273: the inclusion of class distinction in rhetoric: “unless a man estimates the various

characters of his hearers and is able to divide all things into classes and to comprehend
them under single ideas, he will never be a skillful rhetorician even within the limits of
human power.” These single ideas are the ideas of pastoral.
274: writing is “for the memory and for the wit”, just as the aesthetic moment is in Hegel.
But this is the quality that letters cannot have, according to this creation-myth, note that it
is the exact same in Hegel’s aesthetics (see Paul de Man): “for this discovery of yours will
create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they
will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves.”
275: what is created is not memory, but something which will invent “reminiscence”,
nostalgia: something of an ideological texture. This is not truth, “but only the semblance of
truth”. The word does not stand up for itself: when it is interrogated about truths, like the
painting, it remains silent.
276: but could there not be “an intelligent word graven in the soul of the learner, which can
defend itself, and knows when to speak and when to be silent.”? This is the “soul” of truth,
of which the word is just “an image”. Words cannot themselves teach truth: they are
essentially empty. The banquet is superior to the practice of word-smithing. / the
dialectician is the truly skilled one for he can find “words which are able to help
themselves”.
277: the required condition for words to speek truth: their user must be able to divide them
into the indivisible and know their ever ymoment.
278: “spoken arguments”: this is how any writing must be defended. The person who
cannot do this can be called “poet or speech-maker or law-maker”: what’s surprising is the
inclusion of these last two.