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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Gorgias, by Plato
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Gorgias
+
+Author: Plato
+
+Translator: Benjamin Jowett
+
+Posting Date: October 5, 2008 [EBook #1672]
+Release Date: March, 1999
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GORGIAS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sue Asscher
+
+
+
+
+
+GORGIAS
+
+by Plato
+
+Translated by Benjamin Jowett
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+In several of the dialogues of Plato, doubts have arisen among his
+interpreters as to which of the various subjects discussed in them
+is the main thesis. The speakers have the freedom of conversation; no
+severe rules of art restrict them, and sometimes we are inclined to
+think, with one of the dramatis personae in the Theaetetus, that the
+digressions have the greater interest. Yet in the most irregular of the
+dialogues there is also a certain natural growth or unity; the beginning
+is not forgotten at the end, and numerous allusions and references are
+interspersed, which form the loose connecting links of the whole. We
+must not neglect this unity, but neither must we attempt to confine
+the Platonic dialogue on the Procrustean bed of a single idea. (Compare
+Introduction to the Phaedrus.)
+
+Two tendencies seem to have beset the interpreters of Plato in this
+matter. First, they have endeavoured to hang the dialogues upon one
+another by the slightest threads; and have thus been led to opposite and
+contradictory assertions respecting their order and sequence. The mantle
+of Schleiermacher has descended upon his successors, who have applied
+his method with the most various results. The value and use of the
+method has been hardly, if at all, examined either by him or them.
+Secondly, they have extended almost indefinitely the scope of each
+separate dialogue; in this way they think that they have escaped all
+difficulties, not seeing that what they have gained in generality they
+have lost in truth and distinctness. Metaphysical conceptions easily
+pass into one another; and the simpler notions of antiquity, which
+we can only realize by an effort, imperceptibly blend with the more
+familiar theories of modern philosophers. An eye for proportion is
+needed (his own art of measuring) in the study of Plato, as well as of
+other great artists. We may hardly admit that the moral antithesis
+of good and pleasure, or the intellectual antithesis of knowledge
+and opinion, being and appearance, are never far off in a Platonic
+discussion. But because they are in the background, we should not bring
+them into the foreground, or expect to discern them equally in all the
+dialogues.
+
+There may be some advantage in drawing out a little the main outlines
+of the building; but the use of this is limited, and may be easily
+exaggerated. We may give Plato too much system, and alter the natural
+form and connection of his thoughts. Under the idea that his dialogues
+are finished works of art, we may find a reason for everything, and lose
+the highest characteristic of art, which is simplicity. Most great works
+receive a new light from a new and original mind. But whether these new
+lights are true or only suggestive, will depend on their agreement with
+the spirit of Plato, and the amount of direct evidence which can
+be urged in support of them. When a theory is running away with
+us, criticism does a friendly office in counselling moderation, and
+recalling us to the indications of the text.
+
+Like the Phaedrus, the Gorgias has puzzled students of Plato by the
+appearance of two or more subjects. Under the cover of rhetoric higher
+themes are introduced; the argument expands into a general view of the
+good and evil of man. After making an ineffectual attempt to obtain a
+sound definition of his art from Gorgias, Socrates assumes the
+existence of a universal art of flattery or simulation having several
+branches:--this is the genus of which rhetoric is only one, and not the
+highest species. To flattery is opposed the true and noble art of life
+which he who possesses seeks always to impart to others, and which at
+last triumphs, if not here, at any rate in another world. These two
+aspects of life and knowledge appear to be the two leading ideas of
+the dialogue. The true and the false in individuals and states, in the
+treatment of the soul as well as of the body, are conceived under the
+forms of true and false art. In the development of this opposition
+there arise various other questions, such as the two famous paradoxes of
+Socrates (paradoxes as they are to the world in general, ideals as they
+may be more worthily called): (1) that to do is worse than to suffer
+evil; and (2) that when a man has done evil he had better be punished
+than unpunished; to which may be added (3) a third Socratic paradox or
+ideal, that bad men do what they think best, but not what they desire,
+for the desire of all is towards the good. That pleasure is to be
+distinguished from good is proved by the simultaneousness of pleasure
+and pain, and by the possibility of the bad having in certain cases
+pleasures as great as those of the good, or even greater. Not merely
+rhetoricians, but poets, musicians, and other artists, the whole tribe
+of statesmen, past as well as present, are included in the class of
+flatterers. The true and false finally appear before the judgment-seat
+of the gods below.
+
+The dialogue naturally falls into three divisions, to which the three
+characters of Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles respectively correspond; and
+the form and manner change with the stages of the argument. Socrates is
+deferential towards Gorgias, playful and yet cutting in dealing with the
+youthful Polus, ironical and sarcastic in his encounter with Callicles.
+In the first division the question is asked--What is rhetoric? To this
+there is no answer given, for Gorgias is soon made to contradict
+himself by Socrates, and the argument is transferred to the hands of his
+disciple Polus, who rushes to the defence of his master. The answer has
+at last to be given by Socrates himself, but before he can even explain
+his meaning to Polus, he must enlighten him upon the great subject of
+shams or flatteries. When Polus finds his favourite art reduced to
+the level of cookery, he replies that at any rate rhetoricians, like
+despots, have great power. Socrates denies that they have any real
+power, and hence arise the three paradoxes already mentioned. Although
+they are strange to him, Polus is at last convinced of their truth; at
+least, they seem to him to follow legitimately from the premises. Thus
+the second act of the dialogue closes. Then Callicles appears on the
+scene, at first maintaining that pleasure is good, and that might is
+right, and that law is nothing but the combination of the many weak
+against the few strong. When he is confuted he withdraws from the
+argument, and leaves Socrates to arrive at the conclusion by himself.
+The conclusion is that there are two kinds of statesmanship, a higher
+and a lower--that which makes the people better, and that which only
+flatters them, and he exhorts Callicles to choose the higher. The
+dialogue terminates with a mythus of a final judgment, in which there
+will be no more flattery or disguise, and no further use for the
+teaching of rhetoric.
+
+The characters of the three interlocutors also correspond to the parts
+which are assigned to them. Gorgias is the great rhetorician, now
+advanced in years, who goes from city to city displaying his talents,
+and is celebrated throughout Greece. Like all the Sophists in the
+dialogues of Plato, he is vain and boastful, yet he has also a certain
+dignity, and is treated by Socrates with considerable respect. But he is
+no match for him in dialectics. Although he has been teaching rhetoric
+all his life, he is still incapable of defining his own art. When his
+ideas begin to clear up, he is unwilling to admit that rhetoric can
+be wholly separated from justice and injustice, and this lingering
+sentiment of morality, or regard for public opinion, enables Socrates to
+detect him in a contradiction. Like Protagoras, he is described as of
+a generous nature; he expresses his approbation of Socrates' manner of
+approaching a question; he is quite 'one of Socrates' sort, ready to
+be refuted as well as to refute,' and very eager that Callicles and
+Socrates should have the game out. He knows by experience that rhetoric
+exercises great influence over other men, but he is unable to explain
+the puzzle how rhetoric can teach everything and know nothing.
+
+Polus is an impetuous youth, a runaway 'colt,' as Socrates describes
+him, who wanted originally to have taken the place of Gorgias under
+the pretext that the old man was tired, and now avails himself of the
+earliest opportunity to enter the lists. He is said to be the author
+of a work on rhetoric, and is again mentioned in the Phaedrus, as the
+inventor of balanced or double forms of speech (compare Gorg.; Symp.).
+At first he is violent and ill-mannered, and is angry at seeing his
+master overthrown. But in the judicious hands of Socrates he is soon
+restored to good-humour, and compelled to assent to the required
+conclusion. Like Gorgias, he is overthrown because he compromises; he is
+unwilling to say that to do is fairer or more honourable than to suffer
+injustice. Though he is fascinated by the power of rhetoric, and dazzled
+by the splendour of success, he is not insensible to higher arguments.
+Plato may have felt that there would be an incongruity in a youth
+maintaining the cause of injustice against the world. He has never heard
+the other side of the question, and he listens to the paradoxes, as
+they appear to him, of Socrates with evident astonishment. He can hardly
+understand the meaning of Archelaus being miserable, or of rhetoric
+being only useful in self-accusation. When the argument with him has
+fairly run out.
+
+Callicles, in whose house they are assembled, is introduced on the
+stage: he is with difficulty convinced that Socrates is in earnest;
+for if these things are true, then, as he says with real emotion, the
+foundations of society are upside down. In him another type of character
+is represented; he is neither sophist nor philosopher, but man of the
+world, and an accomplished Athenian gentleman. He might be described in
+modern language as a cynic or materialist, a lover of power and also of
+pleasure, and unscrupulous in his means of attaining both. There is no
+desire on his part to offer any compromise in the interests of morality;
+nor is any concession made by him. Like Thrasymachus in the Republic,
+though he is not of the same weak and vulgar class, he consistently
+maintains that might is right. His great motive of action is political
+ambition; in this he is characteristically Greek. Like Anytus in the
+Meno, he is the enemy of the Sophists; but favours the new art of
+rhetoric, which he regards as an excellent weapon of attack and defence.
+He is a despiser of mankind as he is of philosophy, and sees in the laws
+of the state only a violation of the order of nature, which intended
+that the stronger should govern the weaker (compare Republic). Like
+other men of the world who are of a speculative turn of mind, he
+generalizes the bad side of human nature, and has easily brought down
+his principles to his practice. Philosophy and poetry alike supply him
+with distinctions suited to his view of human life. He has a good will
+to Socrates, whose talents he evidently admires, while he censures the
+puerile use which he makes of them. He expresses a keen intellectual
+interest in the argument. Like Anytus, again, he has a sympathy with
+other men of the world; the Athenian statesmen of a former generation,
+who showed no weakness and made no mistakes, such as Miltiades,
+Themistocles, Pericles, are his favourites. His ideal of human character
+is a man of great passions and great powers, which he has developed to
+the utmost, and which he uses in his own enjoyment and in the government
+of others. Had Critias been the name instead of Callicles, about whom
+we know nothing from other sources, the opinions of the man would have
+seemed to reflect the history of his life.
+
+And now the combat deepens. In Callicles, far more than in any sophist
+or rhetorician, is concentrated the spirit of evil against which
+Socrates is contending, the spirit of the world, the spirit of the
+many contending against the one wise man, of which the Sophists, as
+he describes them in the Republic, are the imitators rather than the
+authors, being themselves carried away by the great tide of public
+opinion. Socrates approaches his antagonist warily from a distance, with
+a sort of irony which touches with a light hand both his personal vices
+(probably in allusion to some scandal of the day) and his servility
+to the populace. At the same time, he is in most profound earnest, as
+Chaerephon remarks. Callicles soon loses his temper, but the more he is
+irritated, the more provoking and matter of fact does Socrates become.
+A repartee of his which appears to have been really made to the
+'omniscient' Hippias, according to the testimony of Xenophon (Mem.), is
+introduced. He is called by Callicles a popular declaimer, and certainly
+shows that he has the power, in the words of Gorgias, of being 'as long
+as he pleases,' or 'as short as he pleases' (compare Protag.). Callicles
+exhibits great ability in defending himself and attacking Socrates, whom
+he accuses of trifling and word-splitting; he is scandalized that the
+legitimate consequences of his own argument should be stated in plain
+terms; after the manner of men of the world, he wishes to preserve the
+decencies of life. But he cannot consistently maintain the bad sense
+of words; and getting confused between the abstract notions of better,
+superior, stronger, he is easily turned round by Socrates, and only
+induced to continue the argument by the authority of Gorgias. Once, when
+Socrates is describing the manner in which the ambitious citizen has to
+identify himself with the people, he partially recognizes the truth of
+his words.
+
+The Socrates of the Gorgias may be compared with the Socrates of the
+Protagoras and Meno. As in other dialogues, he is the enemy of the
+Sophists and rhetoricians; and also of the statesmen, whom he regards as
+another variety of the same species. His behaviour is governed by that
+of his opponents; the least forwardness or egotism on their part is met
+by a corresponding irony on the part of Socrates. He must speak, for
+philosophy will not allow him to be silent. He is indeed more ironical
+and provoking than in any other of Plato's writings: for he is 'fooled
+to the top of his bent' by the worldliness of Callicles. But he is also
+more deeply in earnest. He rises higher than even in the Phaedo and
+Crito: at first enveloping his moral convictions in a cloud of dust and
+dialectics, he ends by losing his method, his life, himself, in them.
+As in the Protagoras and Phaedrus, throwing aside the veil of irony, he
+makes a speech, but, true to his character, not until his adversary has
+refused to answer any more questions. The presentiment of his own fate
+is hanging over him. He is aware that Socrates, the single real teacher
+of politics, as he ventures to call himself, cannot safely go to
+war with the whole world, and that in the courts of earth he will
+be condemned. But he will be justified in the world below. Then the
+position of Socrates and Callicles will be reversed; all those things
+'unfit for ears polite' which Callicles has prophesied as likely to
+happen to him in this life, the insulting language, the box on the
+ears, will recoil upon his assailant. (Compare Republic, and the similar
+reversal of the position of the lawyer and the philosopher in the
+Theaetetus).
+
+There is an interesting allusion to his own behaviour at the trial
+of the generals after the battle of Arginusae, which he ironically
+attributes to his ignorance of the manner in which a vote of the
+assembly should be taken. This is said to have happened 'last year'
+(B.C. 406), and therefore the assumed date of the dialogue has been
+fixed at 405 B.C., when Socrates would already have been an old man.
+The date is clearly marked, but is scarcely reconcilable with another
+indication of time, viz. the 'recent' usurpation of Archelaus, which
+occurred in the year 413; and still less with the 'recent' death of
+Pericles, who really died twenty-four years previously (429 B.C.) and
+is afterwards reckoned among the statesmen of a past age; or with the
+mention of Nicias, who died in 413, and is nevertheless spoken of as
+a living witness. But we shall hereafter have reason to observe, that
+although there is a general consistency of times and persons in the
+Dialogues of Plato, a precise dramatic date is an invention of his
+commentators (Preface to Republic).
+
+The conclusion of the Dialogue is remarkable, (1) for the truly
+characteristic declaration of Socrates that he is ignorant of the true
+nature and bearing of these things, while he affirms at the same time
+that no one can maintain any other view without being ridiculous. The
+profession of ignorance reminds us of the earlier and more exclusively
+Socratic Dialogues. But neither in them, nor in the Apology, nor in
+the Memorabilia of Xenophon, does Socrates express any doubt of the
+fundamental truths of morality. He evidently regards this 'among the
+multitude of questions' which agitate human life 'as the principle which
+alone remains unshaken.' He does not insist here, any more than in the
+Phaedo, on the literal truth of the myth, but only on the soundness of
+the doctrine which is contained in it, that doing wrong is worse than
+suffering, and that a man should be rather than seem; for the next best
+thing to a man's being just is that he should be corrected and become
+just; also that he should avoid all flattery, whether of himself or of
+others; and that rhetoric should be employed for the maintenance of the
+right only. The revelation of another life is a recapitulation of the
+argument in a figure.
+
+(2) Socrates makes the singular remark, that he is himself the only true
+politician of his age. In other passages, especially in the Apology, he
+disclaims being a politician at all. There he is convinced that he or
+any other good man who attempted to resist the popular will would be
+put to death before he had done any good to himself or others. Here he
+anticipates such a fate for himself, from the fact that he is 'the only
+man of the present day who performs his public duties at all.' The two
+points of view are not really inconsistent, but the difference between
+them is worth noticing: Socrates is and is not a public man. Not in the
+ordinary sense, like Alcibiades or Pericles, but in a higher one; and
+this will sooner or later entail the same consequences on him. He
+cannot be a private man if he would; neither can he separate morals from
+politics. Nor is he unwilling to be a politician, although he foresees
+the dangers which await him; but he must first become a better and
+wiser man, for he as well as Callicles is in a state of perplexity and
+uncertainty. And yet there is an inconsistency: for should not Socrates
+too have taught the citizens better than to put him to death?
+
+And now, as he himself says, we will 'resume the argument from the
+beginning.'
+
+Socrates, who is attended by his inseparable disciple, Chaerephon, meets
+Callicles in the streets of Athens. He is informed that he has just
+missed an exhibition of Gorgias, which he regrets, because he
+was desirous, not of hearing Gorgias display his rhetoric, but of
+interrogating him concerning the nature of his art. Callicles proposes
+that they shall go with him to his own house, where Gorgias is staying.
+There they find the great rhetorician and his younger friend and
+disciple Polus.
+
+SOCRATES: Put the question to him, Chaerephon.
+
+CHAEREPHON: What question?
+
+SOCRATES: Who is he?--such a question as would elicit from a man the
+answer, 'I am a cobbler.'
+
+Polus suggests that Gorgias may be tired, and desires to answer for him.
+'Who is Gorgias?' asks Chaerephon, imitating the manner of his master
+Socrates. 'One of the best of men, and a proficient in the best and
+noblest of experimental arts,' etc., replies Polus, in rhetorical
+and balanced phrases. Socrates is dissatisfied at the length and
+unmeaningness of the answer; he tells the disconcerted volunteer that
+he has mistaken the quality for the nature of the art, and remarks to
+Gorgias, that Polus has learnt how to make a speech, but not how to
+answer a question. He wishes that Gorgias would answer him. Gorgias is
+willing enough, and replies to the question asked by Chaerephon,--that
+he is a rhetorician, and in Homeric language, 'boasts himself to be a
+good one.' At the request of Socrates he promises to be brief; for 'he
+can be as long as he pleases, and as short as he pleases.' Socrates
+would have him bestow his length on others, and proceeds to ask him
+a number of questions, which are answered by him to his own great
+satisfaction, and with a brevity which excites the admiration of
+Socrates. The result of the discussion may be summed up as follows:--
+
+Rhetoric treats of discourse; but music and medicine, and other
+particular arts, are also concerned with discourse; in what way then
+does rhetoric differ from them? Gorgias draws a distinction between the
+arts which deal with words, and the arts which have to do with external
+actions. Socrates extends this distinction further, and divides all
+productive arts into two classes: (1) arts which may be carried on in
+silence; and (2) arts which have to do with words, or in which words
+are coextensive with action, such as arithmetic, geometry, rhetoric.
+But still Gorgias could hardly have meant to say that arithmetic was the
+same as rhetoric. Even in the arts which are concerned with words there
+are differences. What then distinguishes rhetoric from the other arts
+which have to do with words? 'The words which rhetoric uses relate to
+the best and greatest of human things.' But tell me, Gorgias, what are
+the best? 'Health first, beauty next, wealth third,' in the words of
+the old song, or how would you rank them? The arts will come to you in a
+body, each claiming precedence and saying that her own good is superior
+to that of the rest--How will you choose between them? 'I should say,
+Socrates, that the art of persuasion, which gives freedom to all men,
+and to individuals power in the state, is the greatest good.' But what
+is the exact nature of this persuasion?--is the persevering retort: You
+could not describe Zeuxis as a painter, or even as a painter of figures,
+if there were other painters of figures; neither can you define rhetoric
+simply as an art of persuasion, because there are other arts which
+persuade, such as arithmetic, which is an art of persuasion about odd
+and even numbers. Gorgias is made to see the necessity of a further
+limitation, and he now defines rhetoric as the art of persuading in the
+law courts, and in the assembly, about the just and unjust. But still
+there are two sorts of persuasion: one which gives knowledge, and
+another which gives belief without knowledge; and knowledge is always
+true, but belief may be either true or false,--there is therefore a
+further question: which of the two sorts of persuasion does rhetoric
+effect in courts of law and assemblies? Plainly that which gives
+belief and not that which gives knowledge; for no one can impart a real
+knowledge of such matters to a crowd of persons in a few minutes. And
+there is another point to be considered:--when the assembly meets to
+advise about walls or docks or military expeditions, the rhetorician
+is not taken into counsel, but the architect, or the general. How would
+Gorgias explain this phenomenon? All who intend to become disciples,
+of whom there are several in the company, and not Socrates only, are
+eagerly asking:--About what then will rhetoric teach us to persuade or
+advise the state?
+
+Gorgias illustrates the nature of rhetoric by adducing the example
+of Themistocles, who persuaded the Athenians to build their docks and
+walls, and of Pericles, whom Socrates himself has heard speaking about
+the middle wall of the Piraeus. He adds that he has exercised a similar
+power over the patients of his brother Herodicus. He could be chosen a
+physician by the assembly if he pleased, for no physician could compete
+with a rhetorician in popularity and influence. He could persuade
+the multitude of anything by the power of his rhetoric; not that the
+rhetorician ought to abuse this power any more than a boxer should abuse
+the art of self-defence. Rhetoric is a good thing, but, like all good
+things, may be unlawfully used. Neither is the teacher of the art to be
+deemed unjust because his pupils are unjust and make a bad use of the
+lessons which they have learned from him.
+
+Socrates would like to know before he replies, whether Gorgias will
+quarrel with him if he points out a slight inconsistency into which he
+has fallen, or whether he, like himself, is one who loves to be refuted.
+Gorgias declares that he is quite one of his sort, but fears that
+the argument may be tedious to the company. The company cheer, and
+Chaerephon and Callicles exhort them to proceed. Socrates gently points
+out the supposed inconsistency into which Gorgias appears to
+have fallen, and which he is inclined to think may arise out of a
+misapprehension of his own. The rhetorician has been declared by Gorgias
+to be more persuasive to the ignorant than the physician, or any other
+expert. And he is said to be ignorant, and this ignorance of his is
+regarded by Gorgias as a happy condition, for he has escaped the trouble
+of learning. But is he as ignorant of just and unjust as he is of
+medicine or building? Gorgias is compelled to admit that if he did not
+know them previously he must learn them from his teacher as a part of
+the art of rhetoric. But he who has learned carpentry is a carpenter,
+and he who has learned music is a musician, and he who has learned
+justice is just. The rhetorician then must be a just man, and rhetoric
+is a just thing. But Gorgias has already admitted the opposite of this,
+viz. that rhetoric may be abused, and that the rhetorician may act
+unjustly. How is the inconsistency to be explained?
+
+The fallacy of this argument is twofold; for in the first place, a man
+may know justice and not be just--here is the old confusion of the arts
+and the virtues;--nor can any teacher be expected to counteract wholly
+the bent of natural character; and secondly, a man may have a degree of
+justice, but not sufficient to prevent him from ever doing wrong. Polus
+is naturally exasperated at the sophism, which he is unable to detect;
+of course, he says, the rhetorician, like every one else, will admit
+that he knows justice (how can he do otherwise when pressed by the
+interrogations of Socrates?), but he thinks that great want of manners
+is shown in bringing the argument to such a pass. Socrates ironically
+replies, that when old men trip, the young set them on their legs again;
+and he is quite willing to retract, if he can be shown to be in error,
+but upon one condition, which is that Polus studies brevity. Polus is
+in great indignation at not being allowed to use as many words as he
+pleases in the free state of Athens. Socrates retorts, that yet harder
+will be his own case, if he is compelled to stay and listen to them.
+After some altercation they agree (compare Protag.), that Polus shall
+ask and Socrates answer.
+
+'What is the art of Rhetoric?' says Polus. Not an art at all, replies
+Socrates, but a thing which in your book you affirm to have created art.
+Polus asks, 'What thing?' and Socrates answers, An experience or routine
+of making a sort of delight or gratification. 'But is not rhetoric a
+fine thing?' I have not yet told you what rhetoric is. Will you ask me
+another question--What is cookery? 'What is cookery?' An experience or
+routine of making a sort of delight or gratification. Then they are the
+same, or rather fall under the same class, and rhetoric has still to be
+distinguished from cookery. 'What is rhetoric?' asks Polus once more.
+A part of a not very creditable whole, which may be termed flattery,
+is the reply. 'But what part?' A shadow of a part of politics. This, as
+might be expected, is wholly unintelligible, both to Gorgias and
+Polus; and, in order to explain his meaning to them, Socrates draws a
+distinction between shadows or appearances and realities; e.g. there is
+real health of body or soul, and the appearance of them; real arts and
+sciences, and the simulations of them. Now the soul and body have two
+arts waiting upon them, first the art of politics, which attends on the
+soul, having a legislative part and a judicial part; and another art
+attending on the body, which has no generic name, but may also be
+described as having two divisions, one of which is medicine and the
+other gymnastic. Corresponding with these four arts or sciences there
+are four shams or simulations of them, mere experiences, as they may be
+termed, because they give no reason of their own existence. The art of
+dressing up is the sham or simulation of gymnastic, the art of cookery,
+of medicine; rhetoric is the simulation of justice, and sophistic of
+legislation. They may be summed up in an arithmetical formula:--
+
+Tiring: gymnastic:: cookery: medicine:: sophistic: legislation.
+
+And,
+
+Cookery: medicine:: rhetoric: the art of justice.
+
+And this is the true scheme of them, but when measured only by the
+gratification which they procure, they become jumbled together and
+return to their aboriginal chaos. Socrates apologizes for the length of
+his speech, which was necessary to the explanation of the subject, and
+begs Polus not unnecessarily to retaliate on him.
+
+'Do you mean to say that the rhetoricians are esteemed flatterers?' They
+are not esteemed at all. 'Why, have they not great power, and can they
+not do whatever they desire?' They have no power, and they only do what
+they think best, and never what they desire; for they never attain the
+true object of desire, which is the good. 'As if you, Socrates, would
+not envy the possessor of despotic power, who can imprison, exile, kill
+any one whom he pleases.' But Socrates replies that he has no wish to
+put any one to death; he who kills another, even justly, is not to be
+envied, and he who kills him unjustly is to be pitied; it is better to
+suffer than to do injustice. He does not consider that going about with
+a dagger and putting men out of the way, or setting a house on fire, is
+real power. To this Polus assents, on the ground that such acts would
+be punished, but he is still of opinion that evil-doers, if they
+are unpunished, may be happy enough. He instances Archelaus, son
+of Perdiccas, the usurper of Macedonia. Does not Socrates think him
+happy?--Socrates would like to know more about him; he cannot pronounce
+even the great king to be happy, unless he knows his mental and moral
+condition. Polus explains that Archelaus was a slave, being the son of
+a woman who was the slave of Alcetas, brother of Perdiccas king of
+Macedon--and he, by every species of crime, first murdering his uncle
+and then his cousin and half-brother, obtained the kingdom. This was
+very wicked, and yet all the world, including Socrates, would like to
+have his place. Socrates dismisses the appeal to numbers; Polus, if he
+will, may summon all the rich men of Athens, Nicias and his brothers,
+Aristocrates, the house of Pericles, or any other great family--this is
+the kind of evidence which is adduced in courts of justice, where truth
+depends upon numbers. But Socrates employs proof of another sort; his
+appeal is to one witness only,--that is to say, the person with whom
+he is speaking; him he will convict out of his own mouth. And he is
+prepared to show, after his manner, that Archelaus cannot be a wicked
+man and yet happy.
+
+The evil-doer is deemed happy if he escapes, and miserable if he suffers
+punishment; but Socrates thinks him less miserable if he suffers than
+if he escapes. Polus is of opinion that such a paradox as this hardly
+deserves refutation, and is at any rate sufficiently refuted by the
+fact. Socrates has only to compare the lot of the successful tyrant who
+is the envy of the world, and of the wretch who, having been detected
+in a criminal attempt against the state, is crucified or burnt to
+death. Socrates replies, that if they are both criminal they are both
+miserable, but that the unpunished is the more miserable of the two. At
+this Polus laughs outright, which leads Socrates to remark that laughter
+is a new species of refutation. Polus replies, that he is already
+refuted; for if he will take the votes of the company, he will find
+that no one agrees with him. To this Socrates rejoins, that he is not
+a public man, and (referring to his own conduct at the trial of the
+generals after the battle of Arginusae) is unable to take the suffrages
+of any company, as he had shown on a recent occasion; he can only deal
+with one witness at a time, and that is the person with whom he is
+arguing. But he is certain that in the opinion of any man to do is worse
+than to suffer evil.
+
+Polus, though he will not admit this, is ready to acknowledge that to do
+evil is considered the more foul or dishonourable of the two. But what
+is fair and what is foul; whether the terms are applied to bodies,
+colours, figures, laws, habits, studies, must they not be defined
+with reference to pleasure and utility? Polus assents to this latter
+doctrine, and is easily persuaded that the fouler of two things must
+exceed either in pain or in hurt. But the doing cannot exceed the
+suffering of evil in pain, and therefore must exceed in hurt. Thus doing
+is proved by the testimony of Polus himself to be worse or more hurtful
+than suffering.
+
+There remains the other question: Is a guilty man better off when he is
+punished or when he is unpunished? Socrates replies, that what is done
+justly is suffered justly: if the act is just, the effect is just; if
+to punish is just, to be punished is just, and therefore fair, and
+therefore beneficent; and the benefit is that the soul is improved.
+There are three evils from which a man may suffer, and which affect him
+in estate, body, and soul;--these are, poverty, disease, injustice; and
+the foulest of these is injustice, the evil of the soul, because that
+brings the greatest hurt. And there are three arts which heal these
+evils--trading, medicine, justice--and the fairest of these is justice.
+Happy is he who has never committed injustice, and happy in the second
+degree he who has been healed by punishment. And therefore the criminal
+should himself go to the judge as he would to the physician, and purge
+away his crime. Rhetoric will enable him to display his guilt in proper
+colours, and to sustain himself and others in enduring the necessary
+penalty. And similarly if a man has an enemy, he will desire not to
+punish him, but that he shall go unpunished and become worse and worse,
+taking care only that he does no injury to himself. These are at least
+conceivable uses of the art, and no others have been discovered by us.
+
+Here Callicles, who has been listening in silent amazement, asks
+Chaerephon whether Socrates is in earnest, and on receiving the
+assurance that he is, proceeds to ask the same question of Socrates
+himself. For if such doctrines are true, life must have been turned
+upside down, and all of us are doing the opposite of what we ought to be
+doing.
+
+Socrates replies in a style of playful irony, that before men can
+understand one another they must have some common feeling. And such a
+community of feeling exists between himself and Callicles, for both
+of them are lovers, and they have both a pair of loves; the beloved of
+Callicles are the Athenian Demos and Demos the son of Pyrilampes; the
+beloved of Socrates are Alcibiades and philosophy. The peculiarity of
+Callicles is that he can never contradict his loves; he changes as his
+Demos changes in all his opinions; he watches the countenance of both
+his loves, and repeats their sentiments, and if any one is surprised
+at his sayings and doings, the explanation of them is, that he is not a
+free agent, but must always be imitating his two loves. And this is the
+explanation of Socrates' peculiarities also. He is always repeating what
+his mistress, Philosophy, is saying to him, who unlike his other love,
+Alcibiades, is ever the same, ever true. Callicles must refute her, or
+he will never be at unity with himself; and discord in life is far worse
+than the discord of musical sounds.
+
+Callicles answers, that Gorgias was overthrown because, as Polus said,
+in compliance with popular prejudice he had admitted that if his pupil
+did not know justice the rhetorician must teach him; and Polus has been
+similarly entangled, because his modesty led him to admit that to suffer
+is more honourable than to do injustice. By custom 'yes,' but not by
+nature, says Callicles. And Socrates is always playing between the two
+points of view, and putting one in the place of the other. In this
+very argument, what Polus only meant in a conventional sense has
+been affirmed by him to be a law of nature. For convention says that
+'injustice is dishonourable,' but nature says that 'might is right.'
+And we are always taming down the nobler spirits among us to the
+conventional level. But sometimes a great man will rise up and reassert
+his original rights, trampling under foot all our formularies, and then
+the light of natural justice shines forth. Pindar says, 'Law, the
+king of all, does violence with high hand;' as is indeed proved by the
+example of Heracles, who drove off the oxen of Geryon and never paid for
+them.
+
+This is the truth, Socrates, as you will be convinced, if you leave
+philosophy and pass on to the real business of life. A little philosophy
+is an excellent thing; too much is the ruin of a man. He who has not
+'passed his metaphysics' before he has grown up to manhood will never
+know the world. Philosophers are ridiculous when they take to politics,
+and I dare say that politicians are equally ridiculous when they take to
+philosophy: 'Every man,' as Euripides says, 'is fondest of that in which
+he is best.' Philosophy is graceful in youth, like the lisp of infancy,
+and should be cultivated as a part of education; but when a grown-up man
+lisps or studies philosophy, I should like to beat him. None of those
+over-refined natures ever come to any good; they avoid the busy haunts
+of men, and skulk in corners, whispering to a few admiring youths, and
+never giving utterance to any noble sentiments.
+
+For you, Socrates, I have a regard, and therefore I say to you,
+as Zethus says to Amphion in the play, that you have 'a noble soul
+disguised in a puerile exterior.' And I would have you consider the
+danger which you and other philosophers incur. For you would not know
+how to defend yourself if any one accused you in a law-court,--there you
+would stand, with gaping mouth and dizzy brain, and might be murdered,
+robbed, boxed on the ears with impunity. Take my advice, then, and get a
+little common sense; leave to others these frivolities; walk in the ways
+of the wealthy and be wise.
+
+Socrates professes to have found in Callicles the philosopher's
+touchstone; and he is certain that any opinion in which they both agree
+must be the very truth. Callicles has all the three qualities which are
+needed in a critic--knowledge, good-will, frankness; Gorgias and Polus,
+although learned men, were too modest, and their modesty made them
+contradict themselves. But Callicles is well-educated; and he is not
+too modest to speak out (of this he has already given proof), and his
+good-will is shown both by his own profession and by his giving the same
+caution against philosophy to Socrates, which Socrates remembers hearing
+him give long ago to his own clique of friends. He will pledge himself
+to retract any error into which he may have fallen, and which Callicles
+may point out. But he would like to know first of all what he and Pindar
+mean by natural justice. Do they suppose that the rule of justice is the
+rule of the stronger or of the better?' 'There is no difference.' Then
+are not the many superior to the one, and the opinions of the many
+better? And their opinion is that justice is equality, and that to do is
+more dishonourable than to suffer wrong. And as they are the superior or
+stronger, this opinion of theirs must be in accordance with natural as
+well as conventional justice. 'Why will you continue splitting words?
+Have I not told you that the superior is the better?' But what do you
+mean by the better? Tell me that, and please to be a little milder
+in your language, if you do not wish to drive me away. 'I mean the
+worthier, the wiser.' You mean to say that one man of sense ought to
+rule over ten thousand fools? 'Yes, that is my meaning.' Ought the
+physician then to have a larger share of meats and drinks? or the weaver
+to have more coats, or the cobbler larger shoes, or the farmer more
+seed? 'You are always saying the same things, Socrates.' Yes, and on the
+same subjects too; but you are never saying the same things. For, first,
+you defined the superior to be the stronger, and then the wiser, and now
+something else;--what DO you mean? 'I mean men of political ability, who
+ought to govern and to have more than the governed.' Than themselves?
