No small task
SocratesWhen he can say which souls are persuaded by which speeches, and when he can recognise a person before him and say for himself, “Here is the very kind of soul we discussed before. Now it stands before me and needs to be addressed in this way, with these words, to persuade it of this,” then, once he knows all that and can judge when to speak and when to hold back, when a short speech, an appeal to pity, a heightening of alarm or any other kind of speech he has learned is timely or untimely, the art will be finely and fully accomplished. Not before. If anyone omits any of this when speaking, teaching or writing, but claims to speak by an art, the person who refuses to believe him is right. “Well then,” the author of a manual may say, “Phaedrus and Socrates, is that your view? Must the art of speech be understood this way and no other?”
PhaedrusI do not see how it could be otherwise, Socrates, though it seems no small undertaking.