determined by dramatic insight into the actual ways of the souls addressed. It is determined by a passion as deep as it is tranquil to save the best of the youth into the higher life.

HOW SHALL ONE READ PLATO? When corn takes in stuff from the soil, the soil is changed into corn, but also the corn is changed by the soil. So when you read Plato, Plato is translated into your way of thinking, but also your way of thinking is influenced by Plato. It is possible for either of these effects to be over-emphasized to the neglect of the other.

The secret of right growth is to maintain the right balance between the old which one has and the new which is asking for admission. To find this balance is not easy, but many wise men say that the first thing to do with a new book, or anything else worth attention, is to surrender one's self to it as completely as possible.

I believe accordingly that I can give no better advice to one who meets Plato for the first time in this volume, than that you should let him talk to you. Imagine that you have wandered into the Athens of 400 B.C; and have come upon Socrates engaged in talk. Join the crowd. Keep still. Try to catch the drift. Do not pigeonhole Socrates the first day. Get acquainted with him as you do with a living man. You will find it useful without doubt to study