+'What do you mean?' I mean to say that every man is his own governor. 'I
+see that you mean those dolts, the temperate. But my doctrine is, that a
+man should let his desires grow, and take the means of satisfying them.
+To the many this is impossible, and therefore they combine to prevent
+him. But if he is a king, and has power, how base would he be in
+submitting to them! To invite the common herd to be lord over him, when
+he might have the enjoyment of all things! For the truth is, Socrates,
+that luxury and self-indulgence are virtue and happiness; all the rest
+is mere talk.'
+
+Socrates compliments Callicles on his frankness in saying what other men
+only think. According to his view, those who want nothing are not happy.
+'Why,' says Callicles, 'if they were, stones and the dead would be
+happy.' Socrates in reply is led into a half-serious, half-comic vein
+of reflection. 'Who knows,' as Euripides says, 'whether life may not be
+death, and death life?' Nay, there are philosophers who maintain that
+even in life we are dead, and that the body (soma) is the tomb (sema) of
+the soul. And some ingenious Sicilian has made an allegory, in which
+he represents fools as the uninitiated, who are supposed to be carrying
+water to a vessel, which is full of holes, in a similarly holey sieve,
+and this sieve is their own soul. The idea is fanciful, but nevertheless
+is a figure of a truth which I want to make you acknowledge, viz. that
+the life of contentment is better than the life of indulgence. Are you
+disposed to admit that? 'Far otherwise.' Then hear another parable.
+The life of self-contentment and self-indulgence may be represented
+respectively by two men, who are filling jars with streams of wine,
+honey, milk,--the jars of the one are sound, and the jars of the other
+leaky; the first fils his jars, and has no more trouble with them; the
+second is always filling them, and would suffer extreme misery if he
+desisted. Are you of the same opinion still? 'Yes, Socrates, and the
+figure expresses what I mean. For true pleasure is a perpetual stream,
+flowing in and flowing out. To be hungry and always eating, to be
+thirsty and always drinking, and to have all the other desires and to
+satisfy them, that, as I admit, is my idea of happiness.' And to
+be itching and always scratching? 'I do not deny that there may be
+happiness even in that.' And to indulge unnatural desires, if they are
+abundantly satisfied? Callicles is indignant at the introduction of such
+topics. But he is reminded by Socrates that they are introduced, not by
+him, but by the maintainer of the identity of pleasure and good. Will
+Callicles still maintain this? 'Yes, for the sake of consistency, he
+will.' The answer does not satisfy Socrates, who fears that he is losing
+his touchstone. A profession of seriousness on the part of Callicles
+reassures him, and they proceed with the argument. Pleasure and good
+are the same, but knowledge and courage are not the same either with
+pleasure or good, or with one another. Socrates disproves the first of
+these statements by showing that two opposites cannot coexist, but must
+alternate with one another--to be well and ill together is impossible.
+But pleasure and pain are simultaneous, and the cessation of them is
+simultaneous; e.g. in the case of drinking and thirsting, whereas good
+and evil are not simultaneous, and do not cease simultaneously, and
+therefore pleasure cannot be the same as good.
+
+Callicles has already lost his temper, and can only be persuaded to go
+on by the interposition of Gorgias. Socrates, having already guarded
+against objections by distinguishing courage and knowledge from pleasure
+and good, proceeds:--The good are good by the presence of good, and the
+bad are bad by the presence of evil. And the brave and wise are good,
+and the cowardly and foolish are bad. And he who feels pleasure is good,
+and he who feels pain is bad, and both feel pleasure and pain in nearly
+the same degree, and sometimes the bad man or coward in a greater
+degree. Therefore the bad man or coward is as good as the brave or may
+be even better.
+
+Callicles endeavours now to avert the inevitable absurdity by affirming
+that he and all mankind admitted some pleasures to be good and others
+bad. The good are the beneficial, and the bad are the hurtful, and
+we should choose the one and avoid the other. But this, as Socrates
+observes, is a return to the old doctrine of himself and Polus, that all
+things should be done for the sake of the good.
+
+Callicles assents to this, and Socrates, finding that they are agreed
+in distinguishing pleasure from good, returns to his old division of
+empirical habits, or shams, or flatteries, which study pleasure only,
+and the arts which are concerned with the higher interests of soul and
+body. Does Callicles agree to this division? Callicles will agree to
+anything, in order that he may get through the argument. Which of
+the arts then are flatteries? Flute-playing, harp-playing, choral
+exhibitions, the dithyrambics of Cinesias are all equally condemned on
+the ground that they give pleasure only; and Meles the harp-player, who
+was the father of Cinesias, failed even in that. The stately muse of
+Tragedy is bent upon pleasure, and not upon improvement. Poetry in
+general is only a rhetorical address to a mixed audience of men, women,
+and children. And the orators are very far from speaking with a view
+to what is best; their way is to humour the assembly as if they were
+children.
+
+Callicles replies, that this is only true of some of them; others have
+a real regard for their fellow-citizens. Granted; then there are two
+species of oratory; the one a flattery, another which has a real regard
+for the citizens. But where are the orators among whom you find the
+latter? Callicles admits that there are none remaining, but there were
+such in the days when Themistocles, Cimon, Miltiades, and the great
+Pericles were still alive. Socrates replies that none of these were true
+artists, setting before themselves the duty of bringing order out of
+disorder. The good man and true orator has a settled design, running
+through his life, to which he conforms all his words and actions; he
+desires to implant justice and eradicate injustice, to implant all
+virtue and eradicate all vice in the minds of his citizens. He is the
+physician who will not allow the sick man to indulge his appetites
+with a variety of meats and drinks, but insists on his exercising
+self-restraint. And this is good for the soul, and better than the
+unrestrained indulgence which Callicles was recently approving.
+
+Here Callicles, who had been with difficulty brought to this point,
+turns restive, and suggests that Socrates shall answer his own
+questions. 'Then,' says Socrates, 'one man must do for two;' and though
+he had hoped to have given Callicles an 'Amphion' in return for his
+'Zethus,' he is willing to proceed; at the same time, he hopes that
+Callicles will correct him, if he falls into error. He recapitulates the
+advantages which he has already won:--
+
+The pleasant is not the same as the good--Callicles and I are agreed
+about that,--but pleasure is to be pursued for the sake of the good, and
+the good is that of which the presence makes us good; we and all things
+good have acquired some virtue or other. And virtue, whether of body or
+soul, of things or persons, is not attained by accident, but is due to
+order and harmonious arrangement. And the soul which has order is better
+than the soul which is without order, and is therefore temperate and is
+therefore good, and the intemperate is bad. And he who is temperate
+is also just and brave and pious, and has attained the perfection
+of goodness and therefore of happiness, and the intemperate whom you
+approve is the opposite of all this and is wretched. He therefore who
+would be happy must pursue temperance and avoid intemperance, and if
+possible escape the necessity of punishment, but if he have done wrong
+he must endure punishment. In this way states and individuals should
+seek to attain harmony, which, as the wise tell us, is the bond of
+heaven and earth, of gods and men. Callicles has never discovered the
+power of geometrical proportion in both worlds; he would have men aim
+at disproportion and excess. But if he be wrong in this, and if
+self-control is the true secret of happiness, then the paradox is true
+that the only use of rhetoric is in self-accusation, and Polus was right
+in saying that to do wrong is worse than to suffer wrong, and Gorgias
+was right in saying that the rhetorician must be a just man. And you
+were wrong in taunting me with my defenceless condition, and in saying
+that I might be accused or put to death or boxed on the ears with
+impunity. For I may repeat once more, that to strike is worse than to
+be stricken--to do than to suffer. What I said then is now made fast in
+adamantine bonds. I myself know not the true nature of these things, but
+I know that no one can deny my words and not be ridiculous. To do wrong
+is the greatest of evils, and to suffer wrong is the next greatest evil.
+He who would avoid the last must be a ruler, or the friend of a ruler;
+and to be the friend he must be the equal of the ruler, and must also
+resemble him. Under his protection he will suffer no evil, but will he
+also do no evil? Nay, will he not rather do all the evil which he can
+and escape? And in this way the greatest of all evils will befall him.
+'But this imitator of the tyrant,' rejoins Callicles, 'will kill any
+one who does not similarly imitate him.' Socrates replies that he is
+not deaf, and that he has heard that repeated many times, and can
+only reply, that a bad man will kill a good one. 'Yes, and that is the
+provoking thing.' Not provoking to a man of sense who is not studying
+the arts which will preserve him from danger; and this, as you say, is
+the use of rhetoric in courts of justice. But how many other arts are
+there which also save men from death, and are yet quite humble in their
+pretensions--such as the art of swimming, or the art of the pilot? Does
+not the pilot do men at least as much service as the rhetorician, and
+yet for the voyage from Aegina to Athens he does not charge more than
+two obols, and when he disembarks is quite unassuming in his demeanour?
+The reason is that he is not certain whether he has done his passengers
+any good in saving them from death, if one of them is diseased in body,
+and still more if he is diseased in mind--who can say? The engineer too
+will often save whole cities, and yet you despise him, and would not
+allow your son to marry his daughter, or his son to marry yours. But
+what reason is there in this? For if virtue only means the saving of
+life, whether your own or another's, you have no right to despise him or
+any practiser of saving arts. But is not virtue something different from
+saving and being saved? I would have you rather consider whether you
+ought not to disregard length of life, and think only how you can live
+best, leaving all besides to the will of Heaven. For you must not expect
+to have influence either with the Athenian Demos or with Demos the son
+of Pyrilampes, unless you become like them. What do you say to this?
+
+'There is some truth in what you are saying, but I do not entirely
+believe you.'
+
+That is because you are in love with Demos. But let us have a little
+more conversation. You remember the two processes--one which was
+directed to pleasure, the other which was directed to making men as good
+as possible. And those who have the care of the city should make the
+citizens as good as possible. But who would undertake a public building,
+if he had never had a teacher of the art of building, and had never
+constructed a building before? or who would undertake the duty of
+state-physician, if he had never cured either himself or any one else?
+Should we not examine him before we entrusted him with the office? And
+as Callicles is about to enter public life, should we not examine him?
+Whom has he made better? For we have already admitted that this is the
+statesman's proper business. And we must ask the same question about
+Pericles, and Cimon, and Miltiades, and Themistocles. Whom did they make
+better? Nay, did not Pericles make the citizens worse? For he gave
+them pay, and at first he was very popular with them, but at last they
+condemned him to death. Yet surely he would be a bad tamer of animals
+who, having received them gentle, taught them to kick and butt, and
+man is an animal; and Pericles who had the charge of man only made him
+wilder, and more savage and unjust, and therefore he could not have
+been a good statesman. The same tale might be repeated about Cimon,
+Themistocles, Miltiades. But the charioteer who keeps his seat at
+first is not thrown out when he gains greater experience and skill. The
+inference is, that the statesman of a past age were no better than
+those of our own. They may have been cleverer constructors of docks and
+harbours, but they did not improve the character of the citizens. I have
+told you again and again (and I purposely use the same images) that the
+soul, like the body, may be treated in two ways--there is the meaner and
+the higher art. You seemed to understand what I said at the time, but
+when I ask you who were the really good statesmen, you answer--as if I
+asked you who were the good trainers, and you answered, Thearion, the
+baker, Mithoecus, the author of the Sicilian cookery-book, Sarambus,
+the vintner. And you would be affronted if I told you that these are a
+parcel of cooks who make men fat only to make them thin. And those whom
+they have fattened applaud them, instead of finding fault with them, and
+lay the blame of their subsequent disorders on their physicians. In this
+respect, Callicles, you are like them; you applaud the statesmen of
+old, who pandered to the vices of the citizens, and filled the city with
+docks and harbours, but neglected virtue and justice. And when the
+fit of illness comes, the citizens who in like manner applauded
+Themistocles, Pericles, and others, will lay hold of you and my friend
+Alcibiades, and you will suffer for the misdeeds of your predecessors.
+The old story is always being repeated--'after all his services, the
+ungrateful city banished him, or condemned him to death.' As if the
+statesman should not have taught the city better! He surely cannot blame
+the state for having unjustly used him, any more than the sophist
+or teacher can find fault with his pupils if they cheat him. And the
+sophist and orator are in the same case; although you admire rhetoric
+and despise sophistic, whereas sophistic is really the higher of the
+two. The teacher of the arts takes money, but the teacher of virtue or
+politics takes no money, because this is the only kind of service which
+makes the disciple desirous of requiting his teacher.
+
+Socrates concludes by finally asking, to which of the two modes
+of serving the state Callicles invites him:--'to the inferior and
+ministerial one,' is the ingenuous reply. That is the only way of
+avoiding death, replies Socrates; and he has heard often enough, and
+would rather not hear again, that the bad man will kill the good. But
+he thinks that such a fate is very likely reserved for him, because he
+remarks that he is the only person who teaches the true art of politics.
+And very probably, as in the case which he described to Polus, he may be
+the physician who is tried by a jury of children. He cannot say that he
+has procured the citizens any pleasure, and if any one charges him with
+perplexing them, or with reviling their elders, he will not be able
+to make them understand that he has only been actuated by a desire for
+their good. And therefore there is no saying what his fate may be.
+'And do you think that a man who is unable to help himself is in a good
+condition?' Yes, Callicles, if he have the true self-help, which is
+never to have said or done any wrong to himself or others. If I had not
+this kind of self-help, I should be ashamed; but if I die for want of
+your flattering rhetoric, I shall die in peace. For death is no evil,
+but to go to the world below laden with offences is the worst of evils.
+In proof of which I will tell you a tale:--
+
+Under the rule of Cronos, men were judged on the day of their death, and
+when judgment had been given upon them they departed--the good to the
+islands of the blest, the bad to the house of vengeance. But as they
+were still living, and had their clothes on at the time when they were
+being judged, there was favouritism, and Zeus, when he came to the
+throne, was obliged to alter the mode of procedure, and try them after
+death, having first sent down Prometheus to take away from them the
+foreknowledge of death. Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus were appointed
+to be the judges; Rhadamanthus for Asia, Aeacus for Europe, and Minos
+was to hold the court of appeal. Now death is the separation of soul and
+body, but after death soul and body alike retain their characteristics;
+the fat man, the dandy, the branded slave, are all distinguishable. Some
+prince or potentate, perhaps even the great king himself, appears before
+Rhadamanthus, and he instantly detects him, though he knows not who he
+is; he sees the scars of perjury and iniquity, and sends him away to the
+house of torment.
+
+For there are two classes of souls who undergo punishment--the curable
+and the incurable. The curable are those who are benefited by their
+punishment; the incurable are such as Archelaus, who benefit others by
+becoming a warning to them. The latter class are generally kings and
+potentates; meaner persons, happily for themselves, have not the same
+power of doing injustice. Sisyphus and Tityus, not Thersites, are
+supposed by Homer to be undergoing everlasting punishment. Not that
+there is anything to prevent a great man from being a good one, as is
+shown by the famous example of Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus. But to
+Rhadamanthus the souls are only known as good or bad; they are stripped
+of their dignities and preferments; he despatches the bad to Tartarus,
+labelled either as curable or incurable, and looks with love and
+admiration on the soul of some just one, whom he sends to the islands of
+the blest. Similar is the practice of Aeacus; and Minos overlooks them,
+holding a golden sceptre, as Odysseus in Homer saw him
+
+     'Wielding a sceptre of gold, and giving laws to the dead.'
+
+My wish for myself and my fellow-men is, that we may present our souls
+undefiled to the judge in that day; my desire in life is to be able to
+meet death. And I exhort you, and retort upon you the reproach which you
+cast upon me,--that you will stand before the judge, gaping, and with
+dizzy brain, and any one may box you on the ear, and do you all manner
+of evil.
+
+Perhaps you think that this is an old wives' fable. But you, who are the
+three wisest men in Hellas, have nothing better to say, and no one will
+ever show that to do is better than to suffer evil. A man should study
+to be, and not merely to seem. If he is bad, he should become good, and
+avoid all flattery, whether of the many or of the few.
+
+Follow me, then; and if you are looked down upon, that will do you no
+harm. And when we have practised virtue, we will betake ourselves to
+politics, but not until we are delivered from the shameful state of
+ignorance and uncertainty in which we are at present. Let us follow
+in the way of virtue and justice, and not in the way to which you,
+Callicles, invite us; for that way is nothing worth.
+
+We will now consider in order some of the principal points of the
+dialogue. Having regard (1) to the age of Plato and the ironical
+character of his writings, we may compare him with himself, and with
+other great teachers, and we may note in passing the objections of his
+critics. And then (2) casting one eye upon him, we may cast another upon
+ourselves, and endeavour to draw out the great lessons which he
+teaches for all time, stripped of the accidental form in which they are
+enveloped.
+
+(1) In the Gorgias, as in nearly all the other dialogues of Plato,
+we are made aware that formal logic has as yet no existence. The old
+difficulty of framing a definition recurs. The illusive analogy of the
+arts and the virtues also continues. The ambiguity of several words,
+such as nature, custom, the honourable, the good, is not cleared up.
+The Sophists are still floundering about the distinction of the real
+and seeming. Figures of speech are made the basis of arguments. The
+possibility of conceiving a universal art or science, which admits
+of application to a particular subject-matter, is a difficulty which
+remains unsolved, and has not altogether ceased to haunt the world at
+the present day (compare Charmides). The defect of clearness is also
+apparent in Socrates himself, unless we suppose him to be practising on
+the simplicity of his opponent, or rather perhaps trying an experiment
+in dialectics. Nothing can be more fallacious than the contradiction
+which he pretends to have discovered in the answers of Gorgias (see
+above). The advantages which he gains over Polus are also due to a false
+antithesis of pleasure and good, and to an erroneous assertion that an
+agent and a patient may be described by similar predicates;--a mistake
+which Aristotle partly shares and partly corrects in the Nicomachean
+Ethics. Traces of a 'robust sophistry' are likewise discernible in his
+argument with Callicles.
+
+(2) Although Socrates professes to be convinced by reason only, yet the
+argument is often a sort of dialectical fiction, by which he conducts
+himself and others to his own ideal of life and action. And we may
+sometimes wish that we could have suggested answers to his antagonists,
+or pointed out to them the rocks which lay concealed under the ambiguous
+terms good, pleasure, and the like. But it would be as useless to
+examine his arguments by the requirements of modern logic, as to
+criticise this ideal from a merely utilitarian point of view. If we say
+that the ideal is generally regarded as unattainable, and that mankind
+will by no means agree in thinking that the criminal is happier when
+punished than when unpunished, any more than they would agree to the
+stoical paradox that a man may be happy on the rack, Plato has already
+admitted that the world is against him. Neither does he mean to say
+that Archelaus is tormented by the stings of conscience; or that the
+sensations of the impaled criminal are more agreeable than those of the
+tyrant drowned in luxurious enjoyment. Neither is he speaking, as in the
+Protagoras, of virtue as a calculation of pleasure, an opinion which
+he afterwards repudiates in the Phaedo. What then is his meaning? His
+meaning we shall be able to illustrate best by parallel notions, which,
+whether justifiable by logic or not, have always existed among mankind.
+We must remind the reader that Socrates himself implies that he will be
+understood or appreciated by very few.
+
+He is speaking not of the consciousness of happiness, but of the idea of
+happiness. When a martyr dies in a good cause, when a soldier falls in
+battle, we do not suppose that death or wounds are without pain, or that
+their physical suffering is always compensated by a mental satisfaction.
+Still we regard them as happy, and we would a thousand times rather have
+their death than a shameful life. Nor is this only because we believe
+that they will obtain an immortality of fame, or that they will have
+crowns of glory in another world, when their enemies and persecutors
+will be proportionably tormented. Men are found in a few instances to do
+what is right, without reference to public opinion or to consequences.
+And we regard them as happy on this ground only, much as Socrates'
+friends in the opening of the Phaedo are described as regarding him; or
+as was said of another, 'they looked upon his face as upon the face of
+an angel.' We are not concerned to justify this idealism by the standard
+of utility or public opinion, but merely to point out the existence of
+such a sentiment in the better part of human nature.
+
+The idealism of Plato is founded upon this sentiment. He would maintain
+that in some sense or other truth and right are alone to be sought, and
+that all other goods are only desirable as means towards these. He is
+thought to have erred in 'considering the agent only, and making no
+reference to the happiness of others, as affected by him.' But the
+happiness of others or of mankind, if regarded as an end, is really
+quite as ideal and almost as paradoxical to the common understanding
+as Plato's conception of happiness. For the greatest happiness of the
+greatest number may mean also the greatest pain of the individual which
+will procure the greatest pleasure of the greatest number. Ideas of
+utility, like those of duty and right, may be pushed to unpleasant
+consequences. Nor can Plato in the Gorgias be deemed purely
+self-regarding, considering that Socrates expressly mentions the duty of
+imparting the truth when discovered to others. Nor must we forget that
+the side of ethics which regards others is by the ancients merged in
+politics. Both in Plato and Aristotle, as well as in the Stoics,
+the social principle, though taking another form, is really far more
+prominent than in most modern treatises on ethics.
+
+The idealizing of suffering is one of the conceptions which have
+exercised the greatest influence on mankind. Into the theological import
+of this, or into the consideration of the errors to which the idea may
+have given rise, we need not now enter. All will agree that the ideal of
+the Divine Sufferer, whose words the world would not receive, the man of
+sorrows of whom the Hebrew prophets spoke, has sunk deep into the heart
+of the human race. It is a similar picture of suffering goodness which
+Plato desires to pourtray, not without an allusion to the fate of his
+master Socrates. He is convinced that, somehow or other, such an one
+must be happy in life or after death. In the Republic, he endeavours to
+show that his happiness would be assured here in a well-ordered state.
+But in the actual condition of human things the wise and good are weak
+and miserable; such an one is like a man fallen among wild beasts,
+exposed to every sort of wrong and obloquy.
+
+Plato, like other philosophers, is thus led on to the conclusion, that
+if 'the ways of God' to man are to be 'justified,' the hopes of another
+life must be included. If the question could have been put to him,
+whether a man dying in torments was happy still, even if, as he suggests
+in the Apology, 'death be only a long sleep,' we can hardly tell
+what would have been his answer. There have been a few, who, quite
+independently of rewards and punishments or of posthumous reputation,
+or any other influence of public opinion, have been willing to sacrifice
+their lives for the good of others. It is difficult to say how far in
+such cases an unconscious hope of a future life, or a general faith in
+the victory of good in the world, may have supported the sufferers. But
+this extreme idealism is not in accordance with the spirit of Plato. He
+supposes a day of retribution, in which the good are to be rewarded and
+the wicked punished. Though, as he says in the Phaedo, no man of sense
+will maintain that the details of the stories about another world are
+true, he will insist that something of the kind is true, and will frame
+his life with a view to this unknown future. Even in the Republic he
+introduces a future life as an afterthought, when the superior happiness
+of the just has been established on what is thought to be an immutable
+foundation. At the same time he makes a point of determining his main
+thesis independently of remoter consequences.
+
+(3) Plato's theory of punishment is partly vindictive, partly
+corrective. In the Gorgias, as well as in the Phaedo and Republic, a few
+great criminals, chiefly tyrants, are reserved as examples. But most men
+have never had the opportunity of attaining this pre-eminence of evil.
+They are not incurable, and their punishment is intended for their
+improvement. They are to suffer because they have sinned; like sick men,
+they must go to the physician and be healed. On this representation of
+Plato's the criticism has been made, that the analogy of disease and
+injustice is partial only, and that suffering, instead of improving men,
+may have just the opposite effect.
+
+Like the general analogy of the arts and the virtues, the analogy
+of disease and injustice, or of medicine and justice, is certainly
+imperfect. But ideas must be given through something; the nature of the
+mind which is unseen can only be represented under figures derived from
+visible objects. If these figures are suggestive of some new aspect
+under which the mind may be considered, we cannot find fault with them
+for not exactly coinciding with the ideas represented. They partake
+of the imperfect nature of language, and must not be construed in too
+strict a manner. That Plato sometimes reasons from them as if they were
+not figures but realities, is due to the defective logical analysis of
+his age.
+
+Nor does he distinguish between the suffering which improves and the
+suffering which only punishes and deters. He applies to the sphere of
+ethics a conception of punishment which is really derived from criminal
+law. He does not see that such punishment is only negative, and supplies
+no principle of moral growth or development. He is not far off the
+higher notion of an education of man to be begun in this world, and to
+be continued in other stages of existence, which is further developed
+in the Republic. And Christian thinkers, who have ventured out of the
+beaten track in their meditations on the 'last things,' have found a ray
+of light in his writings. But he has not explained how or in what way
+punishment is to contribute to the improvement of mankind. He has not
+followed out the principle which he affirms in the Republic, that 'God
+is the author of evil only with a view to good,' and that 'they were
+the better for being punished.' Still his doctrine of a future state of
+rewards and punishments may be compared favourably with that perversion
+of Christian doctrine which makes the everlasting punishment of human
+beings depend on a brief moment of time, or even on the accident of
+an accident. And he has escaped the difficulty which has often beset
+divines, respecting the future destiny of the meaner sort of men
+(Thersites and the like), who are neither very good nor very bad, by not
+counting them worthy of eternal damnation.
+
+We do Plato violence in pressing his figures of speech or chains of
+argument; and not less so in asking questions which were beyond the
+horizon of his vision, or did not come within the scope of his design.
+The main purpose of the Gorgias is not to answer questions about a
+future world, but to place in antagonism the true and false life, and
+to contrast the judgments and opinions of men with judgment according
+to the truth. Plato may be accused of representing a superhuman or
+transcendental virtue in the description of the just man in the Gorgias,
+or in the companion portrait of the philosopher in the Theaetetus; and
+at the same time may be thought to be condemning a state of the world
+which always has existed and always will exist among men. But
+such ideals act powerfully on the imagination of mankind. And such
+condemnations are not mere paradoxes of philosophers, but the natural
+rebellion of the higher sense of right in man against the ordinary
+conditions of human life. The greatest statesmen have fallen very far
+short of the political ideal, and are therefore justly involved in the
+general condemnation.
+
+Subordinate to the main purpose of the dialogue are some other
+questions, which may be briefly considered:--
+
+a. The antithesis of good and pleasure, which as in other dialogues is
+supposed to consist in the permanent nature of the one compared with the
+transient and relative nature of the other. Good and pleasure, knowledge
+and sense, truth and opinion, essence and generation, virtue and
+pleasure, the real and the apparent, the infinite and finite, harmony or
+beauty and discord, dialectic and rhetoric or poetry, are so many pairs
+of opposites, which in Plato easily pass into one another, and are
+seldom kept perfectly distinct. And we must not forget that Plato's
+conception of pleasure is the Heracleitean flux transferred to the
+sphere of human conduct. There is some degree of unfairness in opposing
+the principle of good, which is objective, to the principle of pleasure,
+which is subjective. For the assertion of the permanence of good is only
+based on the assumption of its objective character. Had Plato fixed
+his mind, not on the ideal nature of good, but on the subjective
+consciousness of happiness, that would have been found to be as
+transient and precarious as pleasure.
+
+b. The arts or sciences, when pursued without any view to truth, or the
+improvement of human life, are called flatteries. They are all alike
+dependent upon the opinion of mankind, from which they are derived.
+To Plato the whole world appears to be sunk in error, based on
+self-interest. To this is opposed the one wise man hardly professing to
+have found truth, yet strong in the conviction that a virtuous life
+is the only good, whether regarded with reference to this world or to
+another. Statesmen, Sophists, rhetoricians, poets, are alike brought up
+for judgment. They are the parodies of wise men, and their arts are the
+parodies of true arts and sciences. All that they call science is merely
+the result of that study of the tempers of the Great Beast, which he
+describes in the Republic.
+
+c. Various other points of contact naturally suggest themselves between
+the Gorgias and other dialogues, especially the Republic, the Philebus,
+and the Protagoras. There are closer resemblances both of spirit
+and language in the Republic than in any other dialogue, the verbal
+similarity tending to show that they were written at the same period of
+Plato's life. For the Republic supplies that education and training of
+which the Gorgias suggests the necessity. The theory of the many weak
+combining against the few strong in the formation of society (which is
+indeed a partial truth), is similar in both of them, and is expressed in
+nearly the same language. The sufferings and fate of the just man, the
+powerlessness of evil, and the reversal of the situation in another
+life, are also points of similarity. The poets, like the rhetoricians,
+are condemned because they aim at pleasure only, as in the Republic they
+are expelled the State, because they are imitators, and minister to
+the weaker side of human nature. That poetry is akin to rhetoric may be
+compared with the analogous notion, which occurs in the Protagoras, that
+the ancient poets were the Sophists of their day. In some other respects
+the Protagoras rather offers a contrast than a parallel. The character
+of Protagoras may be compared with that of Gorgias, but the conception
+of happiness is different in the two dialogues; being described in the
+former, according to the old Socratic notion, as deferred or accumulated
+pleasure, while in the Gorgias, and in the Phaedo, pleasure and good are
+distinctly opposed.
+
+This opposition is carried out from a speculative point of view in the
+Philebus. There neither pleasure nor wisdom are allowed to be the chief
+good, but pleasure and good are not so completely opposed as in the
+Gorgias. For innocent pleasures, and such as have no antecedent pains,
+are allowed to rank in the class of goods. The allusion to Gorgias'
+definition of rhetoric (Philebus; compare Gorg.), as the art of
+persuasion, of all arts the best, for to it all things submit, not
+by compulsion, but of their own free will--marks a close and perhaps
+designed connection between the two dialogues. In both the ideas of
+measure, order, harmony, are the connecting links between the beautiful
+and the good.
+
+In general spirit and character, that is, in irony and antagonism to
+public opinion, the Gorgias most nearly resembles the Apology, Crito,
+and portions of the Republic, and like the Philebus, though from another
+point of view, may be thought to stand in the same relation to Plato's
+theory of morals which the Theaetetus bears to his theory of knowledge.
+
+d. A few minor points still remain to be summed up: (1) The extravagant
+irony in the reason which is assigned for the pilot's modest charge; and
+in the proposed use of rhetoric as an instrument of self-condemnation;
+and in the mighty power of geometrical equality in both worlds. (2)
+The reference of the mythus to the previous discussion should not be
+overlooked: the fate reserved for incurable criminals such as Archelaus;
+the retaliation of the box on the ears; the nakedness of the souls and
+of the judges who are stript of the clothes or disguises which rhetoric
+and public opinion have hitherto provided for them (compare Swift's
+notion that the universe is a suit of clothes, Tale of a Tub). The
+fiction seems to have involved Plato in the necessity of supposing that
+the soul retained a sort of corporeal likeness after death. (3) The
+appeal of the authority of Homer, who says that Odysseus saw Minos in
+his court 'holding a golden sceptre,' which gives verisimilitude to the
+tale.
+
+It is scarcely necessary to repeat that Plato is playing 'both sides of
+the game,' and that in criticising the characters of Gorgias and Polus,
+we are not passing any judgment on historical individuals, but only
+attempting to analyze the 'dramatis personae' as they were conceived by
+him. Neither is it necessary to enlarge upon the obvious fact that Plato
+is a dramatic writer, whose real opinions cannot always be assumed to be
+those which he puts into the mouth of Socrates, or any other speaker who
+appears to have the best of the argument; or to repeat the observation
+that he is a poet as well as a philosopher; or to remark that he is not
+to be tried by a modern standard, but interpreted with reference to his
+place in the history of thought and the opinion of his time.
+
+It has been said that the most characteristic feature of the Gorgias
+is the assertion of the right of dissent, or private judgment. But this
+mode of stating the question is really opposed both to the spirit of
+Plato and of ancient philosophy generally. For Plato is not asserting
+any abstract right or duty of toleration, or advantage to be derived
+from freedom of thought; indeed, in some other parts of his writings
+(e.g. Laws), he has fairly laid himself open to the charge of
+intolerance. No speculations had as yet arisen respecting the 'liberty
+of prophesying;' and Plato is not affirming any abstract right of this
+nature: but he is asserting the duty and right of the one wise and true
+man to dissent from the folly and falsehood of the many. At the same
+time he acknowledges the natural result, which he hardly seeks to avert,
+that he who speaks the truth to a multitude, regardless of consequences,
+will probably share the fate of Socrates.
+
+*****
+
+The irony of Plato sometimes veils from us the height of idealism to
+which he soars. When declaring truths which the many will not receive,
+he puts on an armour which cannot be pierced by them. The weapons of
+ridicule are taken out of their hands and the laugh is turned against
+themselves. The disguises which Socrates assumes are like the parables
+of the New Testament, or the oracles of the Delphian God; they half
+conceal, half reveal, his meaning. The more he is in earnest, the more
+ironical he becomes; and he is never more in earnest or more ironical
+than in the Gorgias. He hardly troubles himself to answer seriously the
+objections of Gorgias and Polus, and therefore he sometimes appears to
+be careless of the ordinary requirements of logic. Yet in the highest
+sense he is always logical and consistent with himself. The form of the
+argument may be paradoxical; the substance is an appeal to the higher
+reason. He is uttering truths before they can be understood, as in all
+ages the words of philosophers, when they are first uttered, have found
+the world unprepared for them. A further misunderstanding arises out of
+the wildness of his humour; he is supposed not only by Callicles, but
+by the rest of mankind, to be jesting when he is profoundly serious. At
+length he makes even Polus in earnest. Finally, he drops the argument,
+and heedless any longer of the forms of dialectic, he loses himself in
+a sort of triumph, while at the same time he retaliates upon his
+adversaries. From this confusion of jest and earnest, we may now return
+to the ideal truth, and draw out in a simple form the main theses of the
+dialogue.
+
+First Thesis:--
+
+It is a greater evil to do than to suffer injustice.
+
+Compare the New Testament--
+
+'It is better to suffer for well doing than for evil doing.'--1 Pet.
+
+And the Sermon on the Mount--
+
+'Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness' sake.'--Matt.
+
+The words of Socrates are more abstract than the words of Christ, but
+they equally imply that the only real evil is moral evil. The righteous
+may suffer or die, but they have their reward; and even if they had
+no reward, would be happier than the wicked. The world, represented by
+Polus, is ready, when they are asked, to acknowledge that injustice is
+dishonourable, and for their own sakes men are willing to punish
+the offender (compare Republic). But they are not equally willing to
+acknowledge that injustice, even if successful, is essentially evil,
+and has the nature of disease and death. Especially when crimes
+are committed on the great scale--the crimes of tyrants, ancient or
+modern--after a while, seeing that they cannot be undone, and have
+become a part of history, mankind are disposed to forgive them, not from
+any magnanimity or charity, but because their feelings are blunted by
+time, and 'to forgive is convenient to them.' The tangle of good and
+evil can no longer be unravelled; and although they know that the end
+cannot justify the means, they feel also that good has often come out
+of evil. But Socrates would have us pass the same judgment on the tyrant
+now and always; though he is surrounded by his satellites, and has
+the applauses of Europe and Asia ringing in his ears; though he is the
+civilizer or liberator of half a continent, he is, and always will be,
+the most miserable of men. The greatest consequences for good or for
+evil cannot alter a hair's breadth the morality of actions which are
+right or wrong in themselves. This is the standard which Socrates holds
+up to us. Because politics, and perhaps human life generally, are of a
+mixed nature we must not allow our principles to sink to the level of
+our practice.
