“I know that what is read has less power of persuasion than what is heard. It is universally believed that a speech, if actually delivered, deals with serious and important subjects; but if only written and never spoken, it is supposed to aim merely at effect and the fulfilment of a contract. This opinion is quite reasonable. For the written speech is deprived of the prestige of the author’s presence and of his voice and of the proper rhetorical delivery: it is read when the occasion which called it forth is past, and the points which it discusses are consequently less interesting. The slave who reads it aloud puts no character into it, but drones it out as though he were reckoning up the items of a bill.” Such is Isokrates’ view, somewhat freely translated, of “the written word,” which his shyness compelled him to use instead of the spoken, and he beseeches Philip of Macedon, whom he is addressing, to put aside the usual prejudice against writings.
Plato regarded the written word with even greater contempt. To him it is the cause of forgetfulness; those who employ writing learn to rely on their notes, not on their memory, and are accustomed to register their impressions on tables of wax, not of the mind.[593] Again, it is impossible for an author to control the circulation of his works; they may reach those for whom they are not intended.[594] For Plato expects speaker and writer alike to express only what is suitable to their audience; the teacher must, by a study of psychology, know what arguments will do good and what will do harm to each particular pupil. But a book cannot impart knowledge, in the Platonic sense of the word, at all; for it is unable to answer questions or to explain its author’s meaning when the reader fails to follow.[595] Comprehension of a fact or of a statement made on a writer’s authority, without comprehension of the meaning and the explanation, is not knowledge.[596] Consequently, not even a lecture[597] or a sermon, far less a book whose author is absent or dead, can impart knowledge; to gain this, long study and a severe course of dialectic are essential. The possessor of true knowledge must be able to defend his view against any opposing arguments and to support it by discussion himself:[598] neither book nor lecture can give this intimate acquaintance with every point of view. Moreover, teaching is like agriculture. There are different soils and different minds. The seed of knowledge will bear different fruit in different soils, and there are types of minds in which some particular seeds must not be sown at all. Thus the same teacher will produce quite different philosophical results in different minds: just as Sokrates did with his various pupils. It is the development of the individual intellect and aptitudes of each pupil, not the inculcation of his own theories, that is the teacher’s true object.[599] Consequently, even a consistent scheme of dogmas is wrong for educational purposes; for it may suit the intellect of the teacher himself, but it cannot suit all his pupils.
Hence, in order to be consistent with his own educational ideals, Plato makes his works inconsistent: they are not a body of rigid dogmas. Also, he provides in them just that discussion which he notes as lacking in most books; it is possible to ask his books a certain number of questions, for he anticipates and answers them himself in the dialogue. In this way he makes his words pass through the alembic[600] of each pupil’s brain, and come out according to the type of mind through which they have passed. There is no enforcement of authority in true Platonism.
Plato refused to publish any philosophy in his own name. By speaking through the mouth of others, he could vary his attitudes just as he wished. The written word, he declares, must necessarily contain much trifling. Its composition is a good amusement for leisure hours.[601] Its one use is that it serves to remind the writer of what he knows already, when the forgetfulness of old age comes upon him. But the writer is quite worthless if he possesses nothing better in his mind than what he has written on paper,[602] “twisting words up and down, glueing them together and pulling them apart.”[603]
Books, however, were already serious rivals to personal intercourse, as a means of education. The libraries founded by Peisistratos at Athens and by Polukrates at Samos were, it is true, almost certainly fabulous; for Euripides was satirised for possessing a collection of books, so it must have been a novelty in his time. Books were probably very rare before the Periclean age, but then they multiplied with great rapidity. The children used them in the schools. Schoolmasters were expected to possess them: Alkibiades beat one for not having a copy of Homer. The comic poet Alexis makes Herakles’ master, Linos, possess copies of Orpheus, Hesiod, the tragedians, Choirilos, Homer, Epicharmos, and all sorts of prose works, including a cookery-book. A cargo of books was wrecked at Salmudessos,[604] a fact which points to a large book-trade in Hellenic waters. Euthudemos, the companion of Sokrates, possessed a fine collection of the best-known poets and Sophists, including the works of Homer.[605] Sokrates suggests that he may be collecting his books in order to learn Medicine, on which subject there were many treatises, or Architecture or Geometry or Astronomy. This shows how handbooks dealing with all manner of subjects were multiplying.
Xenophon’s treatise on The Horse had been preceded by a similar work by Simon;[606] he himself also wrote on Hunting, on The Duties of a Cavalry Officer, on The Management of a Farm, and The Constitution of Sparta, besides his more definitely historical and philosophical works. His Education of Kuros conceals a treatise on the duties of a general. The subjects are significant of the new movement; for earlier Hellenes had supposed that Homer and Hesiod taught the whole art of agriculture and generalship. Other agricultural treatises, containing much theory but very little practical knowledge, were also in circulation.[607] Later in the fourth century Aineias the Tactician contributed a manual for generals. Medical treatises emanated in great numbers from the school of Hippokrates, and probably from elsewhere. Chares and Apollodoros published works on Husbandry,[608] Mithaikos a Sicilian Cookery-Book,[609] Metrodoros a book of Homeric allegories. Books of travels and geography are also mentioned by Aristotle.[610] Handbooks on “Rhetoric” were first compiled by Korax and Tisias: they dealt with the subject of “arguments from probability.” Show pieces were written by Antiphon and Gorgias. A treatise by Polos upon the systematic arrangement of a speech was read by Sokrates. Thrasumachos published a work upon Appeals to Compassion.
The prices were probably not high, for the labour of copying could be cheaply performed by means of slaves. Sokrates, in the Platonic Apology,[611] mentions that a copy of Anaxagoras could sometimes be picked up for a drachma; and there is no reason to suppose that Anaxagoras was particularly cheap. If this was an average price, books must have been within the reach of most Athenians.
[529] Isokrates clearly felt them to be his educational rivals. See Antid. 310 A, and the end of the Paneg.
[530] There is a sketch of them in Isok. Panath. 236 C; to a lecture on Homer three or four of them had appended an attack upon Isokrates.
[531] Isok. Antid. 99.