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translated by Benjamin Jowett
PERSONS OF THE
DIALOGUE:
CALLICLES
SOCRATES
CHAEREPHON
GORGIAS
POLUS
Scene: The house of
Callicles
<![CDATA[</b><font size="4">Callicles. The wise man, as the proverb says, is late for a fray, but
not for a feast. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Socrates. And are we late for a feast? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Cal. Yes, and a
delightful feast; for Gorgias has just been exhibiting to us many fine things. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">
Soc. It is not my fault, Callicles; our friend Chaerephon is to blame; for he
would keep us loitering in the Agora.</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Cal. What is the matter,
Chaerephon? Does
Socrates want to hear Gorgias? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Chaer. Yes, that was our intention in coming. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">
Cal. Come into my house, then; for Gorgias is staying with me, and he shall
exhibit to you. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Cal. 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.</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Soc. How fortunate! will you ask him,
Chaerephon?</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Chaer. What shall I
ask him? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Ask him who he is. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Chaer. What do you mean? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Chaer. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Chaer. Then you must be very ready,
Gorgias. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Of that,
Chaerephon, you can make trial. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Chaer. And do you,
Polus, think that
you can answer better than Gorgias? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. What does that matter if I answer well
enough for you? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Chaer. Not at all:-and you shall answer if you like. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Ask:-</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Chaer. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Certainly. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Chaer. Then we should be right in calling him a
physician? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Chaer. And if he had the skill of Aristophon the son of
Aglaophon, or of his brother Polygnotus, what ought we to call him? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol.
Clearly, a painter. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Chaer. But now what shall we call him-what is the art in
which he is skilled. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Polus has been
taught how to make a capital speech, Gorgias; but he is not fulfilling the
promise which he made to Chaerephon. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. What do you mean, Socrates? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. I
mean that he has not exactly answered the question which he was asked. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Then
why not ask him yourself? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol.
What makes you say so, Socrates? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Why,
did I not say that it was the noblest of arts?</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> Rhetoric, Socrates, is my art.</span> </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc.
Then I am to call you a rhetorician? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Yes, Socrates, and a good one too, if
you would call me that which, in Homeric language, "I boast myself to
be." </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. I should wish to do so. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Then pray do. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And are we to say
that you are able to make other men rhetoricians? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Yes, that is exactly what
I profess to make them, not only at Athens, but in all places. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. That is what is wanted,
Gorgias;
exhibit the shorter method now, and the longer one at some other time.</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Gor.
Well, I will; and you will certainly say, that you never heard a man use fewer
words. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Yes. Soc. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> And music is concerned with the composition of
melodies? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. It is. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. By
Hera, Gorgias, I admire the surpassing brevity of
your answers. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Yes, Socrates, I do think myself good at that. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. I am glad
to hear it; answer me in like manner about rhetoric: with what is rhetoric
concerned? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. With discourse. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. What sort of discourse,
Gorgias?-such
discourse as would teach the sick under what treatment they might get well? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor.
No. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Then rhetoric does not treat of all kinds of discourse? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Certainly
not. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And yet rhetoric makes men able to speak? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And to
understand that about which they speak?</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Of course. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. But does not the
art of medicine, which we were just now mentioning, also make men able to
understand and speak about the sick? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Certainly. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Then medicine also
treats of discourse? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Of discourse concerning diseases? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Just
so. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And does not gymnastic also treat of discourse concerning the good or
evil condition of the body? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Very true. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Clearly. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. You perfectly conceive my
meaning, Socrates.</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Exactly. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc.
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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. You are quite right, Socrates, in your apprehension of my
meaning. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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 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 word-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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. You would be quite right, Socrates. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. True. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Words which do what? I should ask. To what
class of things do the words which rhetoric uses relate? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. To the greatest,
Socrates, and the best of human things. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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 honesty obtained. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Yes, I
know the song; but what is your drift? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Soc. 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, 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And what would you consider this to be? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> 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?</span>-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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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 <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> rhetoric is the artificer of
persuasion</span>,
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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. No: the definition seems to me very fair, Socrates; for
<span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> persuasion is the
chief end of rhetoric</span>. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor.
What is coming, Socrates? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. I will tell you: I am very well aware that 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?" </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Certainly. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And
the reason for asking this second question would be, that there are other
painters besides, who paint many other figures? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. True. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. But if there had
been no one but Zeuxis who painted them, then you would have answered very well?</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Quite so. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Now I was it 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. He persuades,
Socrates,--there can be no mistake about that. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">
Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor.