+
+And so of private individuals--to them, too, the world occasionally
+speaks of the consequences of their actions:--if they are lovers of
+pleasure, they will ruin their health; if they are false or dishonest,
+they will lose their character. But Socrates would speak to them, not of
+what will be, but of what is--of the present consequence of lowering
+and degrading the soul. And all higher natures, or perhaps all men
+everywhere, if they were not tempted by interest or passion, would agree
+with him--they would rather be the victims than the perpetrators of
+an act of treachery or of tyranny. Reason tells them that death comes
+sooner or later to all, and is not so great an evil as an unworthy life,
+or rather, if rightly regarded, not an evil at all, but to a good man
+the greatest good. For in all of us there are slumbering ideals of truth
+and right, which may at any time awaken and develop a new life in us.
+
+Second Thesis:--
+
+It is better to suffer for wrong doing than not to suffer.
+
+There might have been a condition of human life in which the penalty
+followed at once, and was proportioned to the offence. Moral evil would
+then be scarcely distinguishable from physical; mankind would avoid vice
+as they avoid pain or death. But nature, with a view of deepening and
+enlarging our characters, has for the most part hidden from us the
+consequences of our actions, and we can only foresee them by an effort
+of reflection. To awaken in us this habit of reflection is the business
+of early education, which is continued in maturer years by observation
+and experience. The spoilt child is in later life said to be
+unfortunate--he had better have suffered when he was young, and been
+saved from suffering afterwards. But is not the sovereign equally
+unfortunate whose education and manner of life are always concealing
+from him the consequences of his own actions, until at length they are
+revealed to him in some terrible downfall, which may, perhaps, have been
+caused not by his own fault? Another illustration is afforded by the
+pauper and criminal classes, who scarcely reflect at all, except on the
+means by which they can compass their immediate ends. We pity them, and
+make allowances for them; but we do not consider that the same principle
+applies to human actions generally. Not to have been found out in some
+dishonesty or folly, regarded from a moral or religious point of view,
+is the greatest of misfortunes. The success of our evil doings is a
+proof that the gods have ceased to strive with us, and have given
+us over to ourselves. There is nothing to remind us of our sins, and
+therefore nothing to correct them. Like our sorrows, they are healed by
+time;
+
+     'While rank corruption, mining all within,
+     Infects unseen.'
+
+The 'accustomed irony' of Socrates adds a corollary to the
+argument:--'Would you punish your enemy, you should allow him to escape
+unpunished'--this is the true retaliation. (Compare the obscure verse of
+Proverbs, 'Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him,' etc., quoted in
+Romans.)
+
+Men are not in the habit of dwelling upon the dark side of their own
+lives: they do not easily see themselves as others see them. They are
+very kind and very blind to their own faults; the rhetoric of self-love
+is always pleading with them on their own behalf. Adopting a similar
+figure of speech, Socrates would have them use rhetoric, not in defence
+but in accusation of themselves. As they are guided by feeling rather
+than by reason, to their feelings the appeal must be made. They must
+speak to themselves; they must argue with themselves; they must paint in
+eloquent words the character of their own evil deeds. To any suffering
+which they have deserved, they must persuade themselves to submit. Under
+the figure there lurks a real thought, which, expressed in another form,
+admits of an easy application to ourselves. For do not we too accuse as
+well as excuse ourselves? And we call to our aid the rhetoric of prayer
+and preaching, which the mind silently employs while the struggle
+between the better and the worse is going on within us. And sometimes
+we are too hard upon ourselves, because we want to restore the balance
+which self-love has overthrown or disturbed; and then again we may hear
+a voice as of a parent consoling us. In religious diaries a sort of
+drama is often enacted by the consciences of men 'accusing or
+else excusing them.' For all our life long we are talking with
+ourselves:--What is thought but speech? What is feeling but rhetoric?
+And if rhetoric is used on one side only we shall be always in danger
+of being deceived. And so the words of Socrates, which at first sounded
+paradoxical, come home to the experience of all of us.
+
+Third Thesis:--
+
+We do not what we will, but what we wish.
+
+Socrates would teach us a lesson which we are slow to learn--that good
+intentions, and even benevolent actions, when they are not prompted by
+wisdom, are of no value. We believe something to be for our good which
+we afterwards find out not to be for our good. The consequences may be
+inevitable, for they may follow an invariable law, yet they may often be
+the very opposite of what is expected by us. When we increase pauperism
+by almsgiving; when we tie up property without regard to changes of
+circumstances; when we say hastily what we deliberately disapprove; when
+we do in a moment of passion what upon reflection we regret; when from
+any want of self-control we give another an advantage over us--we are
+doing not what we will, but what we wish. All actions of which the
+consequences are not weighed and foreseen, are of this impotent and
+paralytic sort; and the author of them has 'the least possible power'
+while seeming to have the greatest. For he is actually bringing about
+the reverse of what he intended. And yet the book of nature is open
+to him, in which he who runs may read if he will exercise ordinary
+attention; every day offers him experiences of his own and of other
+men's characters, and he passes them unheeded by. The contemplation of
+the consequences of actions, and the ignorance of men in regard to them,
+seems to have led Socrates to his famous thesis:--'Virtue is knowledge;'
+which is not so much an error or paradox as a half truth, seen first in
+the twilight of ethical philosophy, but also the half of the truth which
+is especially needed in the present age. For as the world has grown
+older men have been too apt to imagine a right and wrong apart from
+consequences; while a few, on the other hand, have sought to resolve
+them wholly into their consequences. But Socrates, or Plato for him,
+neither divides nor identifies them; though the time has not yet arrived
+either for utilitarian or transcendental systems of moral philosophy, he
+recognizes the two elements which seem to lie at the basis of morality.
+(Compare the following: 'Now, and for us, it is a time to Hellenize and
+to praise knowing; for we have Hebraized too much and have overvalued
+doing. But the habits and discipline received from Hebraism remain for
+our race an eternal possession. And as humanity is constituted, one must
+never assign the second rank to-day without being ready to restore them
+to the first to-morrow.' Sir William W. Hunter, Preface to Orissa.)
+
+Fourth Thesis:--
+
+To be and not to seem is the end of life.
+
+The Greek in the age of Plato admitted praise to be one of the chief
+incentives to moral virtue, and to most men the opinion of their fellows
+is a leading principle of action. Hence a certain element of seeming
+enters into all things; all or almost all desire to appear better than
+they are, that they may win the esteem or admiration of others. A man of
+ability can easily feign the language of piety or virtue; and there
+is an unconscious as well as a conscious hypocrisy which, according
+to Socrates, is the worst of the two. Again, there is the sophistry
+of classes and professions. There are the different opinions about
+themselves and one another which prevail in different ranks of society.
+There is the bias given to the mind by the study of one department
+of human knowledge to the exclusion of the rest; and stronger far the
+prejudice engendered by a pecuniary or party interest in certain tenets.
+There is the sophistry of law, the sophistry of medicine, the sophistry
+of politics, the sophistry of theology. All of these disguises wear the
+appearance of the truth; some of them are very ancient, and we do not
+easily disengage ourselves from them; for we have inherited them, and
+they have become a part of us. The sophistry of an ancient Greek sophist
+is nothing compared with the sophistry of a religious order, or of a
+church in which during many ages falsehood has been accumulating, and
+everything has been said on one side, and nothing on the other. The
+conventions and customs which we observe in conversation, and the
+opposition of our interests when we have dealings with one another ('the
+buyer saith, it is nought--it is nought,' etc.), are always obscuring
+our sense of truth and right. The sophistry of human nature is far more
+subtle than the deceit of any one man. Few persons speak freely from
+their own natures, and scarcely any one dares to think for himself: most
+of us imperceptibly fall into the opinions of those around us, which
+we partly help to make. A man who would shake himself loose from them,
+requires great force of mind; he hardly knows where to begin in the
+search after truth. On every side he is met by the world, which is not
+an abstraction of theologians, but the most real of all things, being
+another name for ourselves when regarded collectively and subjected to
+the influences of society.
+
+Then comes Socrates, impressed as no other man ever was, with the
+unreality and untruthfulness of popular opinion, and tells mankind that
+they must be and not seem. How are they to be? At any rate they must
+have the spirit and desire to be. If they are ignorant, they must
+acknowledge their ignorance to themselves; if they are conscious of
+doing evil, they must learn to do well; if they are weak, and have
+nothing in them which they can call themselves, they must acquire
+firmness and consistency; if they are indifferent, they must begin to
+take an interest in the great questions which surround them. They must
+try to be what they would fain appear in the eyes of their fellow-men.
+A single individual cannot easily change public opinion; but he can be
+true and innocent, simple and independent; he can know what he does, and
+what he does not know; and though not without an effort, he can form
+a judgment of his own, at least in common matters. In his most secret
+actions he can show the same high principle (compare Republic) which he
+shows when supported and watched by public opinion. And on some fitting
+occasion, on some question of humanity or truth or right, even an
+ordinary man, from the natural rectitude of his disposition, may be
+found to take up arms against a whole tribe of politicians and lawyers,
+and be too much for them.
+
+Who is the true and who the false statesman?--
+
+The true statesman is he who brings order out of disorder; who first
+organizes and then administers the government of his own country; and
+having made a nation, seeks to reconcile the national interests with
+those of Europe and of mankind. He is not a mere theorist, nor yet a
+dealer in expedients; the whole and the parts grow together in his mind;
+while the head is conceiving, the hand is executing. Although obliged to
+descend to the world, he is not of the world. His thoughts are fixed not
+on power or riches or extension of territory, but on an ideal state, in
+which all the citizens have an equal chance of health and life, and
+the highest education is within the reach of all, and the moral and
+intellectual qualities of every individual are freely developed, and
+'the idea of good' is the animating principle of the whole. Not the
+attainment of freedom alone, or of order alone, but how to unite freedom
+with order is the problem which he has to solve.
+
+The statesman who places before himself these lofty aims has undertaken
+a task which will call forth all his powers. He must control himself
+before he can control others; he must know mankind before he can manage
+them. He has no private likes or dislikes; he does not conceal personal
+enmity under the disguise of moral or political principle: such
+meannesses, into which men too often fall unintentionally, are absorbed
+in the consciousness of his mission, and in his love for his country and
+for mankind. He will sometimes ask himself what the next generation will
+say of him; not because he is careful of posthumous fame, but because
+he knows that the result of his life as a whole will then be more fairly
+judged. He will take time for the execution of his plans; not hurrying
+them on when the mind of a nation is unprepared for them; but like the
+Ruler of the Universe Himself, working in the appointed time, for
+he knows that human life, 'if not long in comparison with eternity'
+(Republic), is sufficient for the fulfilment of many great purposes. He
+knows, too, that the work will be still going on when he is no longer
+here; and he will sometimes, especially when his powers are failing,
+think of that other 'city of which the pattern is in heaven' (Republic).
+
+The false politician is the serving-man of the state. In order to govern
+men he becomes like them; their 'minds are married in conjunction;' they
+'bear themselves' like vulgar and tyrannical masters, and he is their
+obedient servant. The true politician, if he would rule men, must make
+them like himself; he must 'educate his party' until they cease to be
+a party; he must breathe into them the spirit which will hereafter give
+form to their institutions. Politics with him are not a mechanism for
+seeming what he is not, or for carrying out the will of the majority.
+Himself a representative man, he is the representative not of the lower
+but of the higher elements of the nation. There is a better (as well as
+a worse) public opinion of which he seeks to lay hold; as there is also
+a deeper current of human affairs in which he is borne up when the waves
+nearer the shore are threatening him. He acknowledges that he cannot
+take the world by force--two or three moves on the political chess board
+are all that he can fore see--two or three weeks moves on the political
+chessboard are all that he can foresee--two or three weeks or months are
+granted to him in which he can provide against a coming struggle. But
+he knows also that there are permanent principles of politics which
+are always tending to the well-being of states--better administration,
+better education, the reconciliation of conflicting elements, increased
+security against external enemies. These are not 'of to-day or
+yesterday,' but are the same in all times, and under all forms of
+government. Then when the storm descends and the winds blow, though he
+knows not beforehand the hour of danger, the pilot, not like Plato's
+captain in the Republic, half-blind and deaf, but with penetrating eye
+and quick ear, is ready to take command of the ship and guide her into
+port.
+
+The false politician asks not what is true, but what is the opinion of
+the world--not what is right, but what is expedient. The only measures
+of which he approves are the measures which will pass. He has no
+intention of fighting an uphill battle; he keeps the roadway of
+politics. He is unwilling to incur the persecution and enmity which
+political convictions would entail upon him. He begins with popularity,
+and in fair weather sails gallantly along. But unpopularity soon
+follows him. For men expect their leaders to be better and wiser than
+themselves: to be their guides in danger, their saviours in extremity;
+they do not really desire them to obey all the ignorant impulses of the
+popular mind; and if they fail them in a crisis they are disappointed.
+Then, as Socrates says, the cry of ingratitude is heard, which is most
+unreasonable; for the people, who have been taught no better, have
+done what might be expected of them, and their statesmen have received
+justice at their hands.
+
+The true statesman is aware that he must adapt himself to times and
+circumstances. He must have allies if he is to fight against the world;
+he must enlighten public opinion; he must accustom his followers to
+act together. Although he is not the mere executor of the will of the
+majority, he must win over the majority to himself. He is their leader
+and not their follower, but in order to lead he must also follow. He
+will neither exaggerate nor undervalue the power of a statesman, neither
+adopting the 'laissez faire' nor the 'paternal government' principle;
+but he will, whether he is dealing with children in politics, or with
+full-grown men, seek to do for the people what the government can do
+for them, and what, from imperfect education or deficient powers of
+combination, they cannot do for themselves. He knows that if he does too
+much for them they will do nothing; and that if he does nothing for them
+they will in some states of society be utterly helpless. For the many
+cannot exist without the few, if the material force of a country is from
+below, wisdom and experience are from above. It is not a small part of
+human evils which kings and governments make or cure. The statesman is
+well aware that a great purpose carried out consistently during many
+years will at last be executed. He is playing for a stake which may be
+partly determined by some accident, and therefore he will allow largely
+for the unknown element of politics. But the game being one in which
+chance and skill are combined, if he plays long enough he is certain of
+victory. He will not be always consistent, for the world is changing;
+and though he depends upon the support of a party, he will remember that
+he is the minister of the whole. He lives not for the present, but for
+the future, and he is not at all sure that he will be appreciated either
+now or then. For he may have the existing order of society against him,
+and may not be remembered by a distant posterity.
+
+There are always discontented idealists in politics who, like Socrates
+in the Gorgias, find fault with all statesmen past as well as present,
+not excepting the greatest names of history. Mankind have an uneasy
+feeling that they ought to be better governed than they are. Just as the
+actual philosopher falls short of the one wise man, so does the actual
+statesman fall short of the ideal. And so partly from vanity and
+egotism, but partly also from a true sense of the faults of eminent men,
+a temper of dissatisfaction and criticism springs up among those who
+are ready enough to acknowledge the inferiority of their own powers. No
+matter whether a statesman makes high professions or none at all--they
+are reduced sooner or later to the same level. And sometimes the more
+unscrupulous man is better esteemed than the more conscientious, because
+he has not equally deceived expectations. Such sentiments may be unjust,
+but they are widely spread; we constantly find them recurring in reviews
+and newspapers, and still oftener in private conversation.
+
+We may further observe that the art of government, while in some
+respects tending to improve, has in others a tendency to degenerate, as
+institutions become more popular. Governing for the people cannot easily
+be combined with governing by the people: the interests of classes are
+too strong for the ideas of the statesman who takes a comprehensive view
+of the whole. According to Socrates the true governor will find ruin or
+death staring him in the face, and will only be induced to govern from
+the fear of being governed by a worse man than himself (Republic). And
+in modern times, though the world has grown milder, and the terrible
+consequences which Plato foretells no longer await an English statesman,
+any one who is not actuated by a blind ambition will only undertake from
+a sense of duty a work in which he is most likely to fail; and even
+if he succeed, will rarely be rewarded by the gratitude of his own
+generation.
+
+Socrates, who is not a politician at all, tells us that he is the only
+real politician of his time. Let us illustrate the meaning of his words
+by applying them to the history of our own country. He would have
+said that not Pitt or Fox, or Canning or Sir R. Peel, are the real
+politicians of their time, but Locke, Hume, Adam Smith, Bentham,
+Ricardo. These during the greater part of their lives occupied an
+inconsiderable space in the eyes of the public. They were private
+persons; nevertheless they sowed in the minds of men seeds which in
+the next generation have become an irresistible power. 'Herein is that
+saying true, One soweth and another reapeth.' We may imagine with
+Plato an ideal statesman in whom practice and speculation are perfectly
+harmonized; for there is no necessary opposition between them.
+But experience shows that they are commonly divorced--the ordinary
+politician is the interpreter or executor of the thoughts of others, and
+hardly ever brings to the birth a new political conception. One or two
+only in modern times, like the Italian statesman Cavour, have created
+the world in which they moved. The philosopher is naturally unfitted for
+political life; his great ideas are not understood by the many; he is a
+thousand miles away from the questions of the day. Yet perhaps the lives
+of thinkers, as they are stiller and deeper, are also happier than the
+lives of those who are more in the public eye. They have the promise
+of the future, though they are regarded as dreamers and visionaries by
+their own contemporaries. And when they are no longer here, those who
+would have been ashamed of them during their lives claim kindred with
+them, and are proud to be called by their names. (Compare Thucyd.)
+
+Who is the true poet?
+
+Plato expels the poets from his Republic because they are allied to
+sense; because they stimulate the emotions; because they are thrice
+removed from the ideal truth. And in a similar spirit he declares in the
+Gorgias that the stately muse of tragedy is a votary of pleasure and
+not of truth. In modern times we almost ridicule the idea of poetry
+admitting of a moral. The poet and the prophet, or preacher, in
+primitive antiquity are one and the same; but in later ages they seem
+to fall apart. The great art of novel writing, that peculiar creation
+of our own and the last century, which, together with the sister art
+of review writing, threatens to absorb all literature, has even less of
+seriousness in her composition. Do we not often hear the novel writer
+censured for attempting to convey a lesson to the minds of his readers?
+
+Yet the true office of a poet or writer of fiction is not merely to give
+amusement, or to be the expression of the feelings of mankind, good or
+bad, or even to increase our knowledge of human nature. There have
+been poets in modern times, such as Goethe or Wordsworth, who have not
+forgotten their high vocation of teachers; and the two greatest of the
+Greek dramatists owe their sublimity to their ethical character. The
+noblest truths, sung of in the purest and sweetest language, are still
+the proper material of poetry. The poet clothes them with beauty, and
+has a power of making them enter into the hearts and memories of men. He
+has not only to speak of themes above the level of ordinary life, but
+to speak of them in a deeper and tenderer way than they are ordinarily
+felt, so as to awaken the feeling of them in others. The old he makes
+young again; the familiar principle he invests with a new dignity; he
+finds a noble expression for the common-places of morality and politics.
+He uses the things of sense so as to indicate what is beyond; he raises
+us through earth to heaven. He expresses what the better part of us
+would fain say, and the half-conscious feeling is strengthened by
+the expression. He is his own critic, for the spirit of poetry and of
+criticism are not divided in him. His mission is not to disguise men
+from themselves, but to reveal to them their own nature, and make
+them better acquainted with the world around them. True poetry is the
+remembrance of youth, of love, the embodiment in words of the happiest
+and holiest moments of life, of the noblest thoughts of man, of the
+greatest deeds of the past. The poet of the future may return to his
+greater calling of the prophet or teacher; indeed, we hardly know what
+may not be effected for the human race by a better use of the poetical
+and imaginative faculty. The reconciliation of poetry, as of religion,
+with truth, may still be possible. Neither is the element of pleasure
+to be excluded. For when we substitute a higher pleasure for a lower we
+raise men in the scale of existence. Might not the novelist, too, make
+an ideal, or rather many ideals of social life, better than a thousand
+sermons? Plato, like the Puritans, is too much afraid of poetic and
+artistic influences. But he is not without a true sense of the noble
+purposes to which art may be applied (Republic).
+
+Modern poetry is often a sort of plaything, or, in Plato's language, a
+flattery, a sophistry, or sham, in which, without any serious purpose,
+the poet lends wings to his fancy and exhibits his gifts of language and
+metre. Such an one seeks to gratify the taste of his readers; he has the
+'savoir faire,' or trick of writing, but he has not the higher spirit
+of poetry. He has no conception that true art should bring order out of
+disorder; that it should make provision for the soul's highest interest;
+that it should be pursued only with a view to 'the improvement of the
+citizens.' He ministers to the weaker side of human nature (Republic);
+he idealizes the sensual; he sings the strain of love in the latest
+fashion; instead of raising men above themselves he brings them back to
+the 'tyranny of the many masters,' from which all his life long a good
+man has been praying to be delivered. And often, forgetful of measure
+and order, he will express not that which is truest, but that which is
+strongest. Instead of a great and nobly-executed subject, perfect
+in every part, some fancy of a heated brain is worked out with the
+strangest incongruity. He is not the master of his words, but his
+words--perhaps borrowed from another--the faded reflection of some
+French or German or Italian writer, have the better of him. Though
+we are not going to banish the poets, how can we suppose that such
+utterances have any healing or life-giving influence on the minds of
+men?
+
+'Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:' Art then must be true,
+and politics must be true, and the life of man must be true and not a
+seeming or sham. In all of them order has to be brought out of disorder,
+truth out of error and falsehood. This is what we mean by the greatest
+improvement of man. And so, having considered in what way 'we can best
+spend the appointed time, we leave the result with God.' Plato does not
+say that God will order all things for the best (compare Phaedo), but
+he indirectly implies that the evils of this life will be corrected
+in another. And as we are very far from the best imaginable world at
+present, Plato here, as in the Phaedo and Republic, supposes a purgatory
+or place of education for mankind in general, and for a very few a
+Tartarus or hell. The myth which terminates the dialogue is not the
+revelation, but rather, like all similar descriptions, whether in the
+Bible or Plato, the veil of another life. For no visible thing can
+reveal the invisible. Of this Plato, unlike some commentators on
+Scripture, is fully aware. Neither will he dogmatize about the manner
+in which we are 'born again' (Republic). Only he is prepared to maintain
+the ultimate triumph of truth and right, and declares that no one, not
+even the wisest of the Greeks, can affirm any other doctrine without
+being ridiculous.
+
+There is a further paradox of ethics, in which pleasure and pain are
+held to be indifferent, and virtue at the time of action and without
+regard to consequences is happiness. From this elevation or exaggeration
+of feeling Plato seems to shrink: he leaves it to the Stoics in a later
+generation to maintain that when impaled or on the rack the philosopher
+may be happy (compare Republic). It is observable that in the Republic
+he raises this question, but it is not really discussed; the veil of the
+ideal state, the shadow of another life, are allowed to descend upon it
+and it passes out of sight. The martyr or sufferer in the cause of right
+or truth is often supposed to die in raptures, having his eye fixed on a
+city which is in heaven. But if there were no future, might he not still
+be happy in the performance of an action which was attended only by a
+painful death? He himself may be ready to thank God that he was thought
+worthy to do Him the least service, without looking for a reward; the
+joys of another life may not have been present to his mind at all. Do
+we suppose that the mediaeval saint, St. Bernard, St. Francis, St.
+Catharine of Sienna, or the Catholic priest who lately devoted himself
+to death by a lingering disease that he might solace and help others,
+was thinking of the 'sweets' of heaven? No; the work was already heaven
+to him and enough. Much less will the dying patriot be dreaming of
+the praises of man or of an immortality of fame: the sense of duty, of
+right, and trust in God will be sufficient, and as far as the mind can
+reach, in that hour. If he were certain that there were no life to come,
+he would not have wished to speak or act otherwise than he did in the
+cause of truth or of humanity. Neither, on the other hand, will he
+suppose that God has forsaken him or that the future is to be a mere
+blank to him. The greatest act of faith, the only faith which cannot
+pass away, is his who has not known, but yet has believed. A very few
+among the sons of men have made themselves independent of circumstances,
+past, present, or to come. He who has attained to such a temper of mind
+has already present with him eternal life; he needs no arguments to
+convince him of immortality; he has in him already a principle stronger
+than death. He who serves man without the thought of reward is deemed
+to be a more faithful servant than he who works for hire. May not the
+service of God, which is the more disinterested, be in like manner
+the higher? And although only a very few in the course of the world's
+history--Christ himself being one of them--have attained to such a noble
+conception of God and of the human soul, yet the ideal of them may be
+present to us, and the remembrance of them be an example to us, and
+their lives may shed a light on many dark places both of philosophy and
+theology.
+
+THE MYTHS OF PLATO.
+
+The myths of Plato are a phenomenon unique in literature. There are four
+longer ones: these occur in the Phaedrus, Phaedo, Gorgias, and Republic.
+That in the Republic is the most elaborate and finished of them. Three
+of these greater myths, namely those contained in the Phaedo, the
+Gorgias and the Republic, relate to the destiny of human souls in
+a future life. The magnificent myth in the Phaedrus treats of the
+immortality, or rather the eternity of the soul, in which is included
+a former as well as a future state of existence. To these may be added,
+(1) the myth, or rather fable, occurring in the Statesman, in which the
+life of innocence is contrasted with the ordinary life of man and the
+consciousness of evil: (2) the legend of the Island of Atlantis, an
+imaginary history, which is a fragment only, commenced in the Timaeus
+and continued in the Critias: (3) the much less artistic fiction of the
+foundation of the Cretan colony which is introduced in the preface to
+the Laws, but soon falls into the background: (4) the beautiful but
+rather artificial tale of Prometheus and Epimetheus narrated in his
+rhetorical manner by Protagoras in the dialogue called after him: (5)
+the speech at the beginning of the Phaedrus, which is a parody of the
+orator Lysias; the rival speech of Socrates and the recantation of it.
+To these may be added (6) the tale of the grasshoppers, and (7) the tale
+of Thamus and of Theuth, both in the Phaedrus: (8) the parable of the
+Cave (Republic), in which the previous argument is recapitulated, and
+the nature and degrees of knowledge having been previously set forth
+in the abstract are represented in a picture: (9) the fiction of the
+earth-born men (Republic; compare Laws), in which by the adaptation of
+an old tradition Plato makes a new beginning for his society: (10) the
+myth of Aristophanes respecting the division of the sexes, Sym.: (11)
+the parable of the noble captain, the pilot, and the mutinous sailors
+(Republic), in which is represented the relation of the better part of
+the world, and of the philosopher, to the mob of politicians: (12) the
+ironical tale of the pilot who plies between Athens and Aegina charging
+only a small payment for saving men from death, the reason being that he
+is uncertain whether to live or die is better for them (Gor.): (13) the
+treatment of freemen and citizens by physicians and of slaves by
+their apprentices,--a somewhat laboured figure of speech intended to
+illustrate the two different ways in which the laws speak to men (Laws).
+There also occur in Plato continuous images; some of them extend over
+several pages, appearing and reappearing at intervals: such as the bees
+stinging and stingless (paupers and thieves) in the Eighth Book of
+the Republic, who are generated in the transition from timocracy to
+oligarchy: the sun, which is to the visible world what the idea of good
+is to the intellectual, in the Sixth Book of the Republic: the composite
+animal, having the form of a man, but containing under a human skin a
+lion and a many-headed monster (Republic): the great beast, i.e. the
+populace: and the wild beast within us, meaning the passions which are
+always liable to break out: the animated comparisons of the degradation
+of philosophy by the arts to the dishonoured maiden, and of the tyrant
+to the parricide, who 'beats his father, having first taken away his
+arms': the dog, who is your only philosopher: the grotesque and rather
+paltry image of the argument wandering about without a head (Laws),
+which is repeated, not improved, from the Gorgias: the argument
+personified as veiling her face (Republic), as engaged in a chase, as
+breaking upon us in a first, second and third wave:--on these figures
+of speech the changes are rung many times over. It is observable
+that nearly all these parables or continuous images are found in the
+Republic; that which occurs in the Theaetetus, of the midwifery of
+Socrates, is perhaps the only exception. To make the list complete,
+the mathematical figure of the number of the state (Republic), or the
+numerical interval which separates king from tyrant, should not be
+forgotten.
+
+The myth in the Gorgias is one of those descriptions of another life
+which, like the Sixth Aeneid of Virgil, appear to contain reminiscences
+of the mysteries. It is a vision of the rewards and punishments which
+await good and bad men after death. It supposes the body to continue
+and to be in another world what it has become in this. It includes a
+Paradiso, Purgatorio, and Inferno, like the sister myths of the Phaedo
+and the Republic. The Inferno is reserved for great criminals only.
+The argument of the dialogue is frequently referred to, and the meaning
+breaks through so as rather to destroy the liveliness and consistency
+of the picture. The structure of the fiction is very slight, the chief
+point or moral being that in the judgments of another world there is
+no possibility of concealment: Zeus has taken from men the power of
+foreseeing death, and brings together the souls both of them and their
+judges naked and undisguised at the judgment-seat. Both are exposed to
+view, stripped of the veils and clothes which might prevent them from
+seeing into or being seen by one another.
+
+The myth of the Phaedo is of the same type, but it is more cosmological,
+and also more poetical. The beautiful and ingenious fancy occurs
+to Plato that the upper atmosphere is an earth and heaven in one, a
+glorified earth, fairer and purer than that in which we dwell. As the
+fishes live in the ocean, mankind are living in a lower sphere, out
+of which they put their heads for a moment or two and behold a world
+beyond. The earth which we inhabit is a sediment of the coarser
+particles which drop from the world above, and is to that heavenly earth
+what the desert and the shores of the ocean are to us. A part of the
+myth consists of description of the interior of the earth, which
+gives the opportunity of introducing several mythological names and
+of providing places of torment for the wicked. There is no clear
+distinction of soul and body; the spirits beneath the earth are spoken
+of as souls only, yet they retain a sort of shadowy form when they cry
+for mercy on the shores of the lake; and the philosopher alone is said
+to have got rid of the body. All the three myths in Plato which relate
+to the world below have a place for repentant sinners, as well as
+other homes or places for the very good and very bad. It is a natural
+reflection which is made by Plato elsewhere, that the two extremes of
+human character are rarely met with, and that the generality of mankind
+are between them. Hence a place must be found for them. In the myth of
+the Phaedo they are carried down the river Acheron to the Acherusian
+lake, where they dwell, and are purified of their evil deeds, and
+receive the rewards of their good. There are also incurable sinners,
+who are cast into Tartarus, there to remain as the penalty of atrocious
+crimes; these suffer everlastingly. And there is another class of
+hardly-curable sinners who are allowed from time to time to approach
+the shores of the Acherusian lake, where they cry to their victims for
+mercy; which if they obtain they come out into the lake and cease from
+their torments.
+
+Neither this, nor any of the three greater myths of Plato, nor perhaps
+any allegory or parable relating to the unseen world, is consistent
+with itself. The language of philosophy mingles with that of mythology;
+abstract ideas are transformed into persons, figures of speech into
+realities. These myths may be compared with the Pilgrim's Progress of
+Bunyan, in which discussions of theology are mixed up with the incidents
+of travel, and mythological personages are associated with human beings:
+they are also garnished with names and phrases taken out of Homer, and
+with other fragments of Greek tradition.
+
+The myth of the Republic is more subtle and also more consistent than
+either of the two others. It has a greater verisimilitude than they
+have, and is full of touches which recall the experiences of human life.
+It will be noticed by an attentive reader that the twelve days during
+which Er lay in a trance after he was slain coincide with the time
+passed by the spirits in their pilgrimage. It is a curious observation,
+not often made, that good men who have lived in a well-governed city
+(shall we say in a religious and respectable society?) are more likely
+to make mistakes in their choice of life than those who have had more
+experience of the world and of evil. It is a more familiar remark that
+we constantly blame others when we have only ourselves to blame; and
+the philosopher must acknowledge, however reluctantly, that there is an
+element of chance in human life with which it is sometimes impossible
+for man to cope. That men drink more of the waters of forgetfulness than
+is good for them is a poetical description of a familiar truth. We have
+many of us known men who, like Odysseus, have wearied of ambition
+and have only desired rest. We should like to know what became of the
+infants 'dying almost as soon as they were born,' but Plato only raises,
+without satisfying, our curiosity. The two companies of souls, ascending
+and descending at either chasm of heaven and earth, and conversing
+when they come out into the meadow, the majestic figures of the judges
+sitting in heaven, the voice heard by Ardiaeus, are features of the
+great allegory which have an indescribable grandeur and power. The
+remark already made respecting the inconsistency of the two other myths
+must be extended also to this: it is at once an orrery, or model of the
+heavens, and a picture of the Day of Judgment.
+
+The three myths are unlike anything else in Plato. There is an Oriental,
+or rather an Egyptian element in them, and they have an affinity to the
+mysteries and to the Orphic modes of worship. To a certain extent they
+are un-Greek; at any rate there is hardly anything like them in
+other Greek writings which have a serious purpose; in spirit they are
+mediaeval. They are akin to what may be termed the underground religion
+in all ages and countries. They are presented in the most lively and
+graphic manner, but they are never insisted on as true; it is only
+affirmed that nothing better can be said about a future life. Plato
+seems to make use of them when he has reached the limits of human
+knowledge; or, to borrow an expression of his own, when he is standing
+on the outside of the intellectual world. They are very simple in style;
+a few touches bring the picture home to the mind, and make it present
+to us. They have also a kind of authority gained by the employment
+of sacred and familiar names, just as mere fragments of the words of
+Scripture, put together in any form and applied to any subject, have a
+power of their own. They are a substitute for poetry and mythology; and
+they are also a reform of mythology. The moral of them may be summed up
+in a word or two: After death the Judgment; and 'there is some better
+thing remaining for the good than for the evil.'
+
+All literature gathers into itself many elements of the past: for
+example, the tale of the earth-born men in the Republic appears at first
+sight to be an extravagant fancy, but it is restored to propriety when
+we remember that it is based on a legendary belief. The art of making
+stories of ghosts and apparitions credible is said to consist in the
+manner of telling them. The effect is gained by many literary and
+conversational devices, such as the previous raising of curiosity,
+the mention of little circumstances, simplicity, picturesqueness, the
+naturalness of the occasion, and the like. This art is possessed by
+Plato in a degree which has never been equalled.
