267
Phaedrus. You mean making a summary of the points of the speech at the end of it, so as to remind the hearers of what has been said?
267
Socrates. These are the things I mean, these and anything else you can mention concerned with the art of rhetoric.
267
Phaedrus. There are only little things, not worth mentioning.
268
Socrates. Never mind the little things; let us bring these other things more under the light and see what force of art they have and when.
268
Phaedrus. They have a very powerful force, at least in large assemblies.
268
Socrates. They have; but my friend, see if you agree with me in thinking that their warp has gaps in it.
268
Phaedrus. Go on and show them.
268
Socrates. Tell me; if anyone should go to your friend Eryximachus or to his father Acumenus and should say I know how to apply various drugs to people, so as to make them warm or, if I wish, cold, and I can make them vomit, if I like, or can make their bowels move, and all that sort of thing; and because of this knowledge I claim that I am a physician and can make any other man a physician, to whom I impart the knowledge of these things; what do you think they would say?
268
Phaedrus. They would ask him, of course, whether he knew also whom he ought to cause to do these things, and when, and how much.
268
Socrates. If then he should say: No, not at all; but I think that he who has learned these things from me will be able to do by himself the things you ask about?
268
Phaedrus. They would say, I fancy, that the man was crazy and, because he had read something in a book or had stumbled upon some medicines, imagined that he was a physician when he really had no knowledge of the art.