Certainly. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And therefore persuade us of them? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Then
arithmetic as well as rhetoric is an artificer of persuasion? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Clearly. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc.
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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Very true. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Then
rhetoric is not the only artificer of persuasion?</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. True. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. I think so. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Then, if you approve the
question, Gorgias, what is the answer? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. I answer, Socrates, that
<span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> rhetoric is
the art of persuasion in courts of law and other assemblies</span>, as I was just now
saying, and about the just and unjust. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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 develop your own views in your own way,
whatever may be your hypothesis. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. I think that you are quite right,
Socrates. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Then let me raise another question; there is such a thing as
"having learned"? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And there is also "having
believed"? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And is the "having learned" the same
"having believed," and are learning and belief the same things?</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor.
In my judgment, Socrates, they are not the same.</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Well, but is there a
false knowledge as well as a true? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. No. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. No, indeed; and this again
proves that knowledge and belief differ. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Very true. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And yet those who
have learned as well as those who have believed are persuaded? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Just so. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">
Soc. Shall we then assume two sorts of persuasion,--one which is the source of
belief without knowledge, as the other is of knowledge? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. By all means. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc.
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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Clearly, Socrates, that
which only gives belief. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Then
<span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> rhetoric, as would appear, is the artificer
of a persuasion which creates belief about the just and unjust, but gives no
instruction about them</span>? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. True. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Certainly not. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc.
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 proposition 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. I like your way of
leading us on, Socrates, and I will endeavor 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 harbor were devised in accordance with the
counsels, partly of Themistocles, and partly of Pericles, and not at the
suggestion of the builders. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Such is the tradition,
Gorgias, about Themistocles; and I myself heard the speech of Pericles when he advised us about
the middle wall. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. 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.</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. 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 a 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 fullness 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-defense not in aggression,
and others have perverted their instructions, and turned to a bad use their own
strength and skill. But <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> not on this account are the teachers
bad</span>, neither is the
art in fault, or bad in itself; I should rather say that <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> those who make a bad
use of the art are to blame</span>. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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--I 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Chaer. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Cal. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. I may truly say,
Callicles, that I am willing, if Gorgias is. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor.
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, them, do you begin. and ask of me any question which you like. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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 understood your meaning. You say that you
can make any man, who will learn of you, a rhetorician?</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Gor. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Quite so. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. You were
saying, in fact, that the rhetorician will have, greater powers of persuasion
than the physician even in a matter of health? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Yes, with the
multitude, that
is. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. You mean to say, with the ignorant; for with those who know he cannot
be supposed to have greater powers of persuasion. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Very true. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. But if he
is to have more power of persuasion than the physician, he will have greater
power than he who knows? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Certainly.</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Although he is not a
physician, is
he? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. No. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And he who is not a physician must, obviously, be ignorant of
what the physician knows. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Clearly. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. In the case
supposed:-Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And the same holds of the relation of rhetoric to all the
other arts; <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> 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</span>? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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 as ignorant of the just and unjust, base and honorable,
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 honorable, 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Certainly. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Well, and is not he
who has learned carpentering a carpenter? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And he who has learned
music a musician? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Certainly. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And in the same way, he who has learned what is
just is just? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. To be sure. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And he who is just may be supposed to do
what is just? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And must not the just man always desire to do what
is just? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. That is clearly the inference. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Surely, then, the just man
will never consent to do injustice? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Certainly not. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And according to
the argument the rhetorician must be a just man? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And will
therefore never be willing to do injustice?</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Clearly not. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor.
Yes, it was. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. But now we are affirming that the aforesaid rhetorician will
never have done injustice at all?</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Gor. True. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc.
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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Soc. 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: </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. What condition? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. That you contract,
Polus, the prolixity of
speech in which you indulged at first. Pol. What! do you mean that I may not use
as many words as I please? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol.
Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And you, like him, invite any one to ask you about anything which he
pleases, and you will know how to answer him? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. To be sure. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And now,
which will you do, ask or answer? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. I will ask; and do you answer me,
Socrates, the same question which Gorgias, as you suppose, is unable to answer: <span style="background-color: #FFFF00">
What is rhetoric? </span></font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Do you mean what sort of an art? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. To say
the truth, Polus, <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> it is not an art at all, in my
opinion</span>. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Then what, in
your opinion, is rhetoric? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. A thing which, as I was lately reading in a book
of yours, you say that you have made an art. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. What thing? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. I should say
<span style="background-color: #FFFF00">
a sort of experience</span>. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Does rhetoric seem to you to be an experience?</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Soc.