+
+The myth in the Phaedrus is even greater than the myths which have
+been already described, but is of a different character. It treats of
+a former rather than of a future life. It represents the conflict of
+reason aided by passion or righteous indignation on the one hand, and
+of the animal lusts and instincts on the other. The soul of man has
+followed the company of some god, and seen truth in the form of the
+universal before it was born in this world. Our present life is the
+result of the struggle which was then carried on. This world is relative
+to a former world, as it is often projected into a future. We ask the
+question, Where were men before birth? As we likewise enquire, What will
+become of them after death? The first question is unfamiliar to us, and
+therefore seems to be unnatural; but if we survey the whole human race,
+it has been as influential and as widely spread as the other. In the
+Phaedrus it is really a figure of speech in which the 'spiritual
+combat' of this life is represented. The majesty and power of the whole
+passage--especially of what may be called the theme or proem (beginning
+'The mind through all her being is immortal')--can only be rendered very
+inadequately in another language.
+
+The myth in the Statesman relates to a former cycle of existence, in
+which men were born of the earth, and by the reversal of the earth's
+motion had their lives reversed and were restored to youth and beauty:
+the dead came to life, the old grew middle-aged, and the middle-aged
+young; the youth became a child, the child an infant, the infant
+vanished into the earth. The connection between the reversal of the
+earth's motion and the reversal of human life is of course verbal only,
+yet Plato, like theologians in other ages, argues from the consistency
+of the tale to its truth. The new order of the world was immediately
+under the government of God; it was a state of innocence in which men
+had neither wants nor cares, in which the earth brought forth all things
+spontaneously, and God was to man what man now is to the animals. There
+were no great estates, or families, or private possessions, nor any
+traditions of the past, because men were all born out of the earth.
+This is what Plato calls the 'reign of Cronos;' and in like manner he
+connects the reversal of the earth's motion with some legend of which he
+himself was probably the inventor.
+
+The question is then asked, under which of these two cycles of existence
+was man the happier,--under that of Cronos, which was a state of
+innocence, or that of Zeus, which is our ordinary life? For a while
+Plato balances the two sides of the serious controversy, which he has
+suggested in a figure. The answer depends on another question: What
+use did the children of Cronos make of their time? They had boundless
+leisure and the faculty of discoursing, not only with one another,
+but with the animals. Did they employ these advantages with a view to
+philosophy, gathering from every nature some addition to their store
+of knowledge? or, Did they pass their time in eating and drinking and
+telling stories to one another and to the beasts?--in either case
+there would be no difficulty in answering. But then, as Plato rather
+mischievously adds, 'Nobody knows what they did,' and therefore the
+doubt must remain undetermined.
+
+To the first there succeeds a second epoch. After another natural
+convulsion, in which the order of the world and of human life is once
+more reversed, God withdraws his guiding hand, and man is left to the
+government of himself. The world begins again, and arts and laws are
+slowly and painfully invented. A secular age succeeds to a theocratical.
+In this fanciful tale Plato has dropped, or almost dropped, the garb of
+mythology. He suggests several curious and important thoughts, such
+as the possibility of a state of innocence, the existence of a world
+without traditions, and the difference between human and divine
+government. He has also carried a step further his speculations
+concerning the abolition of the family and of property, which he
+supposes to have no place among the children of Cronos any more than in
+the ideal state.
+
+It is characteristic of Plato and of his age to pass from the abstract
+to the concrete, from poetry to reality. Language is the expression of
+the seen, and also of the unseen, and moves in a region between them. A
+great writer knows how to strike both these chords, sometimes remaining
+within the sphere of the visible, and then again comprehending a wider
+range and soaring to the abstract and universal. Even in the same
+sentence he may employ both modes of speech not improperly or
+inharmoniously. It is useless to criticise the broken metaphors of
+Plato, if the effect of the whole is to create a picture not such as
+can be painted on canvas, but which is full of life and meaning to the
+reader. A poem may be contained in a word or two, which may call up not
+one but many latent images; or half reveal to us by a sudden flash the
+thoughts of many hearts. Often the rapid transition from one image
+to another is pleasing to us: on the other hand, any single figure of
+speech if too often repeated, or worked out too much at length, becomes
+prosy and monotonous. In theology and philosophy we necessarily include
+both 'the moral law within and the starry heaven above,' and pass from
+one to the other (compare for examples Psalms xviii. and xix.). Whether
+such a use of language is puerile or noble depends upon the genius of
+the writer or speaker, and the familiarity of the associations employed.
+
+In the myths and parables of Plato the ease and grace of conversation
+is not forgotten: they are spoken, not written words, stories which
+are told to a living audience, and so well told that we are more than
+half-inclined to believe them (compare Phaedrus). As in conversation
+too, the striking image or figure of speech is not forgotten, but is
+quickly caught up, and alluded to again and again; as it would still be
+in our own day in a genial and sympathetic society. The descriptions of
+Plato have a greater life and reality than is to be found in any modern
+writing. This is due to their homeliness and simplicity. Plato can do
+with words just as he pleases; to him they are indeed 'more plastic than
+wax' (Republic). We are in the habit of opposing speech and writing,
+poetry and prose. But he has discovered a use of language in which they
+are united; which gives a fitting expression to the highest truths; and
+in which the trifles of courtesy and the familiarities of daily life are
+not overlooked.
+
+*****
+
+
+
+
+GORGIAS
+
+By Plato
+
+Translated by Benjamin Jowett
+
+
+PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Callicles, Socrates, Chaerephon, Gorgias,
+Polus.
+
+SCENE: The house of Callicles.
+
+
+CALLICLES: The wise man, as the proverb says, is late for a fray, but
+not for a feast.
+
+SOCRATES: And are we late for a feast?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes, and a delightful feast; for Gorgias has just been
+exhibiting to us many fine things.
+
+SOCRATES: It is not my fault, Callicles; our friend Chaerephon is to
+blame; for he would keep us loitering in the Agora.
+
+CHAEREPHON: Never mind, Socrates; the misfortune of which I have been
+the cause I will also repair; for Gorgias is a friend of mine, and I
+will make him give the exhibition again either now, or, if you prefer,
+at some other time.
+
+CALLICLES: What is the matter, Chaerephon--does Socrates want to hear
+Gorgias?
+
+CHAEREPHON: Yes, that was our intention in coming.
+
+CALLICLES: Come into my house, then; for Gorgias is staying with me, and
+he shall exhibit to you.
+
+SOCRATES: Very good, Callicles; but will he answer our questions? for
+I want to hear from him what is the nature of his art, and what it is
+which he professes and teaches; he may, as you (Chaerephon) suggest,
+defer the exhibition to some other time.
+
+CALLICLES: There is nothing like asking him, Socrates; and indeed to
+answer questions is a part of his exhibition, for he was saying only
+just now, that any one in my house might put any question to him, and
+that he would answer.
+
+SOCRATES: How fortunate! will you ask him, Chaerephon--?
+
+CHAEREPHON: What shall I ask him?
+
+SOCRATES: Ask him who he is.
+
+CHAEREPHON: What do you mean?
+
+SOCRATES: I mean such a question as would elicit from him, if he
+had been a maker of shoes, the answer that he is a cobbler. Do you
+understand?
+
+CHAEREPHON: I understand, and will ask him: Tell me, Gorgias, is our
+friend Callicles right in saying that you undertake to answer any
+questions which you are asked?
+
+GORGIAS: Quite right, Chaerephon: I was saying as much only just now;
+and I may add, that many years have elapsed since any one has asked me a
+new one.
+
+CHAEREPHON: Then you must be very ready, Gorgias.
+
+GORGIAS: Of that, Chaerephon, you can make trial.
+
+POLUS: Yes, indeed, and if you like, Chaerephon, you may make trial of
+me too, for I think that Gorgias, who has been talking a long time, is
+tired.
+
+CHAEREPHON: And do you, Polus, think that you can answer better than
+Gorgias?
+
+POLUS: What does that matter if I answer well enough for you?
+
+CHAEREPHON: Not at all:--and you shall answer if you like.
+
+POLUS: Ask:--
+
+CHAEREPHON: My question is this: If Gorgias had the skill of his brother
+Herodicus, what ought we to call him? Ought he not to have the name
+which is given to his brother?
+
+POLUS: Certainly.
+
+CHAEREPHON: Then we should be right in calling him a physician?
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+CHAEREPHON: And if he had the skill of Aristophon the son of Aglaophon,
+or of his brother Polygnotus, what ought we to call him?
+
+POLUS: Clearly, a painter.
+
+CHAEREPHON: But now what shall we call him--what is the art in which he
+is skilled.
+
+POLUS: O Chaerephon, there are many arts among mankind which are
+experimental, and have their origin in experience, for experience makes
+the days of men to proceed according to art, and inexperience according
+to chance, and different persons in different ways are proficient in
+different arts, and the best persons in the best arts. And our friend
+Gorgias is one of the best, and the art in which he is a proficient is
+the noblest.
+
+SOCRATES: Polus has been taught how to make a capital speech, Gorgias;
+but he is not fulfilling the promise which he made to Chaerephon.
+
+GORGIAS: What do you mean, Socrates?
+
+SOCRATES: I mean that he has not exactly answered the question which he
+was asked.
+
+GORGIAS: Then why not ask him yourself?
+
+SOCRATES: But I would much rather ask you, if you are disposed to
+answer: for I see, from the few words which Polus has uttered, that he
+has attended more to the art which is called rhetoric than to dialectic.
+
+POLUS: What makes you say so, Socrates?
+
+SOCRATES: Because, Polus, when Chaerephon asked you what was the art
+which Gorgias knows, you praised it as if you were answering some one
+who found fault with it, but you never said what the art was.
+
+POLUS: Why, did I not say that it was the noblest of arts?
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, indeed, but that was no answer to the question: nobody
+asked what was the quality, but what was the nature, of the art, and by
+what name we were to describe Gorgias. And I would still beg you briefly
+and clearly, as you answered Chaerephon when he asked you at first,
+to say what this art is, and what we ought to call Gorgias: Or rather,
+Gorgias, let me turn to you, and ask the same question,--what are we to
+call you, and what is the art which you profess?
+
+GORGIAS: Rhetoric, Socrates, is my art.
+
+SOCRATES: Then I am to call you a rhetorician?
+
+GORGIAS: Yes, Socrates, and a good one too, if you would call me that
+which, in Homeric language, 'I boast myself to be.'
+
+SOCRATES: I should wish to do so.
+
+GORGIAS: Then pray do.
+
+SOCRATES: And are we to say that you are able to make other men
+rhetoricians?
+
+GORGIAS: Yes, that is exactly what I profess to make them, not only at
+Athens, but in all places.
+
+SOCRATES: And will you continue to ask and answer questions, Gorgias,
+as we are at present doing, and reserve for another occasion the longer
+mode of speech which Polus was attempting? Will you keep your promise,
+and answer shortly the questions which are asked of you?
+
+GORGIAS: Some answers, Socrates, are of necessity longer; but I will do
+my best to make them as short as possible; for a part of my profession
+is that I can be as short as any one.
+
+SOCRATES: That is what is wanted, Gorgias; exhibit the shorter method
+now, and the longer one at some other time.
+
+GORGIAS: Well, I will; and you will certainly say, that you never heard
+a man use fewer words.
+
+SOCRATES: Very good then; as you profess to be a rhetorician, and a
+maker of rhetoricians, let me ask you, with what is rhetoric concerned:
+I might ask with what is weaving concerned, and you would reply (would
+you not?), with the making of garments?
+
+GORGIAS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And music is concerned with the composition of melodies?
+
+GORGIAS: It is.
+
+SOCRATES: By Here, Gorgias, I admire the surpassing brevity of your
+answers.
+
+GORGIAS: Yes, Socrates, I do think myself good at that.
+
+SOCRATES: I am glad to hear it; answer me in like manner about rhetoric:
+with what is rhetoric concerned?
+
+GORGIAS: With discourse.
+
+SOCRATES: What sort of discourse, Gorgias?--such discourse as would
+teach the sick under what treatment they might get well?
+
+GORGIAS: No.
+
+SOCRATES: Then rhetoric does not treat of all kinds of discourse?
+
+GORGIAS: Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES: And yet rhetoric makes men able to speak?
+
+GORGIAS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And to understand that about which they speak?
+
+GORGIAS: Of course.
+
+SOCRATES: But does not the art of medicine, which we were just now
+mentioning, also make men able to understand and speak about the sick?
+
+GORGIAS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Then medicine also treats of discourse?
+
+GORGIAS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Of discourse concerning diseases?
+
+GORGIAS: Just so.
+
+SOCRATES: And does not gymnastic also treat of discourse concerning the
+good or evil condition of the body?
+
+GORGIAS: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: And the same, Gorgias, is true of the other arts:--all of them
+treat of discourse concerning the subjects with which they severally
+have to do.
+
+GORGIAS: Clearly.
+
+SOCRATES: Then why, if you call rhetoric the art which treats of
+discourse, and all the other arts treat of discourse, do you not call
+them arts of rhetoric?
+
+GORGIAS: Because, Socrates, the knowledge of the other arts has only to
+do with some sort of external action, as of the hand; but there is no
+such action of the hand in rhetoric which works and takes effect only
+through the medium of discourse. And therefore I am justified in saying
+that rhetoric treats of discourse.
+
+SOCRATES: I am not sure whether I entirely understand you, but I dare
+say I shall soon know better; please to answer me a question:--you would
+allow that there are arts?
+
+GORGIAS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: As to the arts generally, they are for the most part concerned
+with doing, and require little or no speaking; in painting, and
+statuary, and many other arts, the work may proceed in silence; and
+of such arts I suppose you would say that they do not come within the
+province of rhetoric.
+
+GORGIAS: You perfectly conceive my meaning, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: But there are other arts which work wholly through the medium
+of language, and require either no action or very little, as, for
+example, the arts of arithmetic, of calculation, of geometry, and of
+playing draughts; in some of these speech is pretty nearly co-extensive
+with action, but in most of them the verbal element is greater--they
+depend wholly on words for their efficacy and power: and I take your
+meaning to be that rhetoric is an art of this latter sort?
+
+GORGIAS: Exactly.
+
+SOCRATES: And yet I do not believe that you really mean to call any of
+these arts rhetoric; although the precise expression which you used was,
+that rhetoric is an art which works and takes effect only through the
+medium of discourse; and an adversary who wished to be captious might
+say, 'And so, Gorgias, you call arithmetic rhetoric.' But I do not think
+that you really call arithmetic rhetoric any more than geometry would be
+so called by you.
+
+GORGIAS: You are quite right, Socrates, in your apprehension of my
+meaning.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, then, let me now have the rest of my answer:--seeing
+that rhetoric is one of those arts which works mainly by the use of
+words, and there are other arts which also use words, tell me what is
+that quality in words with which rhetoric is concerned:--Suppose that a
+person asks me about some of the arts which I was mentioning just now;
+he might say, 'Socrates, what is arithmetic?' and I should reply to him,
+as you replied to me, that arithmetic is one of those arts which take
+effect through words. And then he would proceed to ask: 'Words about
+what?' and I should reply, Words about odd and even numbers, and how
+many there are of each. And if he asked again: 'What is the art of
+calculation?' I should say, That also is one of the arts which is
+concerned wholly with words. And if he further said, 'Concerned with
+what?' I should say, like the clerks in the assembly, 'as aforesaid' of
+arithmetic, but with a difference, the difference being that the art of
+calculation considers not only the quantities of odd and even numbers,
+but also their numerical relations to themselves and to one another.
+And suppose, again, I were to say that astronomy is only words--he would
+ask, 'Words about what, Socrates?' and I should answer, that astronomy
+tells us about the motions of the stars and sun and moon, and their
+relative swiftness.
+
+GORGIAS: You would be quite right, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: And now let us have from you, Gorgias, the truth about
+rhetoric: which you would admit (would you not?) to be one of those arts
+which act always and fulfil all their ends through the medium of words?
+
+GORGIAS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: Words which do what? I should ask. To what class of things do
+the words which rhetoric uses relate?
+
+GORGIAS: To the greatest, Socrates, and the best of human things.
+
+SOCRATES: That again, Gorgias is ambiguous; I am still in the dark: for
+which are the greatest and best of human things? I dare say that you
+have heard men singing at feasts the old drinking song, in which the
+singers enumerate the goods of life, first health, beauty next, thirdly,
+as the writer of the song says, wealth honestly obtained.
+
+GORGIAS: Yes, I know the song; but what is your drift?
+
+SOCRATES: I mean to say, that the producers of those things which the
+author of the song praises, that is to say, the physician, the trainer,
+the money-maker, will at once come to you, and first the physician will
+say: 'O Socrates, Gorgias is deceiving you, for my art is concerned with
+the greatest good of men and not his.' And when I ask, Who are you? he
+will reply, 'I am a physician.' What do you mean? I shall say. Do you
+mean that your art produces the greatest good? 'Certainly,' he will
+answer, 'for is not health the greatest good? What greater good can men
+have, Socrates?' And after him the trainer will come and say, 'I too,
+Socrates, shall be greatly surprised if Gorgias can show more good of
+his art than I can show of mine.' To him again I shall say, Who are
+you, honest friend, and what is your business? 'I am a trainer,' he will
+reply, 'and my business is to make men beautiful and strong in body.'
+When I have done with the trainer, there arrives the money-maker, and
+he, as I expect, will utterly despise them all. 'Consider Socrates,' he
+will say, 'whether Gorgias or any one else can produce any greater
+good than wealth.' Well, you and I say to him, and are you a creator of
+wealth? 'Yes,' he replies. And who are you? 'A money-maker.' And do you
+consider wealth to be the greatest good of man? 'Of course,' will be his
+reply. And we shall rejoin: Yes; but our friend Gorgias contends that
+his art produces a greater good than yours. And then he will be sure to
+go on and ask, 'What good? Let Gorgias answer.' Now I want you, Gorgias,
+to imagine that this question is asked of you by them and by me; What
+is that which, as you say, is the greatest good of man, and of which you
+are the creator? Answer us.
+
+GORGIAS: That good, Socrates, which is truly the greatest, being that
+which gives to men freedom in their own persons, and to individuals the
+power of ruling over others in their several states.
+
+SOCRATES: And what would you consider this to be?
+
+GORGIAS: What is there greater than the word which persuades the judges
+in the courts, or the senators in the council, or the citizens in the
+assembly, or at any other political meeting?--if you have the power
+of uttering this word, you will have the physician your slave, and the
+trainer your slave, and the money-maker of whom you talk will be found
+to gather treasures, not for himself, but for you who are able to speak
+and to persuade the multitude.
+
+SOCRATES: Now I think, Gorgias, that you have very accurately explained
+what you conceive to be the art of rhetoric; and you mean to say, if I
+am not mistaken, that rhetoric is the artificer of persuasion, having
+this and no other business, and that this is her crown and end. Do
+you know any other effect of rhetoric over and above that of producing
+persuasion?
+
+GORGIAS: No: the definition seems to me very fair, Socrates; for
+persuasion is the chief end of rhetoric.
+
+SOCRATES: Then hear me, Gorgias, for I am quite sure that if there ever
+was a man who entered on the discussion of a matter from a pure love of
+knowing the truth, I am such a one, and I should say the same of you.
+
+GORGIAS: What is coming, Socrates?
+
+SOCRATES: I will tell you: I am very well aware that I do not know what,
+according to you, is the exact nature, or what are the topics of that
+persuasion of which you speak, and which is given by rhetoric; although
+I have a suspicion about both the one and the other. And I am going to
+ask--what is this power of persuasion which is given by rhetoric, and
+about what? But why, if I have a suspicion, do I ask instead of telling
+you? Not for your sake, but in order that the argument may proceed in
+such a manner as is most likely to set forth the truth. And I would
+have you observe, that I am right in asking this further question: If I
+asked, 'What sort of a painter is Zeuxis?' and you said, 'The painter
+of figures,' should I not be right in asking, 'What kind of figures, and
+where do you find them?'
+
+GORGIAS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And the reason for asking this second question would be, that
+there are other painters besides, who paint many other figures?
+
+GORGIAS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: But if there had been no one but Zeuxis who painted them, then
+you would have answered very well?
+
+GORGIAS: Quite so.
+
+SOCRATES: Now I want to know about rhetoric in the same way;--is
+rhetoric the only art which brings persuasion, or do other arts have the
+same effect? I mean to say--Does he who teaches anything persuade men of
+that which he teaches or not?
+
+GORGIAS: He persuades, Socrates,--there can be no mistake about that.
+
+SOCRATES: Again, if we take the arts of which we were just now
+speaking:--do not arithmetic and the arithmeticians teach us the
+properties of number?
+
+GORGIAS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And therefore persuade us of them?
+
+GORGIAS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Then arithmetic as well as rhetoric is an artificer of
+persuasion?
+
+GORGIAS: Clearly.
+
+SOCRATES: And if any one asks us what sort of persuasion, and about
+what,--we shall answer, persuasion which teaches the quantity of odd and
+even; and we shall be able to show that all the other arts of which we
+were just now speaking are artificers of persuasion, and of what sort,
+and about what.
+
+GORGIAS: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: Then rhetoric is not the only artificer of persuasion?
+
+GORGIAS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: Seeing, then, that not only rhetoric works by persuasion, but
+that other arts do the same, as in the case of the painter, a question
+has arisen which is a very fair one: Of what persuasion is rhetoric
+the artificer, and about what?--is not that a fair way of putting the
+question?
+
+GORGIAS: I think so.
+
+SOCRATES: Then, if you approve the question, Gorgias, what is the
+answer?
+
+GORGIAS: I answer, Socrates, that rhetoric is the art of persuasion in
+courts of law and other assemblies, as I was just now saying, and about
+the just and unjust.
+
+SOCRATES: And that, Gorgias, was what I was suspecting to be your
+notion; yet I would not have you wonder if by-and-by I am found
+repeating a seemingly plain question; for I ask not in order to confute
+you, but as I was saying that the argument may proceed consecutively,
+and that we may not get the habit of anticipating and suspecting the
+meaning of one another's words; I would have you develope your own views
+in your own way, whatever may be your hypothesis.
+
+GORGIAS: I think that you are quite right, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: Then let me raise another question; there is such a thing as
+'having learned'?
+
+GORGIAS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And there is also 'having believed'?
+
+GORGIAS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And is the 'having learned' the same as 'having believed,' and
+are learning and belief the same things?
+
+GORGIAS: In my judgment, Socrates, they are not the same.
+
+SOCRATES: And your judgment is right, as you may ascertain in this
+way:--If a person were to say to you, 'Is there, Gorgias, a false belief
+as well as a true?'--you would reply, if I am not mistaken, that there
+is.
+
+GORGIAS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, but is there a false knowledge as well as a true?
+
+GORGIAS: No.
+
+SOCRATES: No, indeed; and this again proves that knowledge and belief
+differ.
+
+GORGIAS: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: And yet those who have learned as well as those who have
+believed are persuaded?
+
+GORGIAS: Just so.
+
+SOCRATES: Shall we then assume two sorts of persuasion,--one which is
+the source of belief without knowledge, as the other is of knowledge?
+
+GORGIAS: By all means.
+
+SOCRATES: And which sort of persuasion does rhetoric create in courts
+of law and other assemblies about the just and unjust, the sort of
+persuasion which gives belief without knowledge, or that which gives
+knowledge?
+
+GORGIAS: Clearly, Socrates, that which only gives belief.
+
+SOCRATES: Then rhetoric, as would appear, is the artificer of a
+persuasion which creates belief about the just and unjust, but gives no
+instruction about them?
+
+GORGIAS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And the rhetorician does not instruct the courts of law or
+other assemblies about things just and unjust, but he creates belief
+about them; for no one can be supposed to instruct such a vast multitude
+about such high matters in a short time?
+
+GORGIAS: Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES: Come, then, and let us see what we really mean about rhetoric;
+for I do not know what my own meaning is as yet. When the assembly meets
+to elect a physician or a shipwright or any other craftsman, will the
+rhetorician be taken into counsel? Surely not. For at every election he
+ought to be chosen who is most skilled; and, again, when walls have to
+be built or harbours or docks to be constructed, not the rhetorician but
+the master workman will advise; or when generals have to be chosen and
+an order of battle arranged, or a position taken, then the military will
+advise and not the rhetoricians: what do you say, Gorgias? Since you
+profess to be a rhetorician and a maker of rhetoricians, I cannot do
+better than learn the nature of your art from you. And here let me
+assure you that I have your interest in view as well as my own. For
+likely enough some one or other of the young men present might desire to
+become your pupil, and in fact I see some, and a good many too, who have
+this wish, but they would be too modest to question you. And therefore
+when you are interrogated by me, I would have you imagine that you are
+interrogated by them. 'What is the use of coming to you, Gorgias?' they
+will say--'about what will you teach us to advise the state?--about the
+just and unjust only, or about those other things also which Socrates
+has just mentioned?' How will you answer them?
+
+GORGIAS: I like your way of leading us on, Socrates, and I will
+endeavour to reveal to you the whole nature of rhetoric. You must have
+heard, I think, that the docks and the walls of the Athenians and the
+plan of the harbour were devised in accordance with the counsels, partly
+of Themistocles, and partly of Pericles, and not at the suggestion of
+the builders.
+
+SOCRATES: Such is the tradition, Gorgias, about Themistocles; and I
+myself heard the speech of Pericles when he advised us about the middle
+wall.
+
+GORGIAS: And you will observe, Socrates, that when a decision has to be
+given in such matters the rhetoricians are the advisers; they are the
+men who win their point.
+
+SOCRATES: I had that in my admiring mind, Gorgias, when I asked what is
+the nature of rhetoric, which always appears to me, when I look at the
+matter in this way, to be a marvel of greatness.
+
+GORGIAS: A marvel, indeed, Socrates, if you only knew how rhetoric
+comprehends and holds under her sway all the inferior arts. Let me offer
+you a striking example of this. On several occasions I have been with
+my brother Herodicus or some other physician to see one of his patients,
+who would not allow the physician to give him medicine, or apply the
+knife or hot iron to him; and I have persuaded him to do for me what he
+would not do for the physician just by the use of rhetoric. And I say
+that if a rhetorician and a physician were to go to any city, and had
+there to argue in the Ecclesia or any other assembly as to which of them
+should be elected state-physician, the physician would have no chance;
+but he who could speak would be chosen if he wished; and in a contest
+with a man of any other profession the rhetorician more than any one
+would have the power of getting himself chosen, for he can speak more
+persuasively to the multitude than any of them, and on any subject.
+Such is the nature and power of the art of rhetoric! And yet, Socrates,
+rhetoric should be used like any other competitive art, not against
+everybody,--the rhetorician ought not to abuse his strength any more
+than a pugilist or pancratiast or other master of fence;--because he has
+powers which are more than a match either for friend or enemy, he ought
+not therefore to strike, stab, or slay his friends. Suppose a man to
+have been trained in the palestra and to be a skilful boxer,--he in the
+fulness of his strength goes and strikes his father or mother or one
+of his familiars or friends; but that is no reason why the trainers
+or fencing-masters should be held in detestation or banished from the
+city;--surely not. For they taught their art for a good purpose, to be
+used against enemies and evil-doers, in self-defence not in aggression,
+and others have perverted their instructions, and turned to a bad use
+their own strength and skill. But not on this account are the teachers
+bad, neither is the art in fault, or bad in itself; I should rather
+say that those who make a bad use of the art are to blame. And the same
+argument holds good of rhetoric; for the rhetorician can speak against
+all men and upon any subject,--in short, he can persuade the multitude
+better than any other man of anything which he pleases, but he should
+not therefore seek to defraud the physician or any other artist of his
+reputation merely because he has the power; he ought to use rhetoric
+fairly, as he would also use his athletic powers. And if after having
+become a rhetorician he makes a bad use of his strength and skill, his
+instructor surely ought not on that account to be held in detestation or
+banished. For he was intended by his teacher to make a good use of his
+instructions, but he abuses them. And therefore he is the person who
+ought to be held in detestation, banished, and put to death, and not his
+instructor.
+
+SOCRATES: You, Gorgias, like myself, have had great experience of
+disputations, and you must have observed, I think, that they do not
+always terminate in mutual edification, or in the definition by either
+party of the subjects which they are discussing; but disagreements
+are apt to arise--somebody says that another has not spoken truly or
+clearly; and then they get into a passion and begin to quarrel, both
+parties conceiving that their opponents are arguing from personal
+feeling only and jealousy of themselves, not from any interest in the
+question at issue. And sometimes they will go on abusing one another
+until the company at last are quite vexed at themselves for ever
+listening to such fellows. Why do I say this? Why, because I cannot
+help feeling that you are now saying what is not quite consistent or
+accordant with what you were saying at first about rhetoric. And I am
+afraid to point this out to you, lest you should think that I have some
+animosity against you, and that I speak, not for the sake of discovering
+the truth, but from jealousy of you. Now if you are one of my sort, I
+should like to cross-examine you, but if not I will let you alone. And
+what is my sort? you will ask. I am one of those who are very willing
+to be refuted if I say anything which is not true, and very willing to
+refute any one else who says what is not true, and quite as ready to be
+refuted as to refute; for I hold that this is the greater gain of the
+two, just as the gain is greater of being cured of a very great evil
+than of curing another. For I imagine that there is no evil which a man
+can endure so great as an erroneous opinion about the matters of which
+we are speaking; and if you claim to be one of my sort, let us have the
+discussion out, but if you would rather have done, no matter;--let us
+make an end of it.
+
+GORGIAS: I should say, Socrates, that I am quite the man whom you
+indicate; but, perhaps, we ought to consider the audience, for, before
+you came, I had already given a long exhibition, and if we proceed the
+argument may run on to a great length. And therefore I think that we
+should consider whether we may not be detaining some part of the company
+when they are wanting to do something else.
+
+CHAEREPHON: You hear the audience cheering, Gorgias and Socrates, which
+shows their desire to listen to you; and for myself, Heaven forbid
+that I should have any business on hand which would take me away from a
+discussion so interesting and so ably maintained.
+
+CALLICLES: By the gods, Chaerephon, although I have been present at many
+discussions, I doubt whether I was ever so much delighted before,
+and therefore if you go on discoursing all day I shall be the better
+pleased.
+
+SOCRATES: I may truly say, Callicles, that I am willing, if Gorgias is.
+
+GORGIAS: After all this, Socrates, I should be disgraced if I refused,
+especially as I have promised to answer all comers; in accordance
+with the wishes of the company, then, do you begin, and ask of me any
+question which you like.
+
+SOCRATES: Let me tell you then, Gorgias, what surprises me in your
+words; though I dare say that you may be right, and I may have
+misunderstood your meaning. You say that you can make any man, who will
+learn of you, a rhetorician?
+
+GORGIAS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Do you mean that you will teach him to gain the ears of the
+multitude on any subject, and this not by instruction but by persuasion?
+
+GORGIAS: Quite so.
+
+SOCRATES: You were saying, in fact, that the rhetorician will have
+greater powers of persuasion than the physician even in a matter of
+health?
+
+GORGIAS: Yes, with the multitude,--that is.
+
+SOCRATES: You mean to say, with the ignorant; for with those who know he
+cannot be supposed to have greater powers of persuasion.
+
+GORGIAS: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: But if he is to have more power of persuasion than the
+physician, he will have greater power than he who knows?
+
+GORGIAS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Although he is not a physician:--is he?
+
+GORGIAS: No.
+
+SOCRATES: And he who is not a physician must, obviously, be ignorant of
+what the physician knows.
+
+GORGIAS: Clearly.
+
+SOCRATES: Then, when the rhetorician is more persuasive than the
+physician, the ignorant is more persuasive with the ignorant than he who
+has knowledge?--is not that the inference?
+
+GORGIAS: In the case supposed:--yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And the same holds of the relation of rhetoric to all the
+other arts; the rhetorician need not know the truth about things; he has
+only to discover some way of persuading the ignorant that he has more
+knowledge than those who know?
+
+GORGIAS: Yes, Socrates, and is not this a great comfort?--not to have
+learned the other arts, but the art of rhetoric only, and yet to be in
+no way inferior to the professors of them?
+
+SOCRATES: Whether the rhetorician is or not inferior on this account is
+a question which we will hereafter examine if the enquiry is likely to
+be of any service to us; but I would rather begin by asking, whether he
+is or is not as ignorant of the just and unjust, base and honourable,
+good and evil, as he is of medicine and the other arts; I mean to
+say, does he really know anything of what is good and evil, base or
+honourable, just or unjust in them; or has he only a way with the
+ignorant of persuading them that he not knowing is to be esteemed to
+know more about these things than some one else who knows? Or must
+the pupil know these things and come to you knowing them before he can
+acquire the art of rhetoric? If he is ignorant, you who are the teacher
+of rhetoric will not teach him--it is not your business; but you will
+make him seem to the multitude to know them, when he does not know them;
+and seem to be a good man, when he is not. Or will you be unable to
+teach him rhetoric at all, unless he knows the truth of these things
+first? What is to be said about all this? By heavens, Gorgias, I wish
+that you would reveal to me the power of rhetoric, as you were saying
+that you would.
+
+GORGIAS: Well, Socrates, I suppose that if the pupil does chance not to
+know them, he will have to learn of me these things as well.
+
+SOCRATES: Say no more, for there you are right; and so he whom you
+make a rhetorician must either know the nature of the just and unjust
+already, or he must be taught by you.
+
+GORGIAS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, and is not he who has learned carpentering a carpenter?
+
+GORGIAS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And he who has learned music a musician?
+
+GORGIAS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And he who has learned medicine is a physician, in like
+manner? He who has learned anything whatever is that which his knowledge
+makes him.
+
+GORGIAS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And in the same way, he who has learned what is just is just?
+
+GORGIAS: To be sure.
+
+SOCRATES: And he who is just may be supposed to do what is just?
+
+GORGIAS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And must not the just man always desire to do what is just?
+
+GORGIAS: That is clearly the inference.
+
+SOCRATES: Surely, then, the just man will never consent to do injustice?
+
+GORGIAS: Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES: And according to the argument the rhetorician must be a just
+man?
+
+GORGIAS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And will therefore never be willing to do injustice?
+
+GORGIAS: Clearly not.
+
+SOCRATES: But do you remember saying just now that the trainer is not
+to be accused or banished if the pugilist makes a wrong use of his
+pugilistic art; and in like manner, if the rhetorician makes a bad and
+unjust use of his rhetoric, that is not to be laid to the charge of his
+teacher, who is not to be banished, but the wrong-doer himself who made
+a bad use of his rhetoric--he is to be banished--was not that said?
+
+GORGIAS: Yes, it was.
+
+SOCRATES: But now we are affirming that the aforesaid rhetorician will
+never have done injustice at all?
+
+GORGIAS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And at the very outset, Gorgias, it was said that rhetoric
+treated of discourse, not (like arithmetic) about odd and even, but
+about just and unjust? Was not this said?
