The Rhctorica of PJiilodemus. 365 



troversy a technical character which it was not soon to lose. It 

 is to Plato that we owe the origin of this as of so many other 

 lines of thought. In attempting to set off for himself the field 

 of "philosophy" he is led in the process of defining the limits 

 of his field to exclude rhetoric. In doing- this he introduces a 

 new turn to the attack by denying that rhetoric is entitled to be 

 called a Ttxvrj- We may suppose that the sophists had referred 

 to their occupation as a Texvr], in the broad use of the word 

 which is nearly equivalent to the English "occupation." Cer- 

 tainly their written works on rhetoric were styled Te^vai or 

 "systematic instructions." The tacit assumption in all this is 

 that speaking proceeds by certain rules and can be reduced to 

 a system in the same manner that stone cutting or carpentry can. 

 Plato, therefore, goes to the heart of the matter by declaring in 

 the Gorgias and Phaedrus that rhetoric is not Texvr], but e/xTretpio, 

 or rpi^rj . He does not define "art" in the precise fashion of 

 his successors, but implies clearly enough that the prerequisites 

 for art are a knowledge of the nature of the "materials" — 

 whether animate or inanimate— treated by the art, and of prin- 

 ciples of action based on scientific acquaintance with cause and 

 effect^ ; to this he adds that an art always aims to produce a 

 beneficial result. Tested by all of these principles rhetoric is 

 found wanting. At the same time he grants the possibility of a 

 true rhetoric which aims to produce justice in the souls of the 

 people.^ In a sense Plato merely continues the old popular 

 prejudice against rhetoric as a pursuit detrimental to the best 

 interests of the community ; but by introducing the question 

 whether rhetoric deserves to be called an art, he opened the way 

 for a controversy which extends through several centuries. It 

 is a controversy in which some of the philosophical schools are 

 at times found on the side of rhetoric, but in the main, the divi- 

 sion between philosophers and rhetoricians, initiated by Plato, 

 remains throughout the life of the philosophical schools. In all 

 its ramifications it is an interesting and ofttimes puzzling chapter 

 in the history of human thought, on which much has been written ; 

 much more however waits on the discovery of a new papyrus, or 

 a new interpretation of an old fragment. It is my purpose in 



^ Gorgias 501A. 

 ^ Gorgias 504D. 