That is my view, but you may be of another mind.</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Pol. An experience in what? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">
Soc. <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> An experience in producing a sort of delight and
gratification</span>. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. And if
able to gratify others, must not rhetoric be a fine thing? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Did I not hear you say that
rhetoric was a sort of experience? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Will you, who are so desirous to gratify
others, afford a slight gratification to me? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. I will. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Will you ask me,
what sort of an art is <span style="background-color: #FFFF00">cookery</span>?</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. What sort of an art is cookery? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Not an
art at all, Polus. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. What then? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. I should say an experience. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. In
what? I wish that you would explain to me. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. An experience in producing a
sort of delight and gratification, Polus. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Then are cookery and rhetoric the
same? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. No, they are only different parts of the same profession. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Of
what profession? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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
practices 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. A part of what, Socrates? Say what you
mean, and never mind me. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. In my opinion then,
Gorgias, the whole of which
rhetoric is a part is not an art at all, but <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> the habit of a bold and ready
wit</span>,
which knows how to manage mankind: <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> this habit I sum up under the word
"flattery"</span>; 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 <span style="background-color: #FFFF00">rhetoric</span>, and the art of
<span style="background-color: #FFFF00">
attiring</span> and <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> sophistry</span> 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. I will ask
and do you answer? What part of flattery is rhetoric? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Will you understand
my answer? <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> Rhetoric, according to my view, is the ghost or counterfeit of a part
of politics. </span></font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. And noble or ignoble? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Indeed, Socrates, I cannot say that I
understand myself. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Never mind him, but explain to me what you mean by saying that
rhetoric is the counterfeit of a part of politics. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Of course. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">
Soc. You would further admit that there is a good condition of either of them? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Yes. Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. True. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Gor. Yes, certainly. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And now I will
endeavor
to explain to you more clearly what I mean: <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> 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</span>. 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; <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> flattery knowing, or rather guessing their natures, has distributed
herself into four shams or simulations of them</span>; 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. <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> Cookery simulates the disguise of medicine, and pretends to know what food
is the best for the body</span>; 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. <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> 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.</span> And I do not call any irrational thing an art; but if you
dispute my words, I am prepared to argue in defense of them. Cookery, then, I
maintain to be a flattery which takes the form of medicine; and <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> tiring, in like
manner, is a flattery which takes the form of gymnastic</span>, and is knavish, false,
ignoble, illiberal, working deceitfully by the help of lines, and colors, 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) <span style="background-color: #FFFF00">attiring
is to gymnastic</span> as <span style="background-color: #FFFF00">cookery is to
medicine</span>. Or rather, attiring is to gymnastic as <span style="background-color: #FFFF00">sophistry
is to legislation</span>. And as
cookery is to medicine so <span style="background-color: #FFFF00">rhetoric is to
justice</span>. 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
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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. What do you mean? do you think that rhetoric is flattery? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">
Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. And are the good
rhetoricians meanly regarded in states, under the idea that they are flatterers? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">
Soc. Is that a question or the beginning of a speech? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. I am asking a
question. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Then my answer is, that they are not regarded at all.</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. How
not regarded? <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> Have they not very great power in states? </span></font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> Not if you mean to
say that power is a good to the possessor</span>. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. And that is what I do mean to
say. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Then, if so, I think that they have the least power of all the
citizens. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> What! Are they not like tyrants? They kill and despoil and exile
any one whom they please. </span></font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. I am asking a question of you. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Yes, my friend, but you
ask two questions at once.</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. How two questions? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. I did. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. And is not that a great power? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. No, by the great-what do you call
him?-but you
say that power is a good to him who has the power. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. I do. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And would you
maintain that if a fool does what he think best, this is a good, and would you
call this great power? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. I should not. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Yes;
I admit that. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. This fellow- </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. I say that they do not do as they
will--now
refute me. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Why, have you not already said that they do as they think best? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">
Soc. And I say so still. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Then surely they do as they will? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. I deny it. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. But they do what they think best? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Aye. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. That, Socrates, is
monstrous and absurd. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Very well, I am willing to answer
that I may know what you mean. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Clearly, the health. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol.