+
+GORGIAS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: I was thinking at the time, when I heard you saying so, that
+rhetoric, which is always discoursing about justice, could not possibly
+be an unjust thing. But when you added, shortly afterwards, that the
+rhetorician might make a bad use of rhetoric I noted with surprise
+the inconsistency into which you had fallen; and I said, that if you
+thought, as I did, that there was a gain in being refuted, there would
+be an advantage in going on with the question, but if not, I would leave
+off. And in the course of our investigations, as you will see yourself,
+the rhetorician has been acknowledged to be incapable of making an
+unjust use of rhetoric, or of willingness to do injustice. By the dog,
+Gorgias, there will be a great deal of discussion, before we get at the
+truth of all this.
+
+POLUS: And do even you, Socrates, seriously believe what you are now
+saying about rhetoric? What! because Gorgias was ashamed to deny that
+the rhetorician knew the just and the honourable and the good, and
+admitted that to any one who came to him ignorant of them he could teach
+them, and then out of this admission there arose a contradiction--the
+thing which you dearly love, and to which not he, but you, brought the
+argument by your captious questions--(do you seriously believe that
+there is any truth in all this?) For will any one ever acknowledge that
+he does not know, or cannot teach, the nature of justice? The truth is,
+that there is great want of manners in bringing the argument to such a
+pass.
+
+SOCRATES: Illustrious Polus, the reason why we provide ourselves with
+friends and children is, that when we get old and stumble, a younger
+generation may be at hand to set us on our legs again in our words and
+in our actions: and now, if I and Gorgias are stumbling, here are you
+who should raise us up; and I for my part engage to retract any error
+into which you may think that I have fallen-upon one condition:
+
+POLUS: What condition?
+
+SOCRATES: That you contract, Polus, the prolixity of speech in which you
+indulged at first.
+
+POLUS: What! do you mean that I may not use as many words as I please?
+
+SOCRATES: Only to think, my friend, that having come on a visit to
+Athens, which is the most free-spoken state in Hellas, you when you got
+there, and you alone, should be deprived of the power of speech--that
+would be hard indeed. But then consider my case:--shall not I be very
+hardly used, if, when you are making a long oration, and refusing to
+answer what you are asked, I am compelled to stay and listen to you,
+and may not go away? I say rather, if you have a real interest in the
+argument, or, to repeat my former expression, have any desire to set it
+on its legs, take back any statement which you please; and in your turn
+ask and answer, like myself and Gorgias--refute and be refuted: for I
+suppose that you would claim to know what Gorgias knows--would you not?
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And you, like him, invite any one to ask you about anything
+which he pleases, and you will know how to answer him?
+
+POLUS: To be sure.
+
+SOCRATES: And now, which will you do, ask or answer?
+
+POLUS: I will ask; and do you answer me, Socrates, the same question
+which Gorgias, as you suppose, is unable to answer: What is rhetoric?
+
+SOCRATES: Do you mean what sort of an art?
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: To say the truth, Polus, it is not an art at all, in my
+opinion.
+
+POLUS: Then what, in your opinion, is rhetoric?
+
+SOCRATES: A thing which, as I was lately reading in a book of yours, you
+say that you have made an art.
+
+POLUS: What thing?
+
+SOCRATES: I should say a sort of experience.
+
+POLUS: Does rhetoric seem to you to be an experience?
+
+SOCRATES: That is my view, but you may be of another mind.
+
+POLUS: An experience in what?
+
+SOCRATES: An experience in producing a sort of delight and
+gratification.
+
+POLUS: And if able to gratify others, must not rhetoric be a fine thing?
+
+SOCRATES: What are you saying, Polus? Why do you ask me whether rhetoric
+is a fine thing or not, when I have not as yet told you what rhetoric
+is?
+
+POLUS: Did I not hear you say that rhetoric was a sort of experience?
+
+SOCRATES: Will you, who are so desirous to gratify others, afford a
+slight gratification to me?
+
+POLUS: I will.
+
+SOCRATES: Will you ask me, what sort of an art is cookery?
+
+POLUS: What sort of an art is cookery?
+
+SOCRATES: Not an art at all, Polus.
+
+POLUS: What then?
+
+SOCRATES: I should say an experience.
+
+POLUS: In what? I wish that you would explain to me.
+
+SOCRATES: An experience in producing a sort of delight and
+gratification, Polus.
+
+POLUS: Then are cookery and rhetoric the same?
+
+SOCRATES: No, they are only different parts of the same profession.
+
+POLUS: Of what profession?
+
+SOCRATES: I am afraid that the truth may seem discourteous; and I
+hesitate to answer, lest Gorgias should imagine that I am making fun of
+his own profession. For whether or no this is that art of rhetoric
+which Gorgias practises I really cannot tell:--from what he was just now
+saying, nothing appeared of what he thought of his art, but the rhetoric
+which I mean is a part of a not very creditable whole.
+
+GORGIAS: A part of what, Socrates? Say what you mean, and never mind me.
+
+SOCRATES: In my opinion then, Gorgias, the whole of which rhetoric is a
+part is not an art at all, but the habit of a bold and ready wit,
+which knows how to manage mankind: this habit I sum up under the word
+'flattery'; and it appears to me to have many other parts, one of which
+is cookery, which may seem to be an art, but, as I maintain, is only an
+experience or routine and not an art:--another part is rhetoric, and
+the art of attiring and sophistry are two others: thus there are four
+branches, and four different things answering to them. And Polus may
+ask, if he likes, for he has not as yet been informed, what part of
+flattery is rhetoric: he did not see that I had not yet answered him
+when he proceeded to ask a further question: Whether I do not think
+rhetoric a fine thing? But I shall not tell him whether rhetoric is a
+fine thing or not, until I have first answered, 'What is rhetoric?' For
+that would not be right, Polus; but I shall be happy to answer, if you
+will ask me, What part of flattery is rhetoric?
+
+POLUS: I will ask and do you answer? What part of flattery is rhetoric?
+
+SOCRATES: Will you understand my answer? Rhetoric, according to my view,
+is the ghost or counterfeit of a part of politics.
+
+POLUS: And noble or ignoble?
+
+SOCRATES: Ignoble, I should say, if I am compelled to answer, for I call
+what is bad ignoble: though I doubt whether you understand what I was
+saying before.
+
+GORGIAS: Indeed, Socrates, I cannot say that I understand myself.
+
+SOCRATES: I do not wonder, Gorgias; for I have not as yet explained
+myself, and our friend Polus, colt by name and colt by nature, is apt
+to run away. (This is an untranslatable play on the name 'Polus,' which
+means 'a colt.')
+
+GORGIAS: Never mind him, but explain to me what you mean by saying that
+rhetoric is the counterfeit of a part of politics.
+
+SOCRATES: I will try, then, to explain my notion of rhetoric, and if
+I am mistaken, my friend Polus shall refute me. We may assume the
+existence of bodies and of souls?
+
+GORGIAS: Of course.
+
+SOCRATES: You would further admit that there is a good condition of
+either of them?
+
+GORGIAS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Which condition may not be really good, but good only in
+appearance? I mean to say, that there are many persons who appear to
+be in good health, and whom only a physician or trainer will discern at
+first sight not to be in good health.
+
+GORGIAS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And this applies not only to the body, but also to the soul:
+in either there may be that which gives the appearance of health and not
+the reality?
+
+GORGIAS: Yes, certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And now I will endeavour to explain to you more clearly what I
+mean: The soul and body being two, have two arts corresponding to them:
+there is the art of politics attending on the soul; and another art
+attending on the body, of which I know no single name, but which may be
+described as having two divisions, one of them gymnastic, and the other
+medicine. And in politics there is a legislative part, which answers to
+gymnastic, as justice does to medicine; and the two parts run into one
+another, justice having to do with the same subject as legislation, and
+medicine with the same subject as gymnastic, but with a difference. Now,
+seeing that there are these four arts, two attending on the body and two
+on the soul for their highest good; flattery knowing, or rather guessing
+their natures, has distributed herself into four shams or simulations
+of them; she puts on the likeness of some one or other of them, and
+pretends to be that which she simulates, and having no regard for men's
+highest interests, is ever making pleasure the bait of the unwary, and
+deceiving them into the belief that she is of the highest value to them.
+Cookery simulates the disguise of medicine, and pretends to know what
+food is the best for the body; and if the physician and the cook had to
+enter into a competition in which children were the judges, or men who
+had no more sense than children, as to which of them best understands
+the goodness or badness of food, the physician would be starved to
+death. A flattery I deem this to be and of an ignoble sort, Polus, for
+to you I am now addressing myself, because it aims at pleasure
+without any thought of the best. An art I do not call it, but only an
+experience, because it is unable to explain or to give a reason of the
+nature of its own applications. And I do not call any irrational thing
+an art; but if you dispute my words, I am prepared to argue in defence
+of them.
+
+Cookery, then, I maintain to be a flattery which takes the form of
+medicine; and tiring, in like manner, is a flattery which takes the
+form of gymnastic, and is knavish, false, ignoble, illiberal, working
+deceitfully by the help of lines, and colours, and enamels, and
+garments, and making men affect a spurious beauty to the neglect of the
+true beauty which is given by gymnastic.
+
+I would rather not be tedious, and therefore I will only say, after the
+manner of the geometricians (for I think that by this time you will be
+able to follow)
+
+as tiring: gymnastic:: cookery: medicine;
+
+or rather,
+
+as tiring: gymnastic:: sophistry: legislation;
+
+and
+
+as cookery: medicine:: rhetoric: justice.
+
+And this, I say, is the natural difference between the rhetorician and
+the sophist, but by reason of their near connection, they are apt to be
+jumbled up together; neither do they know what to make of themselves,
+nor do other men know what to make of them. For if the body presided
+over itself, and were not under the guidance of the soul, and the soul
+did not discern and discriminate between cookery and medicine, but the
+body was made the judge of them, and the rule of judgment was the bodily
+delight which was given by them, then the word of Anaxagoras, that word
+with which you, friend Polus, are so well acquainted, would prevail far
+and wide: 'Chaos' would come again, and cookery, health, and medicine
+would mingle in an indiscriminate mass. And now I have told you my
+notion of rhetoric, which is, in relation to the soul, what cookery is
+to the body. I may have been inconsistent in making a long speech, when
+I would not allow you to discourse at length. But I think that I may be
+excused, because you did not understand me, and could make no use of
+my answer when I spoke shortly, and therefore I had to enter into an
+explanation. And if I show an equal inability to make use of yours, I
+hope that you will speak at equal length; but if I am able to understand
+you, let me have the benefit of your brevity, as is only fair: And now
+you may do what you please with my answer.
+
+POLUS: What do you mean? do you think that rhetoric is flattery?
+
+SOCRATES: Nay, I said a part of flattery; if at your age, Polus, you
+cannot remember, what will you do by-and-by, when you get older?
+
+POLUS: And are the good rhetoricians meanly regarded in states, under
+the idea that they are flatterers?
+
+SOCRATES: Is that a question or the beginning of a speech?
+
+POLUS: I am asking a question.
+
+SOCRATES: Then my answer is, that they are not regarded at all.
+
+POLUS: How not regarded? Have they not very great power in states?
+
+SOCRATES: Not if you mean to say that power is a good to the possessor.
+
+POLUS: And that is what I do mean to say.
+
+SOCRATES: Then, if so, I think that they have the least power of all the
+citizens.
+
+POLUS: What! are they not like tyrants? They kill and despoil and exile
+any one whom they please.
+
+SOCRATES: By the dog, Polus, I cannot make out at each deliverance
+of yours, whether you are giving an opinion of your own, or asking a
+question of me.
+
+POLUS: I am asking a question of you.
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, but you ask two questions at once.
+
+POLUS: How two questions?
+
+SOCRATES: Why, did you not say just now that the rhetoricians are like
+tyrants, and that they kill and despoil or exile any one whom they
+please?
+
+POLUS: I did.
+
+SOCRATES: Well then, I say to you that here are two questions in one,
+and I will answer both of them. And I tell you, Polus, that rhetoricians
+and tyrants have the least possible power in states, as I was just now
+saying; for they do literally nothing which they will, but only what
+they think best.
+
+POLUS: And is not that a great power?
+
+SOCRATES: Polus has already said the reverse.
+
+POLUS: Said the reverse! nay, that is what I assert.
+
+SOCRATES: No, by the great--what do you call him?--not you, for you say
+that power is a good to him who has the power.
+
+POLUS: I do.
+
+SOCRATES: And would you maintain that if a fool does what he thinks
+best, this is a good, and would you call this great power?
+
+POLUS: I should not.
+
+SOCRATES: Then you must prove that the rhetorician is not a fool, and
+that rhetoric is an art and not a flattery--and so you will have refuted
+me; but if you leave me unrefuted, why, the rhetoricians who do what
+they think best in states, and the tyrants, will have nothing upon
+which to congratulate themselves, if as you say, power be indeed a good,
+admitting at the same time that what is done without sense is an evil.
+
+POLUS: Yes; I admit that.
+
+SOCRATES: How then can the rhetoricians or the tyrants have great power
+in states, unless Polus can refute Socrates, and prove to him that they
+do as they will?
+
+POLUS: This fellow--
+
+SOCRATES: I say that they do not do as they will;--now refute me.
+
+POLUS: Why, have you not already said that they do as they think best?
+
+SOCRATES: And I say so still.
+
+POLUS: Then surely they do as they will?
+
+SOCRATES: I deny it.
+
+POLUS: But they do what they think best?
+
+SOCRATES: Aye.
+
+POLUS: That, Socrates, is monstrous and absurd.
+
+SOCRATES: Good words, good Polus, as I may say in your own peculiar
+style; but if you have any questions to ask of me, either prove that I
+am in error or give the answer yourself.
+
+POLUS: Very well, I am willing to answer that I may know what you mean.
+
+SOCRATES: Do men appear to you to will that which they do, or to will
+that further end for the sake of which they do a thing? when they take
+medicine, for example, at the bidding of a physician, do they will the
+drinking of the medicine which is painful, or the health for the sake of
+which they drink?
+
+POLUS: Clearly, the health.
+
+SOCRATES: And when men go on a voyage or engage in business, they do not
+will that which they are doing at the time; for who would desire to take
+the risk of a voyage or the trouble of business?--But they will, to have
+the wealth for the sake of which they go on a voyage.
+
+POLUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And is not this universally true? If a man does something for
+the sake of something else, he wills not that which he does, but that
+for the sake of which he does it.
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And are not all things either good or evil, or intermediate
+and indifferent?
+
+POLUS: To be sure, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: Wisdom and health and wealth and the like you would call
+goods, and their opposites evils?
+
+POLUS: I should.
+
+SOCRATES: And the things which are neither good nor evil, and which
+partake sometimes of the nature of good and at other times of evil, or
+of neither, are such as sitting, walking, running, sailing; or, again,
+wood, stones, and the like:--these are the things which you call neither
+good nor evil?
+
+POLUS: Exactly so.
+
+SOCRATES: Are these indifferent things done for the sake of the good, or
+the good for the sake of the indifferent?
+
+POLUS: Clearly, the indifferent for the sake of the good.
+
+SOCRATES: When we walk we walk for the sake of the good, and under the
+idea that it is better to walk, and when we stand we stand equally for
+the sake of the good?
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And when we kill a man we kill him or exile him or despoil him
+of his goods, because, as we think, it will conduce to our good?
+
+POLUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Men who do any of these things do them for the sake of the
+good?
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And did we not admit that in doing something for the sake of
+something else, we do not will those things which we do, but that other
+thing for the sake of which we do them?
+
+POLUS: Most true.
+
+SOCRATES: Then we do not will simply to kill a man or to exile him or to
+despoil him of his goods, but we will to do that which conduces to our
+good, and if the act is not conducive to our good we do not will it; for
+we will, as you say, that which is our good, but that which is neither
+good nor evil, or simply evil, we do not will. Why are you silent,
+Polus? Am I not right?
+
+POLUS: You are right.
+
+SOCRATES: Hence we may infer, that if any one, whether he be a tyrant
+or a rhetorician, kills another or exiles another or deprives him of
+his property, under the idea that the act is for his own interests when
+really not for his own interests, he may be said to do what seems best
+to him?
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: But does he do what he wills if he does what is evil? Why do
+you not answer?
+
+POLUS: Well, I suppose not.
+
+SOCRATES: Then if great power is a good as you allow, will such a one
+have great power in a state?
+
+POLUS: He will not.
+
+SOCRATES: Then I was right in saying that a man may do what seems good
+to him in a state, and not have great power, and not do what he wills?
+
+POLUS: As though you, Socrates, would not like to have the power of
+doing what seemed good to you in the state, rather than not; you would
+not be jealous when you saw any one killing or despoiling or imprisoning
+whom he pleased, Oh, no!
+
+SOCRATES: Justly or unjustly, do you mean?
+
+POLUS: In either case is he not equally to be envied?
+
+SOCRATES: Forbear, Polus!
+
+POLUS: Why 'forbear'?
+
+SOCRATES: Because you ought not to envy wretches who are not to be
+envied, but only to pity them.
+
+POLUS: And are those of whom I spoke wretches?
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, certainly they are.
+
+POLUS: And so you think that he who slays any one whom he pleases, and
+justly slays him, is pitiable and wretched?
+
+SOCRATES: No, I do not say that of him: but neither do I think that he
+is to be envied.
+
+POLUS: Were you not saying just now that he is wretched?
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, if he killed another unjustly, in which case
+he is also to be pitied; and he is not to be envied if he killed him
+justly.
+
+POLUS: At any rate you will allow that he who is unjustly put to death
+is wretched, and to be pitied?
+
+SOCRATES: Not so much, Polus, as he who kills him, and not so much as he
+who is justly killed.
+
+POLUS: How can that be, Socrates?
+
+SOCRATES: That may very well be, inasmuch as doing injustice is the
+greatest of evils.
+
+POLUS: But is it the greatest? Is not suffering injustice a greater
+evil?
+
+SOCRATES: Certainly not.
+
+POLUS: Then would you rather suffer than do injustice?
+
+SOCRATES: I should not like either, but if I must choose between them, I
+would rather suffer than do.
+
+POLUS: Then you would not wish to be a tyrant?
+
+SOCRATES: Not if you mean by tyranny what I mean.
+
+POLUS: I mean, as I said before, the power of doing whatever seems good
+to you in a state, killing, banishing, doing in all things as you like.
+
+SOCRATES: Well then, illustrious friend, when I have said my say, do you
+reply to me. Suppose that I go into a crowded Agora, and take a dagger
+under my arm. Polus, I say to you, I have just acquired rare power, and
+become a tyrant; for if I think that any of these men whom you see ought
+to be put to death, the man whom I have a mind to kill is as good as
+dead; and if I am disposed to break his head or tear his garment, he
+will have his head broken or his garment torn in an instant. Such is my
+great power in this city. And if you do not believe me, and I show you
+the dagger, you would probably reply: Socrates, in that sort of way any
+one may have great power--he may burn any house which he pleases, and
+the docks and triremes of the Athenians, and all their other vessels,
+whether public or private--but can you believe that this mere doing as
+you think best is great power?
+
+POLUS: Certainly not such doing as this.
+
+SOCRATES: But can you tell me why you disapprove of such a power?
+
+POLUS: I can.
+
+SOCRATES: Why then?
+
+POLUS: Why, because he who did as you say would be certain to be
+punished.
+
+SOCRATES: And punishment is an evil?
+
+POLUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And you would admit once more, my good sir, that great power
+is a benefit to a man if his actions turn out to his advantage, and that
+this is the meaning of great power; and if not, then his power is an
+evil and is no power. But let us look at the matter in another way:--do
+we not acknowledge that the things of which we were speaking, the
+infliction of death, and exile, and the deprivation of property are
+sometimes a good and sometimes not a good?
+
+POLUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: About that you and I may be supposed to agree?
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Tell me, then, when do you say that they are good and when
+that they are evil--what principle do you lay down?
+
+POLUS: I would rather, Socrates, that you should answer as well as ask
+that question.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, Polus, since you would rather have the answer from me,
+I say that they are good when they are just, and evil when they are
+unjust.
+
+POLUS: You are hard of refutation, Socrates, but might not a child
+refute that statement?
+
+SOCRATES: Then I shall be very grateful to the child, and equally
+grateful to you if you will refute me and deliver me from my
+foolishness. And I hope that refute me you will, and not weary of doing
+good to a friend.
+
+POLUS: Yes, Socrates, and I need not go far or appeal to antiquity;
+events which happened only a few days ago are enough to refute you, and
+to prove that many men who do wrong are happy.
+
+SOCRATES: What events?
+
+POLUS: You see, I presume, that Archelaus the son of Perdiccas is now
+the ruler of Macedonia?
+
+SOCRATES: At any rate I hear that he is.
+
+POLUS: And do you think that he is happy or miserable?
+
+SOCRATES: I cannot say, Polus, for I have never had any acquaintance
+with him.
+
+POLUS: And cannot you tell at once, and without having an acquaintance
+with him, whether a man is happy?
+
+SOCRATES: Most certainly not.
+
+POLUS: Then clearly, Socrates, you would say that you did not even know
+whether the great king was a happy man?
+
+SOCRATES: And I should speak the truth; for I do not know how he stands
+in the matter of education and justice.
+
+POLUS: What! and does all happiness consist in this?
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, indeed, Polus, that is my doctrine; the men and women who
+are gentle and good are also happy, as I maintain, and the unjust and
+evil are miserable.
+
+POLUS: Then, according to your doctrine, the said Archelaus is
+miserable?
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, if he is wicked.
+
+POLUS: That he is wicked I cannot deny; for he had no title at all to
+the throne which he now occupies, he being only the son of a woman who
+was the slave of Alcetas the brother of Perdiccas; he himself therefore
+in strict right was the slave of Alcetas; and if he had meant to do
+rightly he would have remained his slave, and then, according to your
+doctrine, he would have been happy. But now he is unspeakably miserable,
+for he has been guilty of the greatest crimes: in the first place
+he invited his uncle and master, Alcetas, to come to him, under the
+pretence that he would restore to him the throne which Perdiccas has
+usurped, and after entertaining him and his son Alexander, who was his
+own cousin, and nearly of an age with him, and making them drunk, he
+threw them into a waggon and carried them off by night, and slew them,
+and got both of them out of the way; and when he had done all this
+wickedness he never discovered that he was the most miserable of all
+men, and was very far from repenting: shall I tell you how he showed his
+remorse? he had a younger brother, a child of seven years old, who
+was the legitimate son of Perdiccas, and to him of right the kingdom
+belonged; Archelaus, however, had no mind to bring him up as he ought
+and restore the kingdom to him; that was not his notion of happiness;
+but not long afterwards he threw him into a well and drowned him, and
+declared to his mother Cleopatra that he had fallen in while running
+after a goose, and had been killed. And now as he is the greatest
+criminal of all the Macedonians, he may be supposed to be the most
+miserable and not the happiest of them, and I dare say that there are
+many Athenians, and you would be at the head of them, who would rather
+be any other Macedonian than Archelaus!
+
+SOCRATES: I praised you at first, Polus, for being a rhetorician rather
+than a reasoner. And this, as I suppose, is the sort of argument with
+which you fancy that a child might refute me, and by which I stand
+refuted when I say that the unjust man is not happy. But, my good
+friend, where is the refutation? I cannot admit a word which you have
+been saying.
+
+POLUS: That is because you will not; for you surely must think as I do.
+
+SOCRATES: Not so, my simple friend, but because you will refute me after
+the manner which rhetoricians practise in courts of law. For there the
+one party think that they refute the other when they bring forward a
+number of witnesses of good repute in proof of their allegations, and
+their adversary has only a single one or none at all. But this kind of
+proof is of no value where truth is the aim; a man may often be
+sworn down by a multitude of false witnesses who have a great air of
+respectability. And in this argument nearly every one, Athenian and
+stranger alike, would be on your side, if you should bring witnesses in
+disproof of my statement;--you may, if you will, summon Nicias the son
+of Niceratus, and let his brothers, who gave the row of tripods which
+stand in the precincts of Dionysus, come with him; or you may summon
+Aristocrates, the son of Scellius, who is the giver of that famous
+offering which is at Delphi; summon, if you will, the whole house of
+Pericles, or any other great Athenian family whom you choose;--they will
+all agree with you: I only am left alone and cannot agree, for you do
+not convince me; although you produce many false witnesses against me,
+in the hope of depriving me of my inheritance, which is the truth. But
+I consider that nothing worth speaking of will have been effected by me
+unless I make you the one witness of my words; nor by you, unless you
+make me the one witness of yours; no matter about the rest of the world.
+For there are two ways of refutation, one which is yours and that of the
+world in general; but mine is of another sort--let us compare them,
+and see in what they differ. For, indeed, we are at issue about matters
+which to know is honourable and not to know disgraceful; to know or
+not to know happiness and misery--that is the chief of them. And what
+knowledge can be nobler? or what ignorance more disgraceful than this?
+And therefore I will begin by asking you whether you do not think that
+a man who is unjust and doing injustice can be happy, seeing that you
+think Archelaus unjust, and yet happy? May I assume this to be your
+opinion?
+
+POLUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: But I say that this is an impossibility--here is one point
+about which we are at issue:--very good. And do you mean to say also
+that if he meets with retribution and punishment he will still be happy?
+
+POLUS: Certainly not; in that case he will be most miserable.
+
+SOCRATES: On the other hand, if the unjust be not punished, then,
+according to you, he will be happy?
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: But in my opinion, Polus, the unjust or doer of unjust
+actions is miserable in any case,--more miserable, however, if he be not
+punished and does not meet with retribution, and less miserable if he be
+punished and meets with retribution at the hands of gods and men.
+
+POLUS: You are maintaining a strange doctrine, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: I shall try to make you agree with me, O my friend, for as a
+friend I regard you. Then these are the points at issue between us--are
+they not? I was saying that to do is worse than to suffer injustice?
+
+POLUS: Exactly so.
+
+SOCRATES: And you said the opposite?
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: I said also that the wicked are miserable, and you refuted me?
+
+POLUS: By Zeus, I did.
+
+SOCRATES: In your own opinion, Polus.
+
+POLUS: Yes, and I rather suspect that I was in the right.
+
+SOCRATES: You further said that the wrong-doer is happy if he be
+unpunished?
+
+POLUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And I affirm that he is most miserable, and that those who are
+punished are less miserable--are you going to refute this proposition
+also?
+
+POLUS: A proposition which is harder of refutation than the other,
+Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: Say rather, Polus, impossible; for who can refute the truth?
+
+POLUS: What do you mean? If a man is detected in an unjust attempt to
+make himself a tyrant, and when detected is racked, mutilated, has
+his eyes burned out, and after having had all sorts of great injuries
+inflicted on him, and having seen his wife and children suffer the like,
+is at last impaled or tarred and burned alive, will he be happier than
+if he escape and become a tyrant, and continue all through life
+doing what he likes and holding the reins of government, the envy and
+admiration both of citizens and strangers? Is that the paradox which, as
+you say, cannot be refuted?
+
+SOCRATES: There again, noble Polus, you are raising hobgoblins instead
+of refuting me; just now you were calling witnesses against me. But
+please to refresh my memory a little; did you say--'in an unjust attempt
+to make himself a tyrant'?
+
+POLUS: Yes, I did.
+
+SOCRATES: Then I say that neither of them will be happier than the
+other,--neither he who unjustly acquires a tyranny, nor he who suffers
+in the attempt, for of two miserables one cannot be the happier, but
+that he who escapes and becomes a tyrant is the more miserable of the
+two. Do you laugh, Polus? Well, this is a new kind of refutation,--when
+any one says anything, instead of refuting him to laugh at him.
+
+POLUS: But do you not think, Socrates, that you have been sufficiently
+refuted, when you say that which no human being will allow? Ask the
+company.
+
+SOCRATES: O Polus, I am not a public man, and only last year, when my
+tribe were serving as Prytanes, and it became my duty as their president
+to take the votes, there was a laugh at me, because I was unable to take
+them. And as I failed then, you must not ask me to count the suffrages
+of the company now; but if, as I was saying, you have no better argument
+than numbers, let me have a turn, and do you make trial of the sort of
+proof which, as I think, is required; for I shall produce one witness
+only of the truth of my words, and he is the person with whom I am
+arguing; his suffrage I know how to take; but with the many I have
+nothing to do, and do not even address myself to them. May I ask then
+whether you will answer in turn and have your words put to the proof?
+For I certainly think that I and you and every man do really believe,
+that to do is a greater evil than to suffer injustice: and not to be
+punished than to be punished.
+
+POLUS: And I should say neither I, nor any man: would you yourself, for
+example, suffer rather than do injustice?
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, and you, too; I or any man would.
+
+POLUS: Quite the reverse; neither you, nor I, nor any man.
+
+SOCRATES: But will you answer?
+
+POLUS: To be sure, I will; for I am curious to hear what you can have to
+say.
+
+SOCRATES: Tell me, then, and you will know, and let us suppose that I am
+beginning at the beginning: which of the two, Polus, in your opinion, is
+the worst?--to do injustice or to suffer?
+
+POLUS: I should say that suffering was worst.
+
+SOCRATES: And which is the greater disgrace?--Answer.
+
+POLUS: To do.
+
+SOCRATES: And the greater disgrace is the greater evil?
+
+POLUS: Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES: I understand you to say, if I am not mistaken, that the
+honourable is not the same as the good, or the disgraceful as the evil?
+
+POLUS: Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES: Let me ask a question of you: When you speak of beautiful
+things, such as bodies, colours, figures, sounds, institutions, do
+you not call them beautiful in reference to some standard: bodies, for
+example, are beautiful in proportion as they are useful, or as the sight
+of them gives pleasure to the spectators; can you give any other account
+of personal beauty?
+
+POLUS: I cannot.
+
+SOCRATES: And you would say of figures or colours generally that they
+were beautiful, either by reason of the pleasure which they give, or of
+their use, or of both?
+
+POLUS: Yes, I should.
+
+SOCRATES: And you would call sounds and music beautiful for the same
+reason?
+
+POLUS: I should.
+
+SOCRATES: Laws and institutions also have no beauty in them except in so
+far as they are useful or pleasant or both?
+
+POLUS: I think not.
+
+SOCRATES: And may not the same be said of the beauty of knowledge?
+
+POLUS: To be sure, Socrates; and I very much approve of your measuring
+beauty by the standard of pleasure and utility.
+
+SOCRATES: And deformity or disgrace may be equally measured by the
+opposite standard of pain and evil?
+
+POLUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Then when of two beautiful things one exceeds in beauty, the
+measure of the excess is to be taken in one or both of these; that is to
+say, in pleasure or utility or both?
+
+POLUS: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: And of two deformed things, that which exceeds in deformity or
+disgrace, exceeds either in pain or evil--must it not be so?
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: But then again, what was the observation which you just now
+made, about doing and suffering wrong? Did you not say, that suffering
+wrong was more evil, and doing wrong more disgraceful?
+
+POLUS: I did.
+
+SOCRATES: Then, if doing wrong is more disgraceful than suffering, the
+more disgraceful must be more painful and must exceed in pain or in evil
+or both: does not that also follow?
+
+POLUS: Of course.
+
+SOCRATES: First, then, let us consider whether the doing of injustice
+exceeds the suffering in the consequent pain: Do the injurers suffer
+more than the injured?
+
+POLUS: No, Socrates; certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES: Then they do not exceed in pain?
+
+POLUS: No.
+
+SOCRATES: But if not in pain, then not in both?
+
+POLUS: Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES: Then they can only exceed in the other?
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: That is to say, in evil?
+
+POLUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: Then doing injustice will have an excess of evil, and will
+therefore be a greater evil than suffering injustice?
+
+POLUS: Clearly.
+
+SOCRATES: But have not you and the world already agreed that to do
+injustice is more disgraceful than to suffer?
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And that is now discovered to be more evil?
+
+POLUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And would you prefer a greater evil or a greater dishonour to
+a less one? Answer, Polus, and fear not; for you will come to no harm if
+you nobly resign yourself into the healing hand of the argument as to a
+physician without shrinking, and either say 'Yes' or 'No' to me.
+
+POLUS: I should say 'No.'
+
+SOCRATES: Would any other man prefer a greater to a less evil?
+
+POLUS: No, not according to this way of putting the case, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: Then I said truly, Polus, that neither you, nor I, nor any
+man, would rather do than suffer injustice; for to do injustice is the
+greater evil of the two.
+
+POLUS: That is the conclusion.
+
+SOCRATES: You see, Polus, when you compare the two kinds of refutations,
+how unlike they are. All men, with the exception of myself, are of
+your way of thinking; but your single assent and witness are enough
+for me,--I have no need of any other, I take your suffrage, and am
+regardless of the rest. Enough of this, and now let us proceed to the
+next question; which is, Whether the greatest of evils to a guilty
+man is to suffer punishment, as you supposed, or whether to escape
+punishment is not a greater evil, as I supposed. Consider:--You would
+say that to suffer punishment is another name for being justly corrected
+when you do wrong?
+
+POLUS: I should.
+
+SOCRATES: And would you not allow that all just things are honourable in
+so far as they are just? Please to reflect, and tell me your opinion.
+
+POLUS: Yes, Socrates, I think that they are.
+
+SOCRATES: Consider again:--Where there is an agent, must there not also
+be a patient?
+
+POLUS: I should say so.
+
+SOCRATES: And will not the patient suffer that which the agent does,
+and will not the suffering have the quality of the action? I mean,
+for example, that if a man strikes, there must be something which is
+stricken?
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And if the striker strikes violently or quickly, that which is
+struck will be struck violently or quickly?
+
+POLUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And the suffering to him who is stricken is of the same nature
+as the act of him who strikes?
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And if a man burns, there is something which is burned?
+
+POLUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And if he burns in excess or so as to cause pain, the thing
+burned will be burned in the same way?
+
+POLUS: Truly.
+
+SOCRATES: And if he cuts, the same argument holds--there will be
+something cut?
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And if the cutting be great or deep or such as will cause
+pain, the cut will be of the same nature?
+
+POLUS: That is evident.
+
+SOCRATES: Then you would agree generally to the universal proposition
+which I was just now asserting: that the affection of the patient
+answers to the affection of the agent?
+
+POLUS: I agree.
+
+SOCRATES: Then, as this is admitted, let me ask whether being punished
+is suffering or acting?
+
+POLUS: Suffering, Socrates; there can be no doubt of that.
+
+SOCRATES: And suffering implies an agent?
+
+POLUS: Certainly, Socrates; and he is the punisher.
+
+SOCRATES: And he who punishes rightly, punishes justly?
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And therefore he acts justly?
+
+POLUS: Justly.
+
+SOCRATES: Then he who is punished and suffers retribution, suffers
+justly?
+
+POLUS: That is evident.
+
+SOCRATES: And that which is just has been admitted to be honourable?
+
+POLUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Then the punisher does what is honourable, and the punished
+suffers what is honourable?
