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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: century before Christ. As in the opening of the Dialogue he ridicules the
interpreters of mythology; as in the Protagoras he mocks at the Sophists;
as in the Euthydemus he makes fun of the word-splitting Eristics; as in the
Cratylus he ridicules the fancies of Etymologers; as in the Meno and
Gorgias and some other dialogues he makes reflections and casts sly
imputation upon the higher classes at Athens; so in the Phaedrus, chiefly
in the latter part, he aims his shafts at the rhetoricians. The profession
of rhetoric was the greatest and most popular in Athens, necessary 'to a
man's salvation,' or at any rate to his attainment of wealth or power; but
Plato finds nothing wholesome or genuine in the purpose of it. It is a
veritable 'sham,' having no relation to fact, or to truth of any kind. It
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