Certainly. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And are not all things either good or
evil, or intermediate and indifferent? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. To be sure, Socrates. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Wisdom
and health and wealth and the like you would call goods, and their opposites
evils? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. I should. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Exactly so. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Are these indifferent things done for the sake of the
good, or the good for the sake of the indifferent? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Clearly, the indifferent
for the sake of the good.</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Certainly. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Men who do any of these things do them for the
sake of the good? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Most true. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. You are right. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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?</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. But does he do what he
wills if he does what is evil? Why do you not answer? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Well, I suppose not. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">
Soc. Then if great power is a good as you allow, will such a one have great
power in a state? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. He will not. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. 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! </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Justly or unjustly, do you mean? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. In either case is he
not equally to be envied? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Forbear,
Polus! </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Why "forbear"? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">
Soc. Because you ought not to envy wretches who are not to be envied, but only
to pity them. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. And are those of whom spoke wretches? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Yes, certainly
they are. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. And so you think that he who slays any one whom he pleases, and
justly slays him, is pitiable and wretched?</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Soc. No, I do not say that of him:
but neither do I think that he is to be envied. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Were you not saying just
now that he is wretched?</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. At any rate you will allow that he who is unjustly put to death is
wretched, and to be pitied? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Not so much,
Polus, as he who kills him, and
not so much as he who is justly killed. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. How can that be, Socrates? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc.
That may very well be, inasmuch as doing injustice is the greatest of evils. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol.
But is it the greatest? Is not suffering injustice a greater evil? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc.
Certainly not. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Then would
<span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> you rather suffer than do injustice</span>? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. I
should not like either, but if I must choose between them, I would rather suffer
than do. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Then you would not wish to be a tyrant? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Not if you mean by
tyranny what I mean. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Certainly not such doing as this. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. But can you tell me why you
disapprove of such a power? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. I can. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Why then? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Why, because he who
did as you say would be certain to be punished. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And punishment is an evil? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Certainly. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Certainly. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. About that you and I may be supposed to agree? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Soc. Tell me, then, when do you say that they are good and when that they are
evil--what principle do you lay down? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. I would rather, Socrates, that you
should answer as well as ask that question. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. You are hard of refutation, Socrates, but might
not a child refute that statement? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. 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 <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> many men who do wrong are happy</span>. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. What events? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. You see, I presume,
that <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> Archelaus the son of Perdiccas is now the ruler of
Macedonia</span>? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. At any
rate I hear that he is. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. And do you think that he is happy or miserable? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">
Soc. I cannot say, Polus, for I have never had any acquaintance with him. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol.
And cannot you tell at once, and without having an acquaintance with him,
whether a man is happy? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Most certainly not. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Then clearly, Socrates,
you would say that you did not even know whether the great king was a happy man? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">
Soc. And I should speak the truth; for I do not know how he stands in the matter
of education and justice. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. What! and does all happiness consist in this? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">
Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Then, according to your doctrine, the said Archelaus is miserable? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc.
Yes, my friend, if he is wicked. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. 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, 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! </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. That is because you will
not; for you surely must think as I do. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Not so, my simple friend, but
because you will refute me after the manner which rhetoricians practice 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, and 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
honorable 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Certainly. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Certainly not; in that case he will be most miserable. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc.
On the other hand, if the unjust be not punished, then, according to you, he
will be happy? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. You are
maintaining a strange doctrine, Socrates. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Exactly so. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And you said the opposite? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. I
said also that the wicked are miserable, and you refuted me? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. By Zeus, I
did. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. In your own opinion,
Polus. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Yes, and I rather suspect that I was
in the right.</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Soc. You further said that the wrong-doer is happy if he be
unpunished?</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Certainly.</font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. A proposition which is harder of refutation than the
other, Socrates. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Say rather,
Polus, impossible; for who can refute the
truth? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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"? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Yes, I did. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">
Soc. 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, but of two
miseries 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. And I should say neither I, nor any man: would you yourself, for
example, suffer rather than do injustice? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Yes, and you, too; I or any man
would. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Quite the reverse; neither you, nor I, nor any man. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. But will
you answer? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. To be sure, I will-for I am curious to hear what you can have
to say. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Tell me, then, and you will know, and let us suppose that I am
beginning at the beginning: <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> which of the two,
Polus, in your opinion, is the worst?--to do injustice or to suffer</span>? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> I should say that suffering was worst.</span> </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">
Soc. <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> And which is the greater disgrace?</span>
Answer. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> To
do</span>. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> And the greater
disgrace is the greater evil</span>? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Certainly not. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. I understand you to say,
if I am not mistaken, that the honorable is not the same as the good, or the
disgraceful as the evil? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Certainly not. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Let me ask a question of you:
When you speak of beautiful things, such as bodies, colors, 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. I cannot. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And you would say of figures or
colors
generally that they were beautiful, either by reason of the pleasure which they
give, or of their use, or both? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Yes, I should. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And you would call
sounds and music beautiful for the same reason? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. I should. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Laws and
institutions also have no beauty in them except in so far as they are useful or
pleasant or both? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. I think not. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And may not the same be said of the
beauty of knowledge? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. To be sure, Socrates; and I very much approve of your
measuring beauty by the standard of pleasure and utility. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And deformity or
disgrace may be equally measured by the opposite standard of pain and
evil? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol.