+
+POLUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And if what is honourable, then what is good, for the
+honourable is either pleasant or useful?
+
+POLUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Then he who is punished suffers what is good?
+
+POLUS: That is true.
+
+SOCRATES: Then he is benefited?
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Do I understand you to mean what I mean by the term
+'benefited'? I mean, that if he be justly punished his soul is improved.
+
+POLUS: Surely.
+
+SOCRATES: Then he who is punished is delivered from the evil of his
+soul?
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And is he not then delivered from the greatest evil? Look at
+the matter in this way:--In respect of a man's estate, do you see any
+greater evil than poverty?
+
+POLUS: There is no greater evil.
+
+SOCRATES: Again, in a man's bodily frame, you would say that the evil is
+weakness and disease and deformity?
+
+POLUS: I should.
+
+SOCRATES: And do you not imagine that the soul likewise has some evil of
+her own?
+
+POLUS: Of course.
+
+SOCRATES: And this you would call injustice and ignorance and cowardice,
+and the like?
+
+POLUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: So then, in mind, body, and estate, which are three, you have
+pointed out three corresponding evils--injustice, disease, poverty?
+
+POLUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And which of the evils is the most disgraceful?--Is not the
+most disgraceful of them injustice, and in general the evil of the soul?
+
+POLUS: By far the most.
+
+SOCRATES: And if the most disgraceful, then also the worst?
+
+POLUS: What do you mean, Socrates?
+
+SOCRATES: I mean to say, that is most disgraceful has been already
+admitted to be most painful or hurtful, or both.
+
+POLUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And now injustice and all evil in the soul has been admitted
+by us to be most disgraceful?
+
+POLUS: It has been admitted.
+
+SOCRATES: And most disgraceful either because most painful and causing
+excessive pain, or most hurtful, or both?
+
+POLUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And therefore to be unjust and intemperate, and cowardly and
+ignorant, is more painful than to be poor and sick?
+
+POLUS: Nay, Socrates; the painfulness does not appear to me to follow
+from your premises.
+
+SOCRATES: Then, if, as you would argue, not more painful, the evil
+of the soul is of all evils the most disgraceful; and the excess
+of disgrace must be caused by some preternatural greatness, or
+extraordinary hurtfulness of the evil.
+
+POLUS: Clearly.
+
+SOCRATES: And that which exceeds most in hurtfulness will be the
+greatest of evils?
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Then injustice and intemperance, and in general the depravity
+of the soul, are the greatest of evils?
+
+POLUS: That is evident.
+
+SOCRATES: Now, what art is there which delivers us from poverty? Does
+not the art of making money?
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And what art frees us from disease? Does not the art of
+medicine?
+
+POLUS: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: And what from vice and injustice? If you are not able to
+answer at once, ask yourself whither we go with the sick, and to whom we
+take them.
+
+POLUS: To the physicians, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: And to whom do we go with the unjust and intemperate?
+
+POLUS: To the judges, you mean.
+
+SOCRATES: --Who are to punish them?
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And do not those who rightly punish others, punish them in
+accordance with a certain rule of justice?
+
+POLUS: Clearly.
+
+SOCRATES: Then the art of money-making frees a man from poverty;
+medicine from disease; and justice from intemperance and injustice?
+
+POLUS: That is evident.
+
+SOCRATES: Which, then, is the best of these three?
+
+POLUS: Will you enumerate them?
+
+SOCRATES: Money-making, medicine, and justice.
+
+POLUS: Justice, Socrates, far excels the two others.
+
+SOCRATES: And justice, if the best, gives the greatest pleasure or
+advantage or both?
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: But is the being healed a pleasant thing, and are those who
+are being healed pleased?
+
+POLUS: I think not.
+
+SOCRATES: A useful thing, then?
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, because the patient is delivered from a great evil; and
+this is the advantage of enduring the pain--that you get well?
+
+POLUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And would he be the happier man in his bodily condition, who
+is healed, or who never was out of health?
+
+POLUS: Clearly he who was never out of health.
+
+SOCRATES: Yes; for happiness surely does not consist in being delivered
+from evils, but in never having had them.
+
+POLUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And suppose the case of two persons who have some evil in
+their bodies, and that one of them is healed and delivered from evil,
+and another is not healed, but retains the evil--which of them is the
+most miserable?
+
+POLUS: Clearly he who is not healed.
+
+SOCRATES: And was not punishment said by us to be a deliverance from the
+greatest of evils, which is vice?
+
+POLUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And justice punishes us, and makes us more just, and is the
+medicine of our vice?
+
+POLUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: He, then, has the first place in the scale of happiness
+who has never had vice in his soul; for this has been shown to be the
+greatest of evils.
+
+POLUS: Clearly.
+
+SOCRATES: And he has the second place, who is delivered from vice?
+
+POLUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: That is to say, he who receives admonition and rebuke and
+punishment?
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Then he lives worst, who, having been unjust, has no
+deliverance from injustice?
+
+POLUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: That is, he lives worst who commits the greatest crimes,
+and who, being the most unjust of men, succeeds in escaping rebuke or
+correction or punishment; and this, as you say, has been accomplished
+by Archelaus and other tyrants and rhetoricians and potentates? (Compare
+Republic.)
+
+POLUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: May not their way of proceeding, my friend, be compared to the
+conduct of a person who is afflicted with the worst of diseases and yet
+contrives not to pay the penalty to the physician for his sins against
+his constitution, and will not be cured, because, like a child, he is
+afraid of the pain of being burned or cut:--Is not that a parallel case?
+
+POLUS: Yes, truly.
+
+SOCRATES: He would seem as if he did not know the nature of health and
+bodily vigour; and if we are right, Polus, in our previous conclusions,
+they are in a like case who strive to evade justice, which they see to
+be painful, but are blind to the advantage which ensues from it, not
+knowing how far more miserable a companion a diseased soul is than
+a diseased body; a soul, I say, which is corrupt and unrighteous and
+unholy. And hence they do all that they can to avoid punishment and to
+avoid being released from the greatest of evils; they provide themselves
+with money and friends, and cultivate to the utmost their powers of
+persuasion. But if we, Polus, are right, do you see what follows, or
+shall we draw out the consequences in form?
+
+POLUS: If you please.
+
+SOCRATES: Is it not a fact that injustice, and the doing of injustice,
+is the greatest of evils?
+
+POLUS: That is quite clear.
+
+SOCRATES: And further, that to suffer punishment is the way to be
+released from this evil?
+
+POLUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And not to suffer, is to perpetuate the evil?
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: To do wrong, then, is second only in the scale of evils; but
+to do wrong and not to be punished, is first and greatest of all?
+
+POLUS: That is true.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, and was not this the point in dispute, my friend?
+You deemed Archelaus happy, because he was a very great criminal and
+unpunished: I, on the other hand, maintained that he or any other who
+like him has done wrong and has not been punished, is, and ought to be,
+the most miserable of all men; and that the doer of injustice is
+more miserable than the sufferer; and he who escapes punishment, more
+miserable than he who suffers.--Was not that what I said?
+
+POLUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And it has been proved to be true?
+
+POLUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, Polus, but if this is true, where is the great use of
+rhetoric? If we admit what has been just now said, every man ought in
+every way to guard himself against doing wrong, for he will thereby
+suffer great evil?
+
+POLUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And if he, or any one about whom he cares, does wrong, he
+ought of his own accord to go where he will be immediately punished; he
+will run to the judge, as he would to the physician, in order that
+the disease of injustice may not be rendered chronic and become the
+incurable cancer of the soul; must we not allow this consequence,
+Polus, if our former admissions are to stand:--is any other inference
+consistent with them?
+
+POLUS: To that, Socrates, there can be but one answer.
+
+SOCRATES: Then rhetoric is of no use to us, Polus, in helping a man to
+excuse his own injustice, that of his parents or friends, or children or
+country; but may be of use to any one who holds that instead of excusing
+he ought to accuse--himself above all, and in the next degree his family
+or any of his friends who may be doing wrong; he should bring to light
+the iniquity and not conceal it, that so the wrong-doer may suffer
+and be made whole; and he should even force himself and others not to
+shrink, but with closed eyes like brave men to let the physician operate
+with knife or searing iron, not regarding the pain, in the hope of
+attaining the good and the honourable; let him who has done things
+worthy of stripes, allow himself to be scourged, if of bonds, to be
+bound, if of a fine, to be fined, if of exile, to be exiled, if of
+death, to die, himself being the first to accuse himself and his own
+relations, and using rhetoric to this end, that his and their unjust
+actions may be made manifest, and that they themselves may be delivered
+from injustice, which is the greatest evil. Then, Polus, rhetoric would
+indeed be useful. Do you say 'Yes' or 'No' to that?
+
+POLUS: To me, Socrates, what you are saying appears very strange, though
+probably in agreement with your premises.
+
+SOCRATES: Is not this the conclusion, if the premises are not disproven?
+
+POLUS: Yes; it certainly is.
+
+SOCRATES: And from the opposite point of view, if indeed it be our
+duty to harm another, whether an enemy or not--I except the case of
+self-defence--then I have to be upon my guard--but if my enemy injures
+a third person, then in every sort of way, by word as well as deed, I
+should try to prevent his being punished, or appearing before the judge;
+and if he appears, I should contrive that he should escape, and not
+suffer punishment: if he has stolen a sum of money, let him keep what
+he has stolen and spend it on him and his, regardless of religion and
+justice; and if he have done things worthy of death, let him not die,
+but rather be immortal in his wickedness; or, if this is not possible,
+let him at any rate be allowed to live as long as he can. For such
+purposes, Polus, rhetoric may be useful, but is of small if of any use
+to him who is not intending to commit injustice; at least, there was no
+such use discovered by us in the previous discussion.
+
+CALLICLES: Tell me, Chaerephon, is Socrates in earnest, or is he joking?
+
+CHAEREPHON: I should say, Callicles, that he is in most profound
+earnest; but you may well ask him.
+
+CALLICLES: By the gods, and I will. Tell me, Socrates, are you in
+earnest, or only in jest? For if you are in earnest, and what you say is
+true, is not the whole of human life turned upside down; and are we not
+doing, as would appear, in everything the opposite of what we ought to
+be doing?
+
+SOCRATES: O Callicles, if there were not some community of feelings
+among mankind, however varying in different persons--I mean to say, if
+every man's feelings were peculiar to himself and were not shared by
+the rest of his species--I do not see how we could ever communicate our
+impressions to one another. I make this remark because I perceive that
+you and I have a common feeling. For we are lovers both, and both of
+us have two loves apiece:--I am the lover of Alcibiades, the son of
+Cleinias, and of philosophy; and you of the Athenian Demus, and of
+Demus the son of Pyrilampes. Now, I observe that you, with all your
+cleverness, do not venture to contradict your favourite in any word or
+opinion of his; but as he changes you change, backwards and forwards.
+When the Athenian Demus denies anything that you are saying in the
+assembly, you go over to his opinion; and you do the same with Demus,
+the fair young son of Pyrilampes. For you have not the power to resist
+the words and ideas of your loves; and if a person were to express
+surprise at the strangeness of what you say from time to time when under
+their influence, you would probably reply to him, if you were honest,
+that you cannot help saying what your loves say unless they are
+prevented; and that you can only be silent when they are. Now you must
+understand that my words are an echo too, and therefore you need not
+wonder at me; but if you want to silence me, silence philosophy, who
+is my love, for she is always telling me what I am now telling you, my
+friend; neither is she capricious like my other love, for the son
+of Cleinias says one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow, but
+philosophy is always true. She is the teacher at whose words you are
+now wondering, and you have heard her yourself. Her you must refute,
+and either show, as I was saying, that to do injustice and to escape
+punishment is not the worst of all evils; or, if you leave her word
+unrefuted, by the dog the god of Egypt, I declare, O Callicles, that
+Callicles will never be at one with himself, but that his whole life
+will be a discord. And yet, my friend, I would rather that my lyre
+should be inharmonious, and that there should be no music in the chorus
+which I provided; aye, or that the whole world should be at odds with
+me, and oppose me, rather than that I myself should be at odds with
+myself, and contradict myself.
+
+CALLICLES: O Socrates, you are a regular declaimer, and seem to be
+running riot in the argument. And now you are declaiming in this way
+because Polus has fallen into the same error himself of which he accused
+Gorgias:--for he said that when Gorgias was asked by you, whether, if
+some one came to him who wanted to learn rhetoric, and did not know
+justice, he would teach him justice, Gorgias in his modesty replied that
+he would, because he thought that mankind in general would be displeased
+if he answered 'No'; and then in consequence of this admission, Gorgias
+was compelled to contradict himself, that being just the sort of thing
+in which you delight. Whereupon Polus laughed at you deservedly, as I
+think; but now he has himself fallen into the same trap. I cannot
+say very much for his wit when he conceded to you that to do is more
+dishonourable than to suffer injustice, for this was the admission which
+led to his being entangled by you; and because he was too modest to say
+what he thought, he had his mouth stopped. For the truth is, Socrates,
+that you, who pretend to be engaged in the pursuit of truth, are
+appealing now to the popular and vulgar notions of right, which are not
+natural, but only conventional. Convention and nature are generally at
+variance with one another: and hence, if a person is too modest to say
+what he thinks, he is compelled to contradict himself; and you, in your
+ingenuity perceiving the advantage to be thereby gained, slyly ask of
+him who is arguing conventionally a question which is to be determined
+by the rule of nature; and if he is talking of the rule of nature, you
+slip away to custom: as, for instance, you did in this very discussion
+about doing and suffering injustice. When Polus was speaking of the
+conventionally dishonourable, you assailed him from the point of view
+of nature; for by the rule of nature, to suffer injustice is the greater
+disgrace because the greater evil; but conventionally, to do evil is the
+more disgraceful. For the suffering of injustice is not the part of a
+man, but of a slave, who indeed had better die than live; since when he
+is wronged and trampled upon, he is unable to help himself, or any other
+about whom he cares. The reason, as I conceive, is that the makers of
+laws are the majority who are weak; and they make laws and distribute
+praises and censures with a view to themselves and to their own
+interests; and they terrify the stronger sort of men, and those who
+are able to get the better of them, in order that they may not get the
+better of them; and they say, that dishonesty is shameful and unjust;
+meaning, by the word injustice, the desire of a man to have more than
+his neighbours; for knowing their own inferiority, I suspect that they
+are too glad of equality. And therefore the endeavour to have more
+than the many, is conventionally said to be shameful and unjust, and is
+called injustice (compare Republic), whereas nature herself intimates
+that it is just for the better to have more than the worse, the more
+powerful than the weaker; and in many ways she shows, among men as well
+as among animals, and indeed among whole cities and races, that justice
+consists in the superior ruling over and having more than the inferior.
+For on what principle of justice did Xerxes invade Hellas, or his father
+the Scythians? (not to speak of numberless other examples). Nay, but
+these are the men who act according to nature; yes, by Heaven, and
+according to the law of nature: not, perhaps, according to that
+artificial law, which we invent and impose upon our fellows, of whom we
+take the best and strongest from their youth upwards, and tame them like
+young lions,--charming them with the sound of the voice, and saying to
+them, that with equality they must be content, and that the equal is
+the honourable and the just. But if there were a man who had sufficient
+force, he would shake off and break through, and escape from all this;
+he would trample under foot all our formulas and spells and charms, and
+all our laws which are against nature: the slave would rise in rebellion
+and be lord over us, and the light of natural justice would shine forth.
+And this I take to be the sentiment of Pindar, when he says in his poem,
+that
+
+'Law is the king of all, of mortals as well as of immortals;'
+
+this, as he says,
+
+'Makes might to be right, doing violence with highest hand; as I infer
+from the deeds of Heracles, for without buying them--' (Fragm. Incert.
+151 (Bockh).) --I do not remember the exact words, but the meaning
+is, that without buying them, and without their being given to him, he
+carried off the oxen of Geryon, according to the law of natural right,
+and that the oxen and other possessions of the weaker and inferior
+properly belong to the stronger and superior. And this is true, as you
+may ascertain, if you will leave philosophy and go on to higher things:
+for philosophy, Socrates, if pursued in moderation and at the proper
+age, is an elegant accomplishment, but too much philosophy is the
+ruin of human life. Even if a man has good parts, still, if he carries
+philosophy into later life, he is necessarily ignorant of all those
+things which a gentleman and a person of honour ought to know; he is
+inexperienced in the laws of the State, and in the language which ought
+to be used in the dealings of man with man, whether private or public,
+and utterly ignorant of the pleasures and desires of mankind and of
+human character in general. And people of this sort, when they betake
+themselves to politics or business, are as ridiculous as I imagine
+the politicians to be, when they make their appearance in the arena of
+philosophy. For, as Euripides says,
+
+'Every man shines in that and pursues that, and devotes the greatest
+portion of the day to that in which he most excels,' (Antiope, fragm. 20
+(Dindorf).)
+
+but anything in which he is inferior, he avoids and depreciates, and
+praises the opposite from partiality to himself, and because he thinks
+that he will thus praise himself. The true principle is to unite them.
+Philosophy, as a part of education, is an excellent thing, and there
+is no disgrace to a man while he is young in pursuing such a study; but
+when he is more advanced in years, the thing becomes ridiculous, and
+I feel towards philosophers as I do towards those who lisp and imitate
+children. For I love to see a little child, who is not of an age to
+speak plainly, lisping at his play; there is an appearance of grace and
+freedom in his utterance, which is natural to his childish years. But
+when I hear some small creature carefully articulating its words, I am
+offended; the sound is disagreeable, and has to my ears the twang of
+slavery. So when I hear a man lisping, or see him playing like a
+child, his behaviour appears to me ridiculous and unmanly and worthy of
+stripes. And I have the same feeling about students of philosophy; when
+I see a youth thus engaged,--the study appears to me to be in character,
+and becoming a man of liberal education, and him who neglects philosophy
+I regard as an inferior man, who will never aspire to anything great
+or noble. But if I see him continuing the study in later life, and not
+leaving off, I should like to beat him, Socrates; for, as I was saying,
+such a one, even though he have good natural parts, becomes effeminate.
+He flies from the busy centre and the market-place, in which, as the
+poet says, men become distinguished; he creeps into a corner for the
+rest of his life, and talks in a whisper with three or four admiring
+youths, but never speaks out like a freeman in a satisfactory manner.
+Now I, Socrates, am very well inclined towards you, and my feeling
+may be compared with that of Zethus towards Amphion, in the play of
+Euripides, whom I was mentioning just now: for I am disposed to say
+to you much what Zethus said to his brother, that you, Socrates, are
+careless about the things of which you ought to be careful; and that you
+
+'Who have a soul so noble, are remarkable for a puerile exterior;
+Neither in a court of justice could you state a case, or give any reason
+or proof, Or offer valiant counsel on another's behalf.'
+
+And you must not be offended, my dear Socrates, for I am speaking out
+of good-will towards you, if I ask whether you are not ashamed of being
+thus defenceless; which I affirm to be the condition not of you only but
+of all those who will carry the study of philosophy too far. For suppose
+that some one were to take you, or any one of your sort, off to prison,
+declaring that you had done wrong when you had done no wrong, you must
+allow that you would not know what to do:--there you would stand giddy
+and gaping, and not having a word to say; and when you went up before
+the Court, even if the accuser were a poor creature and not good for
+much, you would die if he were disposed to claim the penalty of death.
+And yet, Socrates, what is the value of
+
+     'An art which converts a man of sense into a fool,'
+
+who is helpless, and has no power to save either himself or others, when
+he is in the greatest danger and is going to be despoiled by his enemies
+of all his goods, and has to live, simply deprived of his rights of
+citizenship?--he being a man who, if I may use the expression, may be
+boxed on the ears with impunity. Then, my good friend, take my advice,
+and refute no more:
+
+'Learn the philosophy of business, and acquire the reputation of wisdom.
+But leave to others these niceties,'
+
+whether they are to be described as follies or absurdities:
+
+'For they will only Give you poverty for the inmate of your dwelling.'
+
+Cease, then, emulating these paltry splitters of words, and emulate only
+the man of substance and honour, who is well to do.
+
+SOCRATES: If my soul, Callicles, were made of gold, should I not rejoice
+to discover one of those stones with which they test gold, and the very
+best possible one to which I might bring my soul; and if the stone and I
+agreed in approving of her training, then I should know that I was in a
+satisfactory state, and that no other test was needed by me.
+
+CALLICLES: What is your meaning, Socrates?
+
+SOCRATES: I will tell you; I think that I have found in you the desired
+touchstone.
+
+CALLICLES: Why?
+
+SOCRATES: Because I am sure that if you agree with me in any of the
+opinions which my soul forms, I have at last found the truth indeed. For
+I consider that if a man is to make a complete trial of the good or evil
+of the soul, he ought to have three qualities--knowledge, good-will,
+outspokenness, which are all possessed by you. Many whom I meet are
+unable to make trial of me, because they are not wise as you are; others
+are wise, but they will not tell me the truth, because they have not the
+same interest in me which you have; and these two strangers, Gorgias and
+Polus, are undoubtedly wise men and my very good friends, but they are
+not outspoken enough, and they are too modest. Why, their modesty is so
+great that they are driven to contradict themselves, first one and then
+the other of them, in the face of a large company, on matters of the
+highest moment. But you have all the qualities in which these others
+are deficient, having received an excellent education; to this many
+Athenians can testify. And you are my friend. Shall I tell you why I
+think so? I know that you, Callicles, and Tisander of Aphidnae, and
+Andron the son of Androtion, and Nausicydes of the deme of Cholarges,
+studied together: there were four of you, and I once heard you advising
+with one another as to the extent to which the pursuit of philosophy
+should be carried, and, as I know, you came to the conclusion that the
+study should not be pushed too much into detail. You were cautioning one
+another not to be overwise; you were afraid that too much wisdom might
+unconsciously to yourselves be the ruin of you. And now when I hear you
+giving the same advice to me which you then gave to your most intimate
+friends, I have a sufficient evidence of your real good-will to me. And
+of the frankness of your nature and freedom from modesty I am assured by
+yourself, and the assurance is confirmed by your last speech. Well then,
+the inference in the present case clearly is, that if you agree with me
+in an argument about any point, that point will have been sufficiently
+tested by us, and will not require to be submitted to any further test.
+For you could not have agreed with me, either from lack of knowledge or
+from superfluity of modesty, nor yet from a desire to deceive me, for
+you are my friend, as you tell me yourself. And therefore when you and
+I are agreed, the result will be the attainment of perfect truth. Now
+there is no nobler enquiry, Callicles, than that which you censure
+me for making,--What ought the character of a man to be, and what his
+pursuits, and how far is he to go, both in maturer years and in
+youth? For be assured that if I err in my own conduct I do not err
+intentionally, but from ignorance. Do not then desist from advising me,
+now that you have begun, until I have learned clearly what this is which
+I am to practise, and how I may acquire it. And if you find me assenting
+to your words, and hereafter not doing that to which I assented, call
+me 'dolt,' and deem me unworthy of receiving further instruction. Once
+more, then, tell me what you and Pindar mean by natural justice: Do you
+not mean that the superior should take the property of the inferior by
+force; that the better should rule the worse, the noble have more than
+the mean? Am I not right in my recollection?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes; that is what I was saying, and so I still aver.
+
+SOCRATES: And do you mean by the better the same as the superior? for I
+could not make out what you were saying at the time--whether you
+meant by the superior the stronger, and that the weaker must obey the
+stronger, as you seemed to imply when you said that great cities attack
+small ones in accordance with natural right, because they are superior
+and stronger, as though the superior and stronger and better were the
+same; or whether the better may be also the inferior and weaker, and the
+superior the worse, or whether better is to be defined in the same way
+as superior:--this is the point which I want to have cleared up. Are the
+superior and better and stronger the same or different?
+
+CALLICLES: I say unequivocally that they are the same.
+
+SOCRATES: Then the many are by nature superior to the one, against whom,
+as you were saying, they make the laws?
+
+CALLICLES: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Then the laws of the many are the laws of the superior?
+
+CALLICLES: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: Then they are the laws of the better; for the superior class
+are far better, as you were saying?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And since they are superior, the laws which are made by them
+are by nature good?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And are not the many of opinion, as you were lately saying,
+that justice is equality, and that to do is more disgraceful than to
+suffer injustice?--is that so or not? Answer, Callicles, and let no
+modesty be found to come in the way; do the many think, or do they not
+think thus?--I must beg of you to answer, in order that if you agree
+with me I may fortify myself by the assent of so competent an authority.
+
+CALLICLES: Yes; the opinion of the many is what you say.
+
+SOCRATES: Then not only custom but nature also affirms that to do is
+more disgraceful than to suffer injustice, and that justice is equality;
+so that you seem to have been wrong in your former assertion, when
+accusing me you said that nature and custom are opposed, and that I,
+knowing this, was dishonestly playing between them, appealing to custom
+when the argument is about nature, and to nature when the argument is
+about custom?
+
+CALLICLES: This man will never cease talking nonsense. At your age,
+Socrates, are you not ashamed to be catching at words and chuckling over
+some verbal slip? do you not see--have I not told you already, that by
+superior I mean better: do you imagine me to say, that if a rabble of
+slaves and nondescripts, who are of no use except perhaps for their
+physical strength, get together, their ipsissima verba are laws?
+
+SOCRATES: Ho! my philosopher, is that your line?
+
+CALLICLES: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: I was thinking, Callicles, that something of the kind must
+have been in your mind, and that is why I repeated the question,--What
+is the superior? I wanted to know clearly what you meant; for you surely
+do not think that two men are better than one, or that your slaves are
+better than you because they are stronger? Then please to begin again,
+and tell me who the better are, if they are not the stronger; and I will
+ask you, great Sir, to be a little milder in your instructions, or I
+shall have to run away from you.
+
+CALLICLES: You are ironical.
+
+SOCRATES: No, by the hero Zethus, Callicles, by whose aid you were just
+now saying many ironical things against me, I am not:--tell me, then,
+whom you mean, by the better?
+
+CALLICLES: I mean the more excellent.
+
+SOCRATES: Do you not see that you are yourself using words which have no
+meaning and that you are explaining nothing?--will you tell me whether
+you mean by the better and superior the wiser, or if not, whom?
+
+CALLICLES: Most assuredly, I do mean the wiser.
+
+SOCRATES: Then according to you, one wise man may often be superior to
+ten thousand fools, and he ought to rule them, and they ought to be his
+subjects, and he ought to have more than they should. This is what
+I believe that you mean (and you must not suppose that I am
+word-catching), if you allow that the one is superior to the ten
+thousand?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes; that is what I mean, and that is what I conceive to be
+natural justice--that the better and wiser should rule and have more
+than the inferior.
+
+SOCRATES: Stop there, and let me ask you what you would say in this
+case: Let us suppose that we are all together as we are now; there are
+several of us, and we have a large common store of meats and drinks, and
+there are all sorts of persons in our company having various degrees of
+strength and weakness, and one of us, being a physician, is wiser in the
+matter of food than all the rest, and he is probably stronger than some
+and not so strong as others of us--will he not, being wiser, be also
+better than we are, and our superior in this matter of food?
+
+CALLICLES: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Either, then, he will have a larger share of the meats and
+drinks, because he is better, or he will have the distribution of all of
+them by reason of his authority, but he will not expend or make use of
+a larger share of them on his own person, or if he does, he will be
+punished;--his share will exceed that of some, and be less than that of
+others, and if he be the weakest of all, he being the best of all will
+have the smallest share of all, Callicles:--am I not right, my friend?
+
+CALLICLES: You talk about meats and drinks and physicians and other
+nonsense; I am not speaking of them.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, but do you admit that the wiser is the better? Answer
+'Yes' or 'No.'
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And ought not the better to have a larger share?
+
+CALLICLES: Not of meats and drinks.
+
+SOCRATES: I understand: then, perhaps, of coats--the skilfullest weaver
+ought to have the largest coat, and the greatest number of them, and go
+about clothed in the best and finest of them?
+
+CALLICLES: Fudge about coats!
+
+SOCRATES: Then the skilfullest and best in making shoes ought to have
+the advantage in shoes; the shoemaker, clearly, should walk about in the
+largest shoes, and have the greatest number of them?
+
+CALLICLES: Fudge about shoes! What nonsense are you talking?
+
+SOCRATES: Or, if this is not your meaning, perhaps you would say that
+the wise and good and true husbandman should actually have a larger
+share of seeds, and have as much seed as possible for his own land?
+
+CALLICLES: How you go on, always talking in the same way, Socrates!
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, Callicles, and also about the same things.
+
+CALLICLES: Yes, by the Gods, you are literally always talking of
+cobblers and fullers and cooks and doctors, as if this had to do with
+our argument.
+
+SOCRATES: But why will you not tell me in what a man must be superior
+and wiser in order to claim a larger share; will you neither accept a
+suggestion, nor offer one?
+
+CALLICLES: I have already told you. In the first place, I mean by
+superiors not cobblers or cooks, but wise politicians who understand the
+administration of a state, and who are not only wise, but also valiant
+and able to carry out their designs, and not the men to faint from want
+of soul.
+
+SOCRATES: See now, most excellent Callicles, how different my charge
+against you is from that which you bring against me, for you reproach
+me with always saying the same; but I reproach you with never saying the
+same about the same things, for at one time you were defining the better
+and the superior to be the stronger, then again as the wiser, and now
+you bring forward a new notion; the superior and the better are now
+declared by you to be the more courageous: I wish, my good friend, that
+you would tell me, once for all, whom you affirm to be the better and
+superior, and in what they are better?
+
+CALLICLES: I have already told you that I mean those who are wise and
+courageous in the administration of a state--they ought to be the rulers
+of their states, and justice consists in their having more than their
+subjects.
+
+SOCRATES: But whether rulers or subjects will they or will they not have
+more than themselves, my friend?
+
+CALLICLES: What do you mean?
+
+SOCRATES: I mean that every man is his own ruler; but perhaps you think
+that there is no necessity for him to rule himself; he is only required
+to rule others?
+
+CALLICLES: What do you mean by his 'ruling over himself'?
+
+SOCRATES: A simple thing enough; just what is commonly said, that a
+man should be temperate and master of himself, and ruler of his own
+pleasures and passions.
+
+CALLICLES: What innocence! you mean those fools,--the temperate?
+
+SOCRATES: Certainly:--any one may know that to be my meaning.
+
+CALLICLES: Quite so, Socrates; and they are really fools, for how can a
+man be happy who is the servant of anything? On the contrary, I plainly
+assert, that he who would truly live ought to allow his desires to wax
+to the uttermost, and not to chastise them; but when they have grown to
+their greatest he should have courage and intelligence to minister to
+them and to satisfy all his longings. And this I affirm to be natural
+justice and nobility. To this however the many cannot attain; and they
+blame the strong man because they are ashamed of their own weakness,
+which they desire to conceal, and hence they say that intemperance is
+base. As I have remarked already, they enslave the nobler natures, and
+being unable to satisfy their pleasures, they praise temperance and
+justice out of their own cowardice. For if a man had been originally
+the son of a king, or had a nature capable of acquiring an empire or
+a tyranny or sovereignty, what could be more truly base or evil than
+temperance--to a man like him, I say, who might freely be enjoying every
+good, and has no one to stand in his way, and yet has admitted custom
+and reason and the opinion of other men to be lords over him?--must
+not he be in a miserable plight whom the reputation of justice and
+temperance hinders from giving more to his friends than to his enemies,
+even though he be a ruler in his city? Nay, Socrates, for you profess
+to be a votary of the truth, and the truth is this:--that luxury and
+intemperance and licence, if they be provided with means, are virtue and
+happiness--all the rest is a mere bauble, agreements contrary to nature,
+foolish talk of men, nothing worth. (Compare Republic.)
+
+SOCRATES: There is a noble freedom, Callicles, in your way of
+approaching the argument; for what you say is what the rest of the world
+think, but do not like to say. And I must beg of you to persevere, that
+the true rule of human life may become manifest. Tell me, then:--you
+say, do you not, that in the rightly-developed man the passions ought
+not to be controlled, but that we should let them grow to the utmost and
+somehow or other satisfy them, and that this is virtue?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes; I do.
+
+SOCRATES: Then those who want nothing are not truly said to be happy?
+
+CALLICLES: No indeed, for then stones and dead men would be the happiest
+of all.
+
+SOCRATES: But surely life according to your view is an awful thing; and
+indeed I think that Euripides may have been right in saying,
+
+'Who knows if life be not death and death life;'
+
+and that we are very likely dead; I have heard a philosopher say that at
+this moment we are actually dead, and that the body (soma) is our tomb
+(sema (compare Phaedr.)), and that the part of the soul which is the
+seat of the desires is liable to be tossed about by words and blown up
+and down; and some ingenious person, probably a Sicilian or an
+Italian, playing with the word, invented a tale in which he called the
+soul--because of its believing and make-believe nature--a vessel (An
+untranslatable pun,--dia to pithanon te kai pistikon onomase pithon.),
+and the ignorant he called the uninitiated or leaky, and the place in
+the souls of the uninitiated in which the desires are seated, being the
+intemperate and incontinent part, he compared to a vessel full of holes,
+because it can never be satisfied. He is not of your way of thinking,
+Callicles, for he declares, that of all the souls in Hades, meaning the
+invisible world (aeides), these uninitiated or leaky persons are the
+most miserable, and that they pour water into a vessel which is full of
+holes out of a colander which is similarly perforated. The colander, as
+my informer assures me, is the soul, and the soul which he compares to
+a colander is the soul of the ignorant, which is likewise full of holes,
+and therefore incontinent, owing to a bad memory and want of faith.
+These notions are strange enough, but they show the principle which, if
+I can, I would fain prove to you; that you should change your mind,
+and, instead of the intemperate and insatiate life, choose that which
+is orderly and sufficient and has a due provision for daily needs. Do I
+make any impression on you, and are you coming over to the opinion that
+the orderly are happier than the intemperate? Or do I fail to persuade
+you, and, however many tales I rehearse to you, do you continue of the
+same opinion still?
+
+CALLICLES: The latter, Socrates, is more like the truth.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, I will tell you another image, which comes out of the
+same school:--Let me request you to consider how far you would accept
+this as an account of the two lives of the temperate and intemperate in
+a figure:--There are two men, both of whom have a number of casks; the
+one man has his casks sound and full, one of wine, another of honey,
+and a third of milk, besides others filled with other liquids, and the
+streams which fill them are few and scanty, and he can only obtain them
+with a great deal of toil and difficulty; but when his casks are once
+filled he has no need to feed them any more, and has no further trouble
+with them or care about them. The other, in like manner, can procure
+streams, though not without difficulty; but his vessels are leaky and
+unsound, and night and day he is compelled to be filling them, and if
+he pauses for a moment, he is in an agony of pain. Such are their
+respective lives:--And now would you say that the life of the
+intemperate is happier than that of the temperate? Do I not convince you
+that the opposite is the truth?
