270 Harry M. Huhhell, Ph.D., 



(y) "They deny that they possess the so-called sophistic 

 rhetoric, and say that it is not a separate kind of rhetoric. 

 However they do lay claim to the possession of experience in 

 practical affairs reduced to a system, and ability to discuss these 

 matters, and boast of it; a good example is Demosthenes." It 

 is a disgrace for them to be ashamed of their art. However as 

 sophistic offers no system for public speaking, how can it produce 

 public speakers? 



(8) "Therefore it is plain that some criticize the art as having 

 no characteristic which distinguishes it from other arts." In 

 the case of other arts, too, which are really or apparently harm- 

 ful, some criticize the teachers not for what they profess to know, 

 but for what they do not even desire to accomplish. 

 2^25, 32 ff. (-g-^ "Every artist professes to accomplish a result, the rhetor 



16 ff. ' ' does not profess to persuade." By no means all artists profess 



to accomplish the end of their art at all times. All who deal 



with conjectural arts, as, for example, physicians and pilots, 



sometimes fail in their purpose. The rhetor does profess to 



accomplish his purpose, which is not to persuade always, but to 



persuade better than one who has not been trained. 



I, 26, 17 ff. (^h) (Fragmentary and obscure.) "Every artist claims the 



,5"ff_ ' ' province of the art as his own peculiar field (i. e. as belonging 



to the trained man and him alone) ; but the earliest speakers 



possessed the power of rhetoric before the art of rhetoric was 



formulated." On this principle we have to reject the art of 



medicine because men healed before Asclepius. 



I, 27, 31 ff. (i) "A rhetor never charges others with lack of art, but with 



— ^"PP • ^5. being in a state of mind which prevents them from seeing the 



connection of events." Therefore we must say that rhetoric is 



not a matter of practice or experience.^ For they would have 



claimed the results of practice for themselves. 



I, 27, 6ff. = (j) "Men spoke better before manuals of rhetoric were written 



17 ff than they have since." The facts are granted, but inasmuch as 



rhetoric is not entirely subject to the rules of art, but demands 

 much practice and natural ability, it is not surprising if there 

 were once better rhetors than now, just as there were better 



^For laropiav Sandys in Class. Rev. IX (1895), p. 359, proposes to read 

 ifjLTTfiplav, as rpi^r) and ip.ireipla are coupled in the Gorgias to which Philo- 

 dcnius refers several times. 



i 