Certainly. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Very true. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And of two deformed things,
that which exceeds in deformity or disgrace, exceeds either in pain or evil-must
it not be so? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. I did. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Then, if
doing wrong is more disgraceful than suffering, t<span style="background-color: #FFFF00">he more disgraceful must be
more painful and must exceed in pain or in evil or both</span>: does not that also
follow? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Of course. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. No, Socrates; certainly not. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Then they do not
exceed in pain? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. No. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. But if not in pain, then not in both? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol.
Certainly not. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Then they can only exceed in the other? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. That
is to say, in evil? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. True. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Then doing injustice will have an excess of
evil, and will therefore be a greater evil than suffering injustice? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol.
Clearly. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. But have not you and the world already agreed that to do injustice
is more disgraceful than to suffer? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And that is now discovered to
be more evil? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. True. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And
<span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> would you prefer a greater evil or a greater
dishonor to a less one</span>? 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. I should say "No." </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Would any other man prefer a greater
to a less evil? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. No, not according to this way of putting the case,
Socrates. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. That is the conclusion. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. You see,
Polus, when you compare
the two kinds of refutations, how unlike they are. <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"> 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</span>, 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. I should. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc.
And would you not allow that all just things are honorable in so far as they
are just? Please to reflect, and, tell me your opinion. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Yes, Socrates, I
think that they are. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Consider again:-Where there is an agent, must there
not also be a patient? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. I should say so. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And if the striker strikes violently or
quickly, that which is struck will he struck violently or quickly? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. True. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">
Soc. And the suffering to him who is stricken is of the same nature as the act
of him who strikes? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And if a man burns, there is something which
is burned? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Certainly. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And if he burns in excess or so as to cause
pain, the thing burned will be burned in the same way? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Truly. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And if
he cuts, the same argument holds-there will be something cut? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And
if the cutting be great or deep or such as will cause pain, the cut will be of
the same nature? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. That is evident. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. I agree. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Then, as
this is admitted, let me ask whether being punished is suffering or acting? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol.
Suffering, Socrates; there can be no doubt of that. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And suffering implies
an agent? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Certainly, Socrates; and he is the punisher. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And he who
punishes rightly, punishes justly? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And therefore he acts justly? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Justly. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Then he who is punished and suffers retribution, suffers
justly? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. That is evident. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And that which is just has been admitted to
be honorable? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Certainly. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Then the punisher does what is
honorable,
and the punished suffers what is honorable? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. True. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And if what is
honorable, then what is good, for the honorable is either pleasant or useful? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Certainly. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Then he who is punished suffers what is good? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. That is
true. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Then he is benefited? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Surely. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. Then he who is punished is delivered
from the evil of his soul? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Yes. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. There is no greater evil. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc.
Again, in a man's bodily frame, you would say that the evil is weakness and
disease and deformity? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. I should. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And do you not imagine that the soul
likewise has some evil of her own? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Of course. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And this you would call
injustice and ignorance and cowardice, and the like? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. Certainly. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. So
then, in mind, body, and estate, which are three, you have pointed out three
corresponding evils--injustice, disease, poverty? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. True. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. 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? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. By far the most. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4"> Soc. And
if the most disgraceful, then also the worst? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">Pol. What do you mean, Socrates? </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size="4">
Soc. I mean to say, that is most disgraceful has been already admitted to be
most painful or hurtful, or both. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-left: 10; margin-right: 10"><font size=]]> |