+
+CALLICLES: You do not convince me, Socrates, for the one who has filled
+himself has no longer any pleasure left; and this, as I was just now
+saying, is the life of a stone: he has neither joy nor sorrow after he
+is once filled; but the pleasure depends on the superabundance of the
+influx.
+
+SOCRATES: But the more you pour in, the greater the waste; and the holes
+must be large for the liquid to escape.
+
+CALLICLES: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: The life which you are now depicting is not that of a dead
+man, or of a stone, but of a cormorant; you mean that he is to be
+hungering and eating?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And he is to be thirsting and drinking?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes, that is what I mean; he is to have all his desires about
+him, and to be able to live happily in the gratification of them.
+
+SOCRATES: Capital, excellent; go on as you have begun, and have no
+shame; I, too, must disencumber myself of shame: and first, will you
+tell me whether you include itching and scratching, provided you have
+enough of them and pass your life in scratching, in your notion of
+happiness?
+
+CALLICLES: What a strange being you are, Socrates! a regular mob-orator.
+
+SOCRATES: That was the reason, Callicles, why I scared Polus and
+Gorgias, until they were too modest to say what they thought; but you
+will not be too modest and will not be scared, for you are a brave man.
+And now, answer my question.
+
+CALLICLES: I answer, that even the scratcher would live pleasantly.
+
+SOCRATES: And if pleasantly, then also happily?
+
+CALLICLES: To be sure.
+
+SOCRATES: But what if the itching is not confined to the head? Shall I
+pursue the question? And here, Callicles, I would have you consider how
+you would reply if consequences are pressed upon you, especially if in
+the last resort you are asked, whether the life of a catamite is not
+terrible, foul, miserable? Or would you venture to say, that they too
+are happy, if they only get enough of what they want?
+
+CALLICLES: Are you not ashamed, Socrates, of introducing such topics
+into the argument?
+
+SOCRATES: Well, my fine friend, but am I the introducer of these topics,
+or he who says without any qualification that all who feel pleasure in
+whatever manner are happy, and who admits of no distinction between good
+and bad pleasures? And I would still ask, whether you say that pleasure
+and good are the same, or whether there is some pleasure which is not a
+good?
+
+CALLICLES: Well, then, for the sake of consistency, I will say that they
+are the same.
+
+SOCRATES: You are breaking the original agreement, Callicles, and will
+no longer be a satisfactory companion in the search after truth, if you
+say what is contrary to your real opinion.
+
+CALLICLES: Why, that is what you are doing too, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: Then we are both doing wrong. Still, my dear friend, I would
+ask you to consider whether pleasure, from whatever source derived, is
+the good; for, if this be true, then the disagreeable consequences which
+have been darkly intimated must follow, and many others.
+
+CALLICLES: That, Socrates, is only your opinion.
+
+SOCRATES: And do you, Callicles, seriously maintain what you are saying?
+
+CALLICLES: Indeed I do.
+
+SOCRATES: Then, as you are in earnest, shall we proceed with the
+argument?
+
+CALLICLES: By all means. (Or, 'I am in profound earnest.')
+
+SOCRATES: Well, if you are willing to proceed, determine this question
+for me:--There is something, I presume, which you would call knowledge?
+
+CALLICLES: There is.
+
+SOCRATES: And were you not saying just now, that some courage implied
+knowledge?
+
+CALLICLES: I was.
+
+SOCRATES: And you were speaking of courage and knowledge as two things
+different from one another?
+
+CALLICLES: Certainly I was.
+
+SOCRATES: And would you say that pleasure and knowledge are the same, or
+not the same?
+
+CALLICLES: Not the same, O man of wisdom.
+
+SOCRATES: And would you say that courage differed from pleasure?
+
+CALLICLES: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, then, let us remember that Callicles, the Acharnian,
+says that pleasure and good are the same; but that knowledge and courage
+are not the same, either with one another, or with the good.
+
+CALLICLES: And what does our friend Socrates, of Foxton, say--does he
+assent to this, or not?
+
+SOCRATES: He does not assent; neither will Callicles, when he sees
+himself truly. You will admit, I suppose, that good and evil fortune are
+opposed to each other?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And if they are opposed to each other, then, like health and
+disease, they exclude one another; a man cannot have them both, or be
+without them both, at the same time?
+
+CALLICLES: What do you mean?
+
+SOCRATES: Take the case of any bodily affection:--a man may have the
+complaint in his eyes which is called ophthalmia?
+
+CALLICLES: To be sure.
+
+SOCRATES: But he surely cannot have the same eyes well and sound at the
+same time?
+
+CALLICLES: Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES: And when he has got rid of his ophthalmia, has he got rid of
+the health of his eyes too? Is the final result, that he gets rid of
+them both together?
+
+CALLICLES: Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES: That would surely be marvellous and absurd?
+
+CALLICLES: Very.
+
+SOCRATES: I suppose that he is affected by them, and gets rid of them in
+turns?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And he may have strength and weakness in the same way, by
+fits?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Or swiftness and slowness?
+
+CALLICLES: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And does he have and not have good and happiness, and
+their opposites, evil and misery, in a similar alternation? (Compare
+Republic.)
+
+CALLICLES: Certainly he has.
+
+SOCRATES: If then there be anything which a man has and has not at the
+same time, clearly that cannot be good and evil--do we agree? Please not
+to answer without consideration.
+
+CALLICLES: I entirely agree.
+
+SOCRATES: Go back now to our former admissions.--Did you say that to
+hunger, I mean the mere state of hunger, was pleasant or painful?
+
+CALLICLES: I said painful, but that to eat when you are hungry is
+pleasant.
+
+SOCRATES: I know; but still the actual hunger is painful: am I not
+right?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And thirst, too, is painful?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes, very.
+
+SOCRATES: Need I adduce any more instances, or would you agree that all
+wants or desires are painful?
+
+CALLICLES: I agree, and therefore you need not adduce any more
+instances.
+
+SOCRATES: Very good. And you would admit that to drink, when you are
+thirsty, is pleasant?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And in the sentence which you have just uttered, the word
+'thirsty' implies pain?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And the word 'drinking' is expressive of pleasure, and of the
+satisfaction of the want?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: There is pleasure in drinking?
+
+CALLICLES: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: When you are thirsty?
+
+SOCRATES: And in pain?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Do you see the inference:--that pleasure and pain are
+simultaneous, when you say that being thirsty, you drink? For are they
+not simultaneous, and do they not affect at the same time the same part,
+whether of the soul or the body?--which of them is affected cannot be
+supposed to be of any consequence: Is not this true?
+
+CALLICLES: It is.
+
+SOCRATES: You said also, that no man could have good and evil fortune at
+the same time?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes, I did.
+
+SOCRATES: But you admitted, that when in pain a man might also have
+pleasure?
+
+CALLICLES: Clearly.
+
+SOCRATES: Then pleasure is not the same as good fortune, or pain the
+same as evil fortune, and therefore the good is not the same as the
+pleasant?
+
+CALLICLES: I wish I knew, Socrates, what your quibbling means.
+
+SOCRATES: You know, Callicles, but you affect not to know.
+
+CALLICLES: Well, get on, and don't keep fooling: then you will know what
+a wiseacre you are in your admonition of me.
+
+SOCRATES: Does not a man cease from his thirst and from his pleasure in
+drinking at the same time?
+
+CALLICLES: I do not understand what you are saying.
+
+GORGIAS: Nay, Callicles, answer, if only for our sakes;--we should like
+to hear the argument out.
+
+CALLICLES: Yes, Gorgias, but I must complain of the habitual trifling of
+Socrates; he is always arguing about little and unworthy questions.
+
+GORGIAS: What matter? Your reputation, Callicles, is not at stake. Let
+Socrates argue in his own fashion.
+
+CALLICLES: Well, then, Socrates, you shall ask these little peddling
+questions, since Gorgias wishes to have them.
+
+SOCRATES: I envy you, Callicles, for having been initiated into the
+great mysteries before you were initiated into the lesser. I thought
+that this was not allowable. But to return to our argument:--Does not a
+man cease from thirsting and from the pleasure of drinking at the same
+moment?
+
+CALLICLES: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And if he is hungry, or has any other desire, does he not
+cease from the desire and the pleasure at the same moment?
+
+CALLICLES: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: Then he ceases from pain and pleasure at the same moment?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: But he does not cease from good and evil at the same moment,
+as you have admitted: do you still adhere to what you said?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes, I do; but what is the inference?
+
+SOCRATES: Why, my friend, the inference is that the good is not the
+same as the pleasant, or the evil the same as the painful; there is a
+cessation of pleasure and pain at the same moment; but not of good and
+evil, for they are different. How then can pleasure be the same as good,
+or pain as evil? And I would have you look at the matter in another
+light, which could hardly, I think, have been considered by you when you
+identified them: Are not the good good because they have good present
+with them, as the beautiful are those who have beauty present with them?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And do you call the fools and cowards good men? For you were
+saying just now that the courageous and the wise are the good--would you
+not say so?
+
+CALLICLES: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And did you never see a foolish child rejoicing?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes, I have.
+
+SOCRATES: And a foolish man too?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes, certainly; but what is your drift?
+
+SOCRATES: Nothing particular, if you will only answer.
+
+CALLICLES: Yes, I have.
+
+SOCRATES: And did you ever see a sensible man rejoicing or sorrowing?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Which rejoice and sorrow most--the wise or the foolish?
+
+CALLICLES: They are much upon a par, I think, in that respect.
+
+SOCRATES: Enough: And did you ever see a coward in battle?
+
+CALLICLES: To be sure.
+
+SOCRATES: And which rejoiced most at the departure of the enemy, the
+coward or the brave?
+
+CALLICLES: I should say 'most' of both; or at any rate, they rejoiced
+about equally.
+
+SOCRATES: No matter; then the cowards, and not only the brave, rejoice?
+
+CALLICLES: Greatly.
+
+SOCRATES: And the foolish; so it would seem?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And are only the cowards pained at the approach of their
+enemies, or are the brave also pained?
+
+CALLICLES: Both are pained.
+
+SOCRATES: And are they equally pained?
+
+CALLICLES: I should imagine that the cowards are more pained.
+
+SOCRATES: And are they not better pleased at the enemy's departure?
+
+CALLICLES: I dare say.
+
+SOCRATES: Then are the foolish and the wise and the cowards and the
+brave all pleased and pained, as you were saying, in nearly equal
+degree; but are the cowards more pleased and pained than the brave?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: But surely the wise and brave are the good, and the foolish
+and the cowardly are the bad?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Then the good and the bad are pleased and pained in a nearly
+equal degree?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Then are the good and bad good and bad in a nearly equal
+degree, or have the bad the advantage both in good and evil? (i.e. in
+having more pleasure and more pain.)
+
+CALLICLES: I really do not know what you mean.
+
+SOCRATES: Why, do you not remember saying that the good were good
+because good was present with them, and the evil because evil; and that
+pleasures were goods and pains evils?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes, I remember.
+
+SOCRATES: And are not these pleasures or goods present to those who
+rejoice--if they do rejoice?
+
+CALLICLES: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Then those who rejoice are good when goods are present with
+them?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And those who are in pain have evil or sorrow present with
+them?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And would you still say that the evil are evil by reason of
+the presence of evil?
+
+CALLICLES: I should.
+
+SOCRATES: Then those who rejoice are good, and those who are in pain
+evil?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: The degrees of good and evil vary with the degrees of pleasure
+and of pain?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Have the wise man and the fool, the brave and the coward, joy
+and pain in nearly equal degrees? or would you say that the coward has
+more?
+
+CALLICLES: I should say that he has.
+
+SOCRATES: Help me then to draw out the conclusion which follows from our
+admissions; for it is good to repeat and review what is good twice and
+thrice over, as they say. Both the wise man and the brave man we allow
+to be good?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And the foolish man and the coward to be evil?
+
+CALLICLES: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And he who has joy is good?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And he who is in pain is evil?
+
+CALLICLES: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: The good and evil both have joy and pain, but, perhaps, the
+evil has more of them?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Then must we not infer, that the bad man is as good and bad
+as the good, or, perhaps, even better?--is not this a further inference
+which follows equally with the preceding from the assertion that the
+good and the pleasant are the same:--can this be denied, Callicles?
+
+CALLICLES: I have been listening and making admissions to you, Socrates;
+and I remark that if a person grants you anything in play, you, like a
+child, want to keep hold and will not give it back. But do you really
+suppose that I or any other human being denies that some pleasures are
+good and others bad?
+
+SOCRATES: Alas, Callicles, how unfair you are! you certainly treat me as
+if I were a child, sometimes saying one thing, and then another, as if
+you were meaning to deceive me. And yet I thought at first that you were
+my friend, and would not have deceived me if you could have helped. But
+I see that I was mistaken; and now I suppose that I must make the best
+of a bad business, as they said of old, and take what I can get out of
+you.--Well, then, as I understand you to say, I may assume that some
+pleasures are good and others evil?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: The beneficial are good, and the hurtful are evil?
+
+CALLICLES: To be sure.
+
+SOCRATES: And the beneficial are those which do some good, and the
+hurtful are those which do some evil?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Take, for example, the bodily pleasures of eating and
+drinking, which we were just now mentioning--you mean to say that those
+which promote health, or any other bodily excellence, are good, and
+their opposites evil?
+
+CALLICLES: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And in the same way there are good pains and there are evil
+pains?
+
+CALLICLES: To be sure.
+
+SOCRATES: And ought we not to choose and use the good pleasures and
+pains?
+
+CALLICLES: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: But not the evil?
+
+CALLICLES: Clearly.
+
+SOCRATES: Because, if you remember, Polus and I have agreed that all
+our actions are to be done for the sake of the good;--and will you agree
+with us in saying, that the good is the end of all our actions, and that
+all our actions are to be done for the sake of the good, and not the
+good for the sake of them?--will you add a third vote to our two?
+
+CALLICLES: I will.
+
+SOCRATES: Then pleasure, like everything else, is to be sought for the
+sake of that which is good, and not that which is good for the sake of
+pleasure?
+
+CALLICLES: To be sure.
+
+SOCRATES: But can every man choose what pleasures are good and what are
+evil, or must he have art or knowledge of them in detail?
+
+CALLICLES: He must have art.
+
+SOCRATES: Let me now remind you of what I was saying to Gorgias and
+Polus; I was saying, as you will not have forgotten, that there were
+some processes which aim only at pleasure, and know nothing of a better
+and worse, and there are other processes which know good and evil. And
+I considered that cookery, which I do not call an art, but only an
+experience, was of the former class, which is concerned with pleasure,
+and that the art of medicine was of the class which is concerned with
+the good. And now, by the god of friendship, I must beg you, Callicles,
+not to jest, or to imagine that I am jesting with you; do not answer at
+random and contrary to your real opinion--for you will observe that we
+are arguing about the way of human life; and to a man who has any sense
+at all, what question can be more serious than this?--whether he should
+follow after that way of life to which you exhort me, and act what
+you call the manly part of speaking in the assembly, and cultivating
+rhetoric, and engaging in public affairs, according to the principles
+now in vogue; or whether he should pursue the life of philosophy;--and
+in what the latter way differs from the former. But perhaps we had
+better first try to distinguish them, as I did before, and when we have
+come to an agreement that they are distinct, we may proceed to consider
+in what they differ from one another, and which of them we should
+choose. Perhaps, however, you do not even now understand what I mean?
+
+CALLICLES: No, I do not.
+
+SOCRATES: Then I will explain myself more clearly: seeing that you and I
+have agreed that there is such a thing as good, and that there is such
+a thing as pleasure, and that pleasure is not the same as good, and that
+the pursuit and process of acquisition of the one, that is pleasure,
+is different from the pursuit and process of acquisition of the other,
+which is good--I wish that you would tell me whether you agree with me
+thus far or not--do you agree?
+
+CALLICLES: I do.
+
+SOCRATES: Then I will proceed, and ask whether you also agree with me,
+and whether you think that I spoke the truth when I further said to
+Gorgias and Polus that cookery in my opinion is only an experience, and
+not an art at all; and that whereas medicine is an art, and attends to
+the nature and constitution of the patient, and has principles of
+action and reason in each case, cookery in attending upon pleasure
+never regards either the nature or reason of that pleasure to which she
+devotes herself, but goes straight to her end, nor ever considers or
+calculates anything, but works by experience and routine, and just
+preserves the recollection of what she has usually done when producing
+pleasure. And first, I would have you consider whether I have proved
+what I was saying, and then whether there are not other similar
+processes which have to do with the soul--some of them processes of art,
+making a provision for the soul's highest interest--others despising the
+interest, and, as in the previous case, considering only the pleasure
+of the soul, and how this may be acquired, but not considering what
+pleasures are good or bad, and having no other aim but to afford
+gratification, whether good or bad. In my opinion, Callicles, there are
+such processes, and this is the sort of thing which I term flattery,
+whether concerned with the body or the soul, or whenever employed with a
+view to pleasure and without any consideration of good and evil. And now
+I wish that you would tell me whether you agree with us in this notion,
+or whether you differ.
+
+CALLICLES: I do not differ; on the contrary, I agree; for in that way I
+shall soonest bring the argument to an end, and shall oblige my friend
+Gorgias.
+
+SOCRATES: And is this notion true of one soul, or of two or more?
+
+CALLICLES: Equally true of two or more.
+
+SOCRATES: Then a man may delight a whole assembly, and yet have no
+regard for their true interests?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Can you tell me the pursuits which delight mankind--or rather,
+if you would prefer, let me ask, and do you answer, which of them belong
+to the pleasurable class, and which of them not? In the first place,
+what say you of flute-playing? Does not that appear to be an art which
+seeks only pleasure, Callicles, and thinks of nothing else?
+
+CALLICLES: I assent.
+
+SOCRATES: And is not the same true of all similar arts, as, for example,
+the art of playing the lyre at festivals?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And what do you say of the choral art and of dithyrambic
+poetry?--are not they of the same nature? Do you imagine that Cinesias
+the son of Meles cares about what will tend to the moral improvement of
+his hearers, or about what will give pleasure to the multitude?
+
+CALLICLES: There can be no mistake about Cinesias, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: And what do you say of his father, Meles the harp-player? Did
+he perform with any view to the good of his hearers? Could he be said
+to regard even their pleasure? For his singing was an infliction to his
+audience. And of harp-playing and dithyrambic poetry in general, what
+would you say? Have they not been invented wholly for the sake of
+pleasure?
+
+CALLICLES: That is my notion of them.
+
+SOCRATES: And as for the Muse of Tragedy, that solemn and august
+personage--what are her aspirations? Is all her aim and desire only
+to give pleasure to the spectators, or does she fight against them and
+refuse to speak of their pleasant vices, and willingly proclaim in word
+and song truths welcome and unwelcome?--which in your judgment is her
+character?
+
+CALLICLES: There can be no doubt, Socrates, that Tragedy has her face
+turned towards pleasure and the gratification of the audience.
+
+SOCRATES: And is not that the sort of thing, Callicles, which we were
+just now describing as flattery?
+
+CALLICLES: Quite true.
+
+SOCRATES: Well now, suppose that we strip all poetry of song and rhythm
+and metre, there will remain speech? (Compare Republic.)
+
+CALLICLES: To be sure.
+
+SOCRATES: And this speech is addressed to a crowd of people?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Then poetry is a sort of rhetoric?
+
+CALLICLES: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And do not the poets in the theatres seem to you to be
+rhetoricians?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Then now we have discovered a sort of rhetoric which is
+addressed to a crowd of men, women, and children, freemen and slaves.
+And this is not much to our taste, for we have described it as having
+the nature of flattery.
+
+CALLICLES: Quite true.
+
+SOCRATES: Very good. And what do you say of that other rhetoric which
+addresses the Athenian assembly and the assemblies of freemen in other
+states? Do the rhetoricians appear to you always to aim at what is best,
+and do they seek to improve the citizens by their speeches, or are
+they too, like the rest of mankind, bent upon giving them pleasure,
+forgetting the public good in the thought of their own interest, playing
+with the people as with children, and trying to amuse them, but never
+considering whether they are better or worse for this?
+
+CALLICLES: I must distinguish. There are some who have a real care of
+the public in what they say, while others are such as you describe.
+
+SOCRATES: I am contented with the admission that rhetoric is of two
+sorts; one, which is mere flattery and disgraceful declamation; the
+other, which is noble and aims at the training and improvement of the
+souls of the citizens, and strives to say what is best, whether welcome
+or unwelcome, to the audience; but have you ever known such a rhetoric;
+or if you have, and can point out any rhetorician who is of this stamp,
+who is he?
+
+CALLICLES: But, indeed, I am afraid that I cannot tell you of any such
+among the orators who are at present living.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, then, can you mention any one of a former generation,
+who may be said to have improved the Athenians, who found them worse
+and made them better, from the day that he began to make speeches? for,
+indeed, I do not know of such a man.
+
+CALLICLES: What! did you never hear that Themistocles was a good man,
+and Cimon and Miltiades and Pericles, who is just lately dead, and whom
+you heard yourself?
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, Callicles, they were good men, if, as you said at first,
+true virtue consists only in the satisfaction of our own desires and
+those of others; but if not, and if, as we were afterwards compelled to
+acknowledge, the satisfaction of some desires makes us better, and of
+others, worse, and we ought to gratify the one and not the other, and
+there is an art in distinguishing them,--can you tell me of any of these
+statesmen who did distinguish them?
+
+CALLICLES: No, indeed, I cannot.
+
+SOCRATES: Yet, surely, Callicles, if you look you will find such a one.
+Suppose that we just calmly consider whether any of these was such as I
+have described. Will not the good man, who says whatever he says with
+a view to the best, speak with a reference to some standard and not at
+random; just as all other artists, whether the painter, the builder, the
+shipwright, or any other look all of them to their own work, and do
+not select and apply at random what they apply, but strive to give
+a definite form to it? The artist disposes all things in order, and
+compels the one part to harmonize and accord with the other part, until
+he has constructed a regular and systematic whole; and this is true of
+all artists, and in the same way the trainers and physicians, of whom we
+spoke before, give order and regularity to the body: do you deny this?
+
+CALLICLES: No; I am ready to admit it.
+
+SOCRATES: Then the house in which order and regularity prevail is good;
+that in which there is disorder, evil?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And the same is true of a ship?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And the same may be said of the human body?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And what would you say of the soul? Will the good soul be that
+in which disorder is prevalent, or that in which there is harmony and
+order?
+
+CALLICLES: The latter follows from our previous admissions.
+
+SOCRATES: What is the name which is given to the effect of harmony and
+order in the body?
+
+CALLICLES: I suppose that you mean health and strength?
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, I do; and what is the name which you would give to the
+effect of harmony and order in the soul? Try and discover a name for
+this as well as for the other.
+
+CALLICLES: Why not give the name yourself, Socrates?
+
+SOCRATES: Well, if you had rather that I should, I will; and you shall
+say whether you agree with me, and if not, you shall refute and answer
+me. 'Healthy,' as I conceive, is the name which is given to the
+regular order of the body, whence comes health and every other bodily
+excellence: is that true or not?
+
+CALLICLES: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And 'lawful' and 'law' are the names which are given to the
+regular order and action of the soul, and these make men lawful and
+orderly:--and so we have temperance and justice: have we not?
+
+CALLICLES: Granted.
+
+SOCRATES: And will not the true rhetorician who is honest and
+understands his art have his eye fixed upon these, in all the words
+which he addresses to the souls of men, and in all his actions, both in
+what he gives and in what he takes away? Will not his aim be to implant
+justice in the souls of his citizens and take away injustice, to implant
+temperance and take away intemperance, to implant every virtue and take
+away every vice? Do you not agree?
+
+CALLICLES: I agree.
+
+SOCRATES: For what use is there, Callicles, in giving to the body of
+a sick man who is in a bad state of health a quantity of the most
+delightful food or drink or any other pleasant thing, which may be
+really as bad for him as if you gave him nothing, or even worse if
+rightly estimated. Is not that true?
+
+CALLICLES: I will not say No to it.
+
+SOCRATES: For in my opinion there is no profit in a man's life if his
+body is in an evil plight--in that case his life also is evil: am I not
+right?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: When a man is in health the physicians will generally allow
+him to eat when he is hungry and drink when he is thirsty, and to
+satisfy his desires as he likes, but when he is sick they hardly suffer
+him to satisfy his desires at all: even you will admit that?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And does not the same argument hold of the soul, my good sir?
+While she is in a bad state and is senseless and intemperate and unjust
+and unholy, her desires ought to be controlled, and she ought to
+be prevented from doing anything which does not tend to her own
+improvement.
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Such treatment will be better for the soul herself?
+
+CALLICLES: To be sure.
+
+SOCRATES: And to restrain her from her appetites is to chastise her?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Then restraint or chastisement is better for the soul
+than intemperance or the absence of control, which you were just now
+preferring?
+
+CALLICLES: I do not understand you, Socrates, and I wish that you would
+ask some one who does.
+
+SOCRATES: Here is a gentleman who cannot endure to be improved or to
+subject himself to that very chastisement of which the argument speaks!
+
+CALLICLES: I do not heed a word of what you are saying, and have only
+answered hitherto out of civility to Gorgias.
+
+SOCRATES: What are we to do, then? Shall we break off in the middle?
+
+CALLICLES: You shall judge for yourself.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, but people say that 'a tale should have a head and not
+break off in the middle,' and I should not like to have the argument
+going about without a head (compare Laws); please then to go on a little
+longer, and put the head on.
+
+CALLICLES: How tyrannical you are, Socrates! I wish that you and your
+argument would rest, or that you would get some one else to argue with
+you.
+
+SOCRATES: But who else is willing?--I want to finish the argument.
+
+CALLICLES: Cannot you finish without my help, either talking straight
+on, or questioning and answering yourself?
+
+SOCRATES: Must I then say with Epicharmus, 'Two men spoke before, but
+now one shall be enough'? I suppose that there is absolutely no help.
+And if I am to carry on the enquiry by myself, I will first of all
+remark that not only I but all of us should have an ambition to know
+what is true and what is false in this matter, for the discovery of the
+truth is a common good. And now I will proceed to argue according to my
+own notion. But if any of you think that I arrive at conclusions which
+are untrue you must interpose and refute me, for I do not speak from
+any knowledge of what I am saying; I am an enquirer like yourselves, and
+therefore, if my opponent says anything which is of force, I shall be
+the first to agree with him. I am speaking on the supposition that the
+argument ought to be completed; but if you think otherwise let us leave
+off and go our ways.
+
+GORGIAS: I think, Socrates, that we should not go our ways until you
+have completed the argument; and this appears to me to be the wish of
+the rest of the company; I myself should very much like to hear what
+more you have to say.
+
+SOCRATES: I too, Gorgias, should have liked to continue the argument
+with Callicles, and then I might have given him an 'Amphion' in return
+for his 'Zethus'; but since you, Callicles, are unwilling to continue,
+I hope that you will listen, and interrupt me if I seem to you to be in
+error. And if you refute me, I shall not be angry with you as you are
+with me, but I shall inscribe you as the greatest of benefactors on the
+tablets of my soul.
+
+CALLICLES: My good fellow, never mind me, but get on.
+
+SOCRATES: Listen to me, then, while I recapitulate the argument:--Is the
+pleasant the same as the good? Not the same. Callicles and I are agreed
+about that. And is the pleasant to be pursued for the sake of the good?
+or the good for the sake of the pleasant? The pleasant is to be pursued
+for the sake of the good. And that is pleasant at the presence of which
+we are pleased, and that is good at the presence of which we are good?
+To be sure. And we are good, and all good things whatever are good when
+some virtue is present in us or them? That, Callicles, is my conviction.
+But the virtue of each thing, whether body or soul, instrument or
+creature, when given to them in the best way comes to them not by chance
+but as the result of the order and truth and art which are imparted to
+them: Am I not right? I maintain that I am. And is not the virtue of
+each thing dependent on order or arrangement? Yes, I say. And that which
+makes a thing good is the proper order inhering in each thing? Such is
+my view. And is not the soul which has an order of her own better than
+that which has no order? Certainly. And the soul which has order is
+orderly? Of course. And that which is orderly is temperate? Assuredly.
+And the temperate soul is good? No other answer can I give, Callicles
+dear; have you any?
+
+CALLICLES: Go on, my good fellow.
+
+SOCRATES: Then I shall proceed to add, that if the temperate soul is
+the good soul, the soul which is in the opposite condition, that is, the
+foolish and intemperate, is the bad soul. Very true.
+
+And will not the temperate man do what is proper, both in relation
+to the gods and to men;--for he would not be temperate if he did not?
+Certainly he will do what is proper. In his relation to other men he
+will do what is just; and in his relation to the gods he will do what is
+holy; and he who does what is just and holy must be just and holy? Very
+true. And must he not be courageous? for the duty of a temperate man is
+not to follow or to avoid what he ought not, but what he ought, whether
+things or men or pleasures or pains, and patiently to endure when he
+ought; and therefore, Callicles, the temperate man, being, as we have
+described, also just and courageous and holy, cannot be other than a
+perfectly good man, nor can the good man do otherwise than well and
+perfectly whatever he does; and he who does well must of necessity be
+happy and blessed, and the evil man who does evil, miserable: now
+this latter is he whom you were applauding--the intemperate who is
+the opposite of the temperate. Such is my position, and these things I
+affirm to be true. And if they are true, then I further affirm that he
+who desires to be happy must pursue and practise temperance and run
+away from intemperance as fast as his legs will carry him: he had better
+order his life so as not to need punishment; but if either he or any
+of his friends, whether private individual or city, are in need of
+punishment, then justice must be done and he must suffer punishment, if
+he would be happy. This appears to me to be the aim which a man ought
+to have, and towards which he ought to direct all the energies both
+of himself and of the state, acting so that he may have temperance and
+justice present with him and be happy, not suffering his lusts to be
+unrestrained, and in the never-ending desire satisfy them leading a
+robber's life. Such a one is the friend neither of God nor man, for he
+is incapable of communion, and he who is incapable of communion is
+also incapable of friendship. And philosophers tell us, Callicles, that
+communion and friendship and orderliness and temperance and justice bind
+together heaven and earth and gods and men, and that this universe is
+therefore called Cosmos or order, not disorder or misrule, my friend.
+But although you are a philosopher you seem to me never to have observed
+that geometrical equality is mighty, both among gods and men; you think
+that you ought to cultivate inequality or excess, and do not care about
+geometry.--Well, then, either the principle that the happy are made
+happy by the possession of justice and temperance, and the miserable
+miserable by the possession of vice, must be refuted, or, if it is
+granted, what will be the consequences? All the consequences which I
+drew before, Callicles, and about which you asked me whether I was in
+earnest when I said that a man ought to accuse himself and his son and
+his friend if he did anything wrong, and that to this end he should
+use his rhetoric--all those consequences are true. And that which you
+thought that Polus was led to admit out of modesty is true, viz., that,
+to do injustice, if more disgraceful than to suffer, is in that degree
+worse; and the other position, which, according to Polus, Gorgias
+admitted out of modesty, that he who would truly be a rhetorician ought
+to be just and have a knowledge of justice, has also turned out to be
+true.
+
+And now, these things being as we have said, let us proceed in the next
+place to consider whether you are right in throwing in my teeth that
+I am unable to help myself or any of my friends or kinsmen, or to save
+them in the extremity of danger, and that I am in the power of another
+like an outlaw to whom any one may do what he likes,--he may box my
+ears, which was a brave saying of yours; or take away my goods or banish
+me, or even do his worst and kill me; a condition which, as you say, is
+the height of disgrace. My answer to you is one which has been already
+often repeated, but may as well be repeated once more. I tell you,
+Callicles, that to be boxed on the ears wrongfully is not the worst evil
+which can befall a man, nor to have my purse or my body cut open, but
+that to smite and slay me and mine wrongfully is far more disgraceful
+and more evil; aye, and to despoil and enslave and pillage, or in any
+way at all to wrong me and mine, is far more disgraceful and evil to the
+doer of the wrong than to me who am the sufferer. These truths, which
+have been already set forth as I state them in the previous discussion,
+would seem now to have been fixed and riveted by us, if I may use an
+expression which is certainly bold, in words which are like bonds of
+iron and adamant; and unless you or some other still more enterprising
+hero shall break them, there is no possibility of denying what I say.
+For my position has always been, that I myself am ignorant how these
+things are, but that I have never met any one who could say otherwise,
+any more than you can, and not appear ridiculous. This is my position
+still, and if what I am saying is true, and injustice is the greatest of
+evils to the doer of injustice, and yet there is if possible a greater
+than this greatest of evils (compare Republic), in an unjust man not
+suffering retribution, what is that defence of which the want will make
+a man truly ridiculous? Must not the defence be one which will avert the
+greatest of human evils? And will not the worst of all defences be
+that with which a man is unable to defend himself or his family or his
+friends?--and next will come that which is unable to avert the next
+greatest evil; thirdly that which is unable to avert the third greatest
+evil; and so of other evils. As is the greatness of evil so is the
+honour of being able to avert them in their several degrees, and the
+disgrace of not being able to avert them. Am I not right Callicles?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes, quite right.
+
+SOCRATES: Seeing then that there are these two evils, the doing
+injustice and the suffering injustice--and we affirm that to do
+injustice is a greater, and to suffer injustice a lesser evil--by what
+devices can a man succeed in obtaining the two advantages, the one of
+not doing and the other of not suffering injustice? must he have the
+power, or only the will to obtain them? I mean to ask whether a man
+will escape injustice if he has only the will to escape, or must he have
+provided himself with the power?
+
+CALLICLES: He must have provided himself with the power; that is clear.
+
+SOCRATES: And what do you say of doing injustice? Is the will only
+sufficient, and will that prevent him from doing injustice, or must he
+have provided himself with power and art; and if he have not studied
+and practised, will he be unjust still? Surely you might say, Callicles,
+whether you think that Polus and I were right in admitting the
+conclusion that no one does wrong voluntarily, but that all do wrong
+against their will?
+
+CALLICLES: Granted, Socrates, if you will only have done.
+
+SOCRATES: Then, as would appear, power and art have to be provided in
+order that we may do no injustice?
+
+CALLICLES: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And what art will protect us from suffering injustice, if not
+wholly, yet as far as possible? I want to know whether you agree with
+me; for I think that such an art is the art of one who is either a ruler
+or even tyrant himself, or the equal and companion of the ruling power.
+
+CALLICLES: Well said, Socrates; and please to observe how ready I am to
+praise you when you talk sense.
+
+SOCRATES: Think and tell me whether you would approve of another view of
+mine: To me every man appears to be most the friend of him who is most
+like to him--like to like, as ancient sages say: Would you not agree to
+this?
+
+CALLICLES: I should.
+
+SOCRATES: But when the tyrant is rude and uneducated, he may be expected
+to fear any one who is his superior in virtue, and will never be able to
+be perfectly friendly with him.
+
+CALLICLES: That is true.
+
+SOCRATES: Neither will he be the friend of any one who is greatly his
+inferior, for the tyrant will despise him, and will never seriously
+regard him as a friend.
+
+CALLICLES: That again is true.
+
+SOCRATES: Then the only friend worth mentioning, whom the tyrant can
+have, will be one who is of the same character, and has the same
+likes and dislikes, and is at the same time willing to be subject and
+subservient to him; he is the man who will have power in the state, and
+no one will injure him with impunity:--is not that so?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And if a young man begins to ask how he may become great and
+formidable, this would seem to be the way--he will accustom himself,
+from his youth upward, to feel sorrow and joy on the same occasions as
+his master, and will contrive to be as like him as possible?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And in this way he will have accomplished, as you and your
+friends would say, the end of becoming a great man and not suffering
+injury?
+
+CALLICLES: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: But will he also escape from doing injury? Must not the very
+opposite be true,--if he is to be like the tyrant in his injustice, and
+to have influence with him? Will he not rather contrive to do as much
+wrong as possible, and not be punished?
+
+CALLICLES: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And by the imitation of his master and by the power which he
+thus acquires will not his soul become bad and corrupted, and will not
+this be the greatest evil to him?
+
+CALLICLES: You always contrive somehow or other, Socrates, to invert
+everything: do you not know that he who imitates the tyrant will, if he
+has a mind, kill him who does not imitate him and take away his goods?
+
+SOCRATES: Excellent Callicles, I am not deaf, and I have heard that a
+great many times from you and from Polus and from nearly every man in
+the city, but I wish that you would hear me too. I dare say that he will
+kill him if he has a mind--the bad man will kill the good and true.
+
+CALLICLES: And is not that just the provoking thing?
+
+SOCRATES: Nay, not to a man of sense, as the argument shows: do you
+think that all our cares should be directed to prolonging life to the
+uttermost, and to the study of those arts which secure us from danger
+always; like that art of rhetoric which saves men in courts of law, and
+which you advise me to cultivate?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes, truly, and very good advice too.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, my friend, but what do you think of swimming; is that an
+art of any great pretensions?
+
+CALLICLES: No, indeed.
+
+SOCRATES: And yet surely swimming saves a man from death, and there
+are occasions on which he must know how to swim. And if you despise the
+swimmers, I will tell you of another and greater art, the art of the
+pilot, who not only saves the souls of men, but also their bodies and
+properties from the extremity of danger, just like rhetoric. Yet his art
+is modest and unpresuming: it has no airs or pretences of doing anything
+extraordinary, and, in return for the same salvation which is given
+by the pleader, demands only two obols, if he brings us from Aegina to
+Athens, or for the longer voyage from Pontus or Egypt, at the utmost two
+drachmae, when he has saved, as I was just now saying, the passenger
+and his wife and children and goods, and safely disembarked them at the
+Piraeus,--this is the payment which he asks in return for so great a
+boon; and he who is the master of the art, and has done all this, gets
+out and walks about on the sea-shore by his ship in an unassuming way.
+For he is able to reflect and is aware that he cannot tell which of his
+fellow-passengers he has benefited, and which of them he has injured in
+not allowing them to be drowned. He knows that they are just the same
+when he has disembarked them as when they embarked, and not a whit
+better either in their bodies or in their souls; and he considers that
+if a man who is afflicted by great and incurable bodily diseases is only
+to be pitied for having escaped, and is in no way benefited by him
+in having been saved from drowning, much less he who has great and
+incurable diseases, not of the body, but of the soul, which is the more
+valuable part of him; neither is life worth having nor of any profit to
+the bad man, whether he be delivered from the sea, or the law-courts, or
+any other devourer;--and so he reflects that such a one had better not
+live, for he cannot live well. (Compare Republic.)
+
+And this is the reason why the pilot, although he is our saviour, is not
+usually conceited, any more than the engineer, who is not at all behind
+either the general, or the pilot, or any one else, in his saving power,
+for he sometimes saves whole cities. Is there any comparison between him
+and the pleader? And if he were to talk, Callicles, in your grandiose
+style, he would bury you under a mountain of words, declaring and
+insisting that we ought all of us to be engine-makers, and that no
+other profession is worth thinking about; he would have plenty to say.
+Nevertheless you despise him and his art, and sneeringly call him an
+engine-maker, and you will not allow your daughters to marry his son,
+or marry your son to his daughters. And yet, on your principle, what
+justice or reason is there in your refusal? What right have you to
+despise the engine-maker, and the others whom I was just now mentioning?
+I know that you will say, 'I am better, and better born.' But if the
+better is not what I say, and virtue consists only in a man saving
+himself and his, whatever may be his character, then your censure of the
+engine-maker, and of the physician, and of the other arts of salvation,
+is ridiculous. O my friend! I want you to see that the noble and
+the good may possibly be something different from saving and being
+saved:--May not he who is truly a man cease to care about living a
+certain time?--he knows, as women say, that no man can escape fate,
+and therefore he is not fond of life; he leaves all that with God, and
+considers in what way he can best spend his appointed term;--whether by
+assimilating himself to the constitution under which he lives, as you at
+this moment have to consider how you may become as like as possible to
+the Athenian people, if you mean to be in their good graces, and to have
+power in the state; whereas I want you to think and see whether this is
+for the interest of either of us;--I would not have us risk that
+which is dearest on the acquisition of this power, like the Thessalian
+enchantresses, who, as they say, bring down the moon from heaven at the
+risk of their own perdition. But if you suppose that any man will
+show you the art of becoming great in the city, and yet not conforming
+yourself to the ways of the city, whether for better or worse, then I
+can only say that you are mistaken, Callides; for he who would deserve
+to be the true natural friend of the Athenian Demus, aye, or of
+Pyrilampes' darling who is called after them, must be by nature like
+them, and not an imitator only. He, then, who will make you most like
+them, will make you as you desire, a statesman and orator: for every
+man is pleased when he is spoken to in his own language and spirit, and
+dislikes any other. But perhaps you, sweet Callicles, may be of another
+mind. What do you say?
+
+CALLICLES: Somehow or other your words, Socrates, always appear to me
+to be good words; and yet, like the rest of the world, I am not quite
+convinced by them. (Compare Symp.: 1 Alcib.)
+
+SOCRATES: The reason is, Callicles, that the love of Demus which abides
+in your soul is an adversary to me; but I dare say that if we recur
+to these same matters, and consider them more thoroughly, you may be
+convinced for all that. Please, then, to remember that there are two
+processes of training all things, including body and soul; in the one,
+as we said, we treat them with a view to pleasure, and in the other with
+a view to the highest good, and then we do not indulge but resist them:
+was not that the distinction which we drew?
+
+CALLICLES: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: And the one which had pleasure in view was just a vulgar
+flattery:--was not that another of our conclusions?
+
+CALLICLES: Be it so, if you will have it.
+
+SOCRATES: And the other had in view the greatest improvement of that
+which was ministered to, whether body or soul?
+
+CALLICLES: Quite true.
+
+SOCRATES: And must we not have the same end in view in the treatment
+of our city and citizens? Must we not try and make them as good as
+possible? For we have already discovered that there is no use in
+imparting to them any other good, unless the mind of those who are to
+have the good, whether money, or office, or any other sort of power, be
+gentle and good. Shall we say that?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes, certainly, if you like.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, then, if you and I, Callicles, were intending to set
+about some public business, and were advising one another to undertake
+buildings, such as walls, docks or temples of the largest size, ought
+we not to examine ourselves, first, as to whether we know or do not know
+the art of building, and who taught us?--would not that be necessary,
+Callicles?
+
+CALLICLES: True.
+
+SOCRATES: In the second place, we should have to consider whether we
+had ever constructed any private house, either of our own or for our
+friends, and whether this building of ours was a success or not; and if
+upon consideration we found that we had had good and eminent masters,
+and had been successful in constructing many fine buildings, not only
+with their assistance, but without them, by our own unaided skill--in
+that case prudence would not dissuade us from proceeding to the
+construction of public works. But if we had no master to show, and only
+a number of worthless buildings or none at all, then, surely, it would
+be ridiculous in us to attempt public works, or to advise one another to
+undertake them. Is not this true?
+
+CALLICLES: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And does not the same hold in all other cases? If you and I
+were physicians, and were advising one another that we were competent to
+practise as state-physicians, should I not ask about you, and would
+you not ask about me, Well, but how about Socrates himself, has he good
+health? and was any one else ever known to be cured by him, whether
+slave or freeman? And I should make the same enquiries about you. And if
+we arrived at the conclusion that no one, whether citizen or stranger,
+man or woman, had ever been any the better for the medical skill of
+either of us, then, by Heaven, Callicles, what an absurdity to
+think that we or any human being should be so silly as to set up as
+state-physicians and advise others like ourselves to do the same,
+without having first practised in private, whether successfully or not,
+and acquired experience of the art! Is not this, as they say, to begin
+with the big jar when you are learning the potter's art; which is a
+foolish thing?
+
+CALLICLES: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And now, my friend, as you are already beginning to be a
+public character, and are admonishing and reproaching me for not being
+one, suppose that we ask a few questions of one another. Tell me, then,
+Callicles, how about making any of the citizens better? Was there ever
+a man who was once vicious, or unjust, or intemperate, or foolish, and
+became by the help of Callicles good and noble? Was there ever such a
+man, whether citizen or stranger, slave or freeman? Tell me, Callicles,
+if a person were to ask these questions of you, what would you answer?
+Whom would you say that you had improved by your conversation? There may
+have been good deeds of this sort which were done by you as a private
+person, before you came forward in public. Why will you not answer?
+
+CALLICLES: You are contentious, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: Nay, I ask you, not from a love of contention, but because
+I really want to know in what way you think that affairs should be
+administered among us--whether, when you come to the administration of
+them, you have any other aim but the improvement of the citizens? Have
+we not already admitted many times over that such is the duty of a
+public man? Nay, we have surely said so; for if you will not answer for
+yourself I must answer for you. But if this is what the good man ought
+to effect for the benefit of his own state, allow me to recall to you
+the names of those whom you were just now mentioning, Pericles, and
+Cimon, and Miltiades, and Themistocles, and ask whether you still think
+that they were good citizens.
+
+CALLICLES: I do.
+
+SOCRATES: But if they were good, then clearly each of them must have
+made the citizens better instead of worse?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And, therefore, when Pericles first began to speak in the
+assembly, the Athenians were not so good as when he spoke last?
+
+CALLICLES: Very likely.
+
+SOCRATES: Nay, my friend, 'likely' is not the word; for if he was a good
+citizen, the inference is certain.
+
+CALLICLES: And what difference does that make?
+
+SOCRATES: None; only I should like further to know whether the Athenians
+are supposed to have been made better by Pericles, or, on the contrary,
+to have been corrupted by him; for I hear that he was the first who gave
+the people pay, and made them idle and cowardly, and encouraged them in
+the love of talk and money.
+
+CALLICLES: You heard that, Socrates, from the laconising set who bruise
+their ears.
+
+SOCRATES: But what I am going to tell you now is not mere hearsay, but
+well known both to you and me: that at first, Pericles was glorious
+and his character unimpeached by any verdict of the Athenians--this was
+during the time when they were not so good--yet afterwards, when they
+had been made good and gentle by him, at the very end of his life they
+convicted him of theft, and almost put him to death, clearly under the
+notion that he was a malefactor.
+
+CALLICLES: Well, but how does that prove Pericles' badness?
+
+SOCRATES: Why, surely you would say that he was a bad manager of asses
+or horses or oxen, who had received them originally neither kicking nor
+butting nor biting him, and implanted in them all these savage tricks?
+Would he not be a bad manager of any animals who received them gentle,
+and made them fiercer than they were when he received them? What do you
+say?
+
+CALLICLES: I will do you the favour of saying 'yes.'
+
+SOCRATES: And will you also do me the favour of saying whether man is an
+animal?
+
+CALLICLES: Certainly he is.
+
+SOCRATES: And was not Pericles a shepherd of men?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And if he was a good political shepherd, ought not the animals
+who were his subjects, as we were just now acknowledging, to have become
+more just, and not more unjust?
+
+CALLICLES: Quite true.
+
+SOCRATES: And are not just men gentle, as Homer says?--or are you of
+another mind?
+
+CALLICLES: I agree.
+
+SOCRATES: And yet he really did make them more savage than he received
+them, and their savageness was shown towards himself; which he must have
+been very far from desiring.
+
+CALLICLES: Do you want me to agree with you?
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, if I seem to you to speak the truth.
+
+CALLICLES: Granted then.
+
+SOCRATES: And if they were more savage, must they not have been more
+unjust and inferior?
+
+CALLICLES: Granted again.
+
+SOCRATES: Then upon this view, Pericles was not a good statesman?
+
+CALLICLES: That is, upon your view.
+
+SOCRATES: Nay, the view is yours, after what you have admitted. Take
+the case of Cimon again. Did not the very persons whom he was serving
+ostracize him, in order that they might not hear his voice for ten
+years? and they did just the same to Themistocles, adding the penalty
+of exile; and they voted that Miltiades, the hero of Marathon, should be
+thrown into the pit of death, and he was only saved by the Prytanis. And
+yet, if they had been really good men, as you say, these things would
+never have happened to them. For the good charioteers are not those
+who at first keep their place, and then, when they have broken-in their
+horses, and themselves become better charioteers, are thrown out--that
+is not the way either in charioteering or in any profession.--What do
+you think?
+
+CALLICLES: I should think not.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, but if so, the truth is as I have said already, that
+in the Athenian State no one has ever shown himself to be a good
+statesman--you admitted that this was true of our present statesmen, but
+not true of former ones, and you preferred them to the others; yet they
+have turned out to be no better than our present ones; and therefore, if
+they were rhetoricians, they did not use the true art of rhetoric or of
+flattery, or they would not have fallen out of favour.
+
+CALLICLES: But surely, Socrates, no living man ever came near any one of
+them in his performances.
+
+SOCRATES: O, my dear friend, I say nothing against them regarded as the
+serving-men of the State; and I do think that they were certainly more
+serviceable than those who are living now, and better able to gratify
+the wishes of the State; but as to transforming those desires and not
+allowing them to have their way, and using the powers which they had,
+whether of persuasion or of force, in the improvement of their fellow
+citizens, which is the prime object of the truly good citizen, I do
+not see that in these respects they were a whit superior to our present
+statesmen, although I do admit that they were more clever at providing
+ships and walls and docks, and all that. You and I have a ridiculous
+way, for during the whole time that we are arguing, we are always going
+round and round to the same point, and constantly misunderstanding one
+another. If I am not mistaken, you have admitted and acknowledged more
+than once, that there are two kinds of operations which have to do with
+the body, and two which have to do with the soul: one of the two is
+ministerial, and if our bodies are hungry provides food for them, and
+if they are thirsty gives them drink, or if they are cold supplies them
+with garments, blankets, shoes, and all that they crave. I use the same
+images as before intentionally, in order that you may understand me the
+better. The purveyor of the articles may provide them either wholesale
+or retail, or he may be the maker of any of them,--the baker, or the
+cook, or the weaver, or the shoemaker, or the currier; and in so doing,
+being such as he is, he is naturally supposed by himself and every one
+to minister to the body. For none of them know that there is another
+art--an art of gymnastic and medicine which is the true minister of the
+body, and ought to be the mistress of all the rest, and to use their
+results according to the knowledge which she has and they have not, of
+the real good or bad effects of meats and drinks on the body. All
+other arts which have to do with the body are servile and menial and
+illiberal; and gymnastic and medicine are, as they ought to be, their
+mistresses. Now, when I say that all this is equally true of the soul,
+you seem at first to know and understand and assent to my words, and
+then a little while afterwards you come repeating, Has not the State
+had good and noble citizens? and when I ask you who they are, you reply,
+seemingly quite in earnest, as if I had asked, Who are or have been
+good trainers?--and you had replied, Thearion, the baker, Mithoecus,
+who wrote the Sicilian cookery-book, Sarambus, the vintner: these are
+ministers of the body, first-rate in their art; for the first makes
+admirable loaves, the second excellent dishes, and the third capital
+wine;--to me these appear to be the exact parallel of the statesmen whom
+you mention. Now you would not be altogether pleased if I said to
+you, My friend, you know nothing of gymnastics; those of whom you are
+speaking to me are only the ministers and purveyors of luxury, who have
+no good or noble notions of their art, and may very likely be filling
+and fattening men's bodies and gaining their approval, although the
+result is that they lose their original flesh in the long run, and
+become thinner than they were before; and yet they, in their
+simplicity, will not attribute their diseases and loss of flesh to their
+entertainers; but when in after years the unhealthy surfeit brings the
+attendant penalty of disease, he who happens to be near them at the
+time, and offers them advice, is accused and blamed by them, and if they
+could they would do him some harm; while they proceed to eulogize the
+men who have been the real authors of the mischief. And that, Callicles,
+is just what you are now doing. You praise the men who feasted the
+citizens and satisfied their desires, and people say that they have made
+the city great, not seeing that the swollen and ulcerated condition of
+the State is to be attributed to these elder statesmen; for they have
+filled the city full of harbours and docks and walls and revenues and
+all that, and have left no room for justice and temperance. And when the
+crisis of the disorder comes, the people will blame the advisers of the
+hour, and applaud Themistocles and Cimon and Pericles, who are the real
+authors of their calamities; and if you are not careful they may assail
+you and my friend Alcibiades, when they are losing not only their new
+acquisitions, but also their original possessions; not that you are
+the authors of these misfortunes of theirs, although you may perhaps be
+accessories to them. A great piece of work is always being made, as
+I see and am told, now as of old; about our statesmen. When the State
+treats any of them as malefactors, I observe that there is a great
+uproar and indignation at the supposed wrong which is done to them;
+'after all their many services to the State, that they should unjustly
+perish,'--so the tale runs. But the cry is all a lie; for no statesman
+ever could be unjustly put to death by the city of which he is the head.
+The case of the professed statesman is, I believe, very much like that
+of the professed sophist; for the sophists, although they are wise men,
+are nevertheless guilty of a strange piece of folly; professing to be
+teachers of virtue, they will often accuse their disciples of wronging
+them, and defrauding them of their pay, and showing no gratitude for
+their services. Yet what can be more absurd than that men who have
+become just and good, and whose injustice has been taken away from them,
+and who have had justice implanted in them by their teachers, should act
+unjustly by reason of the injustice which is not in them? Can anything
+be more irrational, my friends, than this? You, Callicles, compel me to
+be a mob-orator, because you will not answer.
+
+CALLICLES: And you are the man who cannot speak unless there is some one
+to answer?
+
+SOCRATES: I suppose that I can; just now, at any rate, the speeches
+which I am making are long enough because you refuse to answer me. But
+I adjure you by the god of friendship, my good sir, do tell me whether
+there does not appear to you to be a great inconsistency in saying that
+you have made a man good, and then blaming him for being bad?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes, it appears so to me.
+
+SOCRATES: Do you never hear our professors of education speaking in this
+inconsistent manner?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes, but why talk of men who are good for nothing?
+
+SOCRATES: I would rather say, why talk of men who profess to be rulers,
+and declare that they are devoted to the improvement of the city, and
+nevertheless upon occasion declaim against the utter vileness of the
+city:--do you think that there is any difference between one and the
+other? My good friend, the sophist and the rhetorician, as I was saying
+to Polus, are the same, or nearly the same; but you ignorantly fancy
+that rhetoric is a perfect thing, and sophistry a thing to be despised;
+whereas the truth is, that sophistry is as much superior to rhetoric
+as legislation is to the practice of law, or gymnastic to medicine. The
+orators and sophists, as I am inclined to think, are the only class who
+cannot complain of the mischief ensuing to themselves from that which
+they teach others, without in the same breath accusing themselves of
+having done no good to those whom they profess to benefit. Is not this a
+fact?
+
+CALLICLES: Certainly it is.
+
+SOCRATES: If they were right in saying that they make men better, then
+they are the only class who can afford to leave their remuneration
+to those who have been benefited by them. Whereas if a man has been
+benefited in any other way, if, for example, he has been taught to run
+by a trainer, he might possibly defraud him of his pay, if the trainer
+left the matter to him, and made no agreement with him that he should
+receive money as soon as he had given him the utmost speed; for not
+because of any deficiency of speed do men act unjustly, but by reason of
+injustice.
+
+CALLICLES: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: And he who removes injustice can be in no danger of being
+treated unjustly: he alone can safely leave the honorarium to his
+pupils, if he be really able to make them good--am I not right? (Compare
+Protag.)
+
+CALLICLES: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Then we have found the reason why there is no dishonour in a
+man receiving pay who is called in to advise about building or any other
+art?
+
+CALLICLES: Yes, we have found the reason.
+
+SOCRATES: But when the point is, how a man may become best himself,
+and best govern his family and state, then to say that you will give no
+advice gratis is held to be dishonourable?
+
+CALLICLES: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And why? Because only such benefits call forth a desire to
+requite them, and there is evidence that a benefit has been conferred
+when the benefactor receives a return; otherwise not. Is this true?
+
+CALLICLES: It is.
+
+SOCRATES: Then to which service of the State do you invite me? determine
+for me. Am I to be the physician of the State who will strive and
+struggle to make the Athenians as good as possible; or am I to be the
+servant and flatterer of the State? Speak out, my good friend, freely
+and fairly as you did at first and ought to do again, and tell me your
+entire mind.
+
+CALLICLES: I say then that you should be the servant of the State.
+
+SOCRATES: The flatterer? well, sir, that is a noble invitation.
+
+CALLICLES: The Mysian, Socrates, or what you please. For if you refuse,
+the consequences will be--
+
+SOCRATES: Do not repeat the old story--that he who likes will kill me
+and get my money; for then I shall have to repeat the old answer, that
+he will be a bad man and will kill the good, and that the money will
+be of no use to him, but that he will wrongly use that which he wrongly
+took, and if wrongly, basely, and if basely, hurtfully.
+
+CALLICLES: How confident you are, Socrates, that you will never come to
+harm! you seem to think that you are living in another country, and
+can never be brought into a court of justice, as you very likely may be
+brought by some miserable and mean person.
+
+SOCRATES: Then I must indeed be a fool, Callicles, if I do not know that
+in the Athenian State any man may suffer anything. And if I am brought
+to trial and incur the dangers of which you speak, he will be a villain
+who brings me to trial--of that I am very sure, for no good man would
+accuse the innocent. Nor shall I be surprised if I am put to death.
+Shall I tell you why I anticipate this?
+
+CALLICLES: By all means.
+
+SOCRATES: I think that I am the only or almost the only Athenian living
+who practises the true art of politics; I am the only politician of my
+time. Now, seeing that when I speak my words are not uttered with any
+view of gaining favour, and that I look to what is best and not to what
+is most pleasant, having no mind to use those arts and graces which you
+recommend, I shall have nothing to say in the justice court. And you
+might argue with me, as I was arguing with Polus:--I shall be tried
+just as a physician would be tried in a court of little boys at the
+indictment of the cook. What would he reply under such circumstances,
+if some one were to accuse him, saying, 'O my boys, many evil things has
+this man done to you: he is the death of you, especially of the younger
+ones among you, cutting and burning and starving and suffocating you,
+until you know not what to do; he gives you the bitterest potions, and
+compels you to hunger and thirst. How unlike the variety of meats and
+sweets on which I feasted you!' What do you suppose that the physician
+would be able to reply when he found himself in such a predicament? If
+he told the truth he could only say, 'All these evil things, my boys, I
+did for your health,' and then would there not just be a clamour among a
+jury like that? How they would cry out!
+
+CALLICLES: I dare say.
+
+SOCRATES: Would he not be utterly at a loss for a reply?
+
+CALLICLES: He certainly would.
+
+SOCRATES: And I too shall be treated in the same way, as I well know,
+if I am brought before the court. For I shall not be able to rehearse
+to the people the pleasures which I have procured for them, and which,
+although I am not disposed to envy either the procurers or enjoyers of
+them, are deemed by them to be benefits and advantages. And if any one
+says that I corrupt young men, and perplex their minds, or that I speak
+evil of old men, and use bitter words towards them, whether in private
+or public, it is useless for me to reply, as I truly might:--'All this I
+do for the sake of justice, and with a view to your interest, my judges,
+and to nothing else.' And therefore there is no saying what may happen
+to me.
+
+CALLICLES: And do you think, Socrates, that a man who is thus
+defenceless is in a good position?
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, Callicles, if he have that defence, which as you have
+often acknowledged he should have--if he be his own defence, and have
+never said or done anything wrong, either in respect of gods or men;
+and this has been repeatedly acknowledged by us to be the best sort of
+defence. And if any one could convict me of inability to defend myself
+or others after this sort, I should blush for shame, whether I was
+convicted before many, or before a few, or by myself alone; and if I
+died from want of ability to do so, that would indeed grieve me. But if
+I died because I have no powers of flattery or rhetoric, I am very sure
+that you would not find me repining at death. For no man who is not an
+utter fool and coward is afraid of death itself, but he is afraid of
+doing wrong. For to go to the world below having one's soul full of
+injustice is the last and worst of all evils. And in proof of what I
+say, if you have no objection, I should like to tell you a story.
+
+CALLICLES: Very well, proceed; and then we shall have done.
+
+SOCRATES: Listen, then, as story-tellers say, to a very pretty tale,
+which I dare say that you may be disposed to regard as a fable only,
+but which, as I believe, is a true tale, for I mean to speak the truth.
+Homer tells us (Il.), how Zeus and Poseidon and Pluto divided the empire
+which they inherited from their father. Now in the days of Cronos there
+existed a law respecting the destiny of man, which has always been, and
+still continues to be in Heaven,--that he who has lived all his life in
+justice and holiness shall go, when he is dead, to the Islands of the
+Blessed, and dwell there in perfect happiness out of the reach of evil;
+but that he who has lived unjustly and impiously shall go to the house
+of vengeance and punishment, which is called Tartarus. And in the time
+of Cronos, and even quite lately in the reign of Zeus, the judgment
+was given on the very day on which the men were to die; the judges
+were alive, and the men were alive; and the consequence was that the
+judgments were not well given. Then Pluto and the authorities from the
+Islands of the Blessed came to Zeus, and said that the souls found their
+way to the wrong places. Zeus said: 'I shall put a stop to this; the
+judgments are not well given, because the persons who are judged have
+their clothes on, for they are alive; and there are many who, having
+evil souls, are apparelled in fair bodies, or encased in wealth or rank,
+and, when the day of judgment arrives, numerous witnesses come forward
+and testify on their behalf that they have lived righteously. The judges
+are awed by them, and they themselves too have their clothes on when
+judging; their eyes and ears and their whole bodies are interposed as a
+veil before their own souls. All this is a hindrance to them; there are
+the clothes of the judges and the clothes of the judged.--What is to be
+done? I will tell you:--In the first place, I will deprive men of the
+foreknowledge of death, which they possess at present: this power which
+they have Prometheus has already received my orders to take from them:
+in the second place, they shall be entirely stripped before they are
+judged, for they shall be judged when they are dead; and the judge
+too shall be naked, that is to say, dead--he with his naked soul shall
+pierce into the other naked souls; and they shall die suddenly and be
+deprived of all their kindred, and leave their brave attire strewn upon
+the earth--conducted in this manner, the judgment will be just. I knew
+all about the matter before any of you, and therefore I have made my
+sons judges; two from Asia, Minos and Rhadamanthus, and one from Europe,
+Aeacus. And these, when they are dead, shall give judgment in the
+meadow at the parting of the ways, whence the two roads lead, one to the
+Islands of the Blessed, and the other to Tartarus. Rhadamanthus shall
+judge those who come from Asia, and Aeacus those who come from Europe.
+And to Minos I shall give the primacy, and he shall hold a court of
+appeal, in case either of the two others are in any doubt:--then
+the judgment respecting the last journey of men will be as just as
+possible.'
+
+From this tale, Callicles, which I have heard and believe, I draw the
+following inferences:--Death, if I am right, is in the first place the
+separation from one another of two things, soul and body; nothing else.
+And after they are separated they retain their several natures, as in
+life; the body keeps the same habit, and the results of treatment or
+accident are distinctly visible in it: for example, he who by nature or
+training or both, was a tall man while he was alive, will remain as he
+was, after he is dead; and the fat man will remain fat; and so on; and
+the dead man, who in life had a fancy to have flowing hair, will have
+flowing hair. And if he was marked with the whip and had the prints of
+the scourge, or of wounds in him when he was alive, you might see the
+same in the dead body; and if his limbs were broken or misshapen when
+he was alive, the same appearance would be visible in the dead. And in
+a word, whatever was the habit of the body during life would be
+distinguishable after death, either perfectly, or in a great measure and
+for a certain time. And I should imagine that this is equally true of
+the soul, Callicles; when a man is stripped of the body, all the natural
+or acquired affections of the soul are laid open to view.--And when they
+come to the judge, as those from Asia come to Rhadamanthus, he places
+them near him and inspects them quite impartially, not knowing whose the
+soul is: perhaps he may lay hands on the soul of the great king, or of
+some other king or potentate, who has no soundness in him, but his
+soul is marked with the whip, and is full of the prints and scars of
+perjuries and crimes with which each action has stained him, and he
+is all crooked with falsehood and imposture, and has no straightness,
+because he has lived without truth. Him Rhadamanthus beholds, full of
+all deformity and disproportion, which is caused by licence and luxury
+and insolence and incontinence, and despatches him ignominiously to his
+prison, and there he undergoes the punishment which he deserves.
+
+Now the proper office of punishment is twofold: he who is rightly
+punished ought either to become better and profit by it, or he ought to
+be made an example to his fellows, that they may see what he suffers,
+and fear and become better. Those who are improved when they are
+punished by gods and men, are those whose sins are curable; and they are
+improved, as in this world so also in another, by pain and suffering;
+for there is no other way in which they can be delivered from their
+evil. But they who have been guilty of the worst crimes, and are
+incurable by reason of their crimes, are made examples; for, as they are
+incurable, the time has passed at which they can receive any benefit.
+They get no good themselves, but others get good when they behold them
+enduring for ever the most terrible and painful and fearful sufferings
+as the penalty of their sins--there they are, hanging up as examples,
+in the prison-house of the world below, a spectacle and a warning to
+all unrighteous men who come thither. And among them, as I confidently
+affirm, will be found Archelaus, if Polus truly reports of him, and
+any other tyrant who is like him. Of these fearful examples, most, as
+I believe, are taken from the class of tyrants and kings and potentates
+and public men, for they are the authors of the greatest and most
+impious crimes, because they have the power. And Homer witnesses to
+the truth of this; for they are always kings and potentates whom he has
+described as suffering everlasting punishment in the world below:
+such were Tantalus and Sisyphus and Tityus. But no one ever described
+Thersites, or any private person who was a villain, as suffering
+everlasting punishment, or as incurable. For to commit the worst crimes,
+as I am inclined to think, was not in his power, and he was happier than
+those who had the power. No, Callicles, the very bad men come from the
+class of those who have power (compare Republic). And yet in that very
+class there may arise good men, and worthy of all admiration they are,
+for where there is great power to do wrong, to live and to die justly is
+a hard thing, and greatly to be praised, and few there are who attain
+to this. Such good and true men, however, there have been, and will be
+again, at Athens and in other states, who have fulfilled their trust
+righteously; and there is one who is quite famous all over Hellas,
+Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus. But, in general, great men are also
+bad, my friend.
+
+As I was saying, Rhadamanthus, when he gets a soul of the bad kind,
+knows nothing about him, neither who he is, nor who his parents are; he
+knows only that he has got hold of a villain; and seeing this, he stamps
+him as curable or incurable, and sends him away to Tartarus, whither
+he goes and receives his proper recompense. Or, again, he looks with
+admiration on the soul of some just one who has lived in holiness
+and truth; he may have been a private man or not; and I should say,
+Callicles, that he is most likely to have been a philosopher who has
+done his own work, and not troubled himself with the doings of other men
+in his lifetime; him Rhadamanthus sends to the Islands of the Blessed.
+Aeacus does the same; and they both have sceptres, and judge; but Minos
+alone has a golden sceptre and is seated looking on, as Odysseus in
+Homer declares that he saw him:
+
+'Holding a sceptre of gold, and giving laws to the dead.'
+
+Now I, Callicles, am persuaded of the truth of these things, and I
+consider how I shall present my soul whole and undefiled before the
+judge in that day. Renouncing the honours at which the world aims, I
+desire only to know the truth, and to live as well as I can, and, when
+I die, to die as well as I can. And, to the utmost of my power, I exhort
+all other men to do the same. And, in return for your exhortation of me,
+I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat
+of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict. And I retort
+your reproach of me, and say, that you will not be able to help yourself
+when the day of trial and judgment, of which I was speaking, comes upon
+you; you will go before the judge, the son of Aegina, and, when he has
+got you in his grip and is carrying you off, you will gape and your head
+will swim round, just as mine would in the courts of this world, and
+very likely some one will shamefully box you on the ears, and put upon
+you any sort of insult.
+
+Perhaps this may appear to you to be only an old wife's tale, which you
+will contemn. And there might be reason in your contemning such tales,
+if by searching we could find out anything better or truer: but now
+you see that you and Polus and Gorgias, who are the three wisest of the
+Greeks of our day, are not able to show that we ought to live any life
+which does not profit in another world as well as in this. And of all
+that has been said, nothing remains unshaken but the saying, that to do
+injustice is more to be avoided than to suffer injustice, and that the
+reality and not the appearance of virtue is to be followed above all
+things, as well in public as in private life; and that when any one has
+been wrong in anything, he is to be chastised, and that the next
+best thing to a man being just is that he should become just, and
+be chastised and punished; also that he should avoid all flattery of
+himself as well as of others, of the few or of the many: and rhetoric
+and any other art should be used by him, and all his actions should be
+done always, with a view to justice.
+
+Follow me then, and I will lead you where you will be happy in life and
+after death, as the argument shows. And never mind if some one despises
+you as a fool, and insults you, if he has a mind; let him strike you, by
+Zeus, and do you be of good cheer, and do not mind the insulting blow,
+for you will never come to any harm in the practice of virtue, if you
+are a really good and true man. When we have practised virtue together,
+we will apply ourselves to politics, if that seems desirable, or we will
+advise about whatever else may seem good to us, for we shall be better
+able to judge then. In our present condition we ought not to give
+ourselves airs, for even on the most important subjects we are always
+changing our minds; so utterly stupid are we! Let us, then, take the
+argument as our guide, which has revealed to us that the best way of
+life is to practise justice and every virtue in life and death. This way
+let us go; and in this exhort all men to follow, not in the way to
+which you trust and in which you exhort me to follow you; for that way,
+Callicles, is nothing worth.
+
+
+
+
+
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