Gorgias
SocratesIgnoble, 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.
GorgiasIndeed, Socrates, I cannot say that I understand myself.
SocratesI do not wonder, Gorgias; for I have not as yet explained myself, and our friend Polus, colt by name and colt by nature, is apt to run away. (This is an untranslatable play on the name “Polus,” which means “a colt.”)
GorgiasNever mind him, but explain to me what you mean by saying that rhetoric is the counterfeit of a part of politics.
SocratesI 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?
GorgiasOf course.
SocratesYou would further admit that there is a good condition of either of them?
SocratesWhich 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.
SocratesAnd 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?
GorgiasYes, certainly.
SocratesAnd now I will endeavour to explain to you more clearly what I mean: The soul and body being two, have two arts corresponding to them: there is the art of politics attending on the soul; and another art attending on the body, of which I know no single name, but which may be described as having two divisions, one of them gymnastic, and the other medicine. And in politics there is a legislative part, which answers to gymnastic, as justice does to medicine; and the two parts run into one another, justice having to do with the same subject as legislation, and medicine with the same subject as gymnastic, but with a difference. Now, seeing that there are these four arts, two attending on the body and two on the soul for their highest good; flattery knowing, or rather guessing their natures, has distributed herself into four shams or simulations of them; she puts on the likeness of some one or other of them, and pretends to be that which she simulates, and having no regard for men’s highest interests, is ever making pleasure the bait of the unwary, and deceiving them into the belief that she is of the highest value to them. Cookery simulates the disguise of medicine, and pretends to know what food is the best for the body; and if the physician and the cook had to enter into a competition in which children were the judges, or men who had no more sense than children, as to which of them best understands the goodness or badness of food, the physician would be starved to death. A flattery I deem this to be and of an ignoble sort, Polus, for to you I am now addressing myself, because it aims at pleasure without any thought of the best. An art I do not call it, but only an experience, because it is unable to explain or to give a reason of the nature of its own applications. And I do not call any irrational thing an art; but if you dispute my words, I am prepared to argue in defence of them.
Cookery, then, I maintain to be a flattery which takes the form of medicine; and tiring, in like manner, is a flattery which takes the form of gymnastic, and is knavish, false, ignoble, illiberal, working deceitfully by the help of lines, and colours, and enamels, and garments, and making men affect a spurious beauty to the neglect of the true beauty which is given by gymnastic.
I would rather not be tedious, and therefore I will only say, after the manner of the geometricians (for I think that by this time you will be able to follow)
as tiring: gymnastic:: cookery: medicine;
or rather,
as tiring: gymnastic:: sophistry: legislation;
and
as cookery: medicine:: rhetoric: justice.
And this, I say, is the natural difference between the rhetorician and the sophist, but by reason of their near connection, they are apt to be jumbled up together; neither do they know what to make of themselves, nor do other men know what to make of them. For if the body presided over itself, and were not under the guidance of the soul, and the soul did not discern and discriminate between cookery and medicine, but the body was made the judge of them, and the rule of judgment was the bodily delight which was given by them, then the word of Anaxagoras, that word with which you, friend Polus, are so well acquainted, would prevail far and wide: “Chaos” would come again, and cookery, health, and medicine would mingle in an indiscriminate mass. And now I have told you my notion of rhetoric, which is, in relation to the soul, what cookery is to the body. I may have been inconsistent in making a long speech, when I would not allow you to discourse at length. But I think that I may be excused, because you did not understand me, and could make no use of my answer when I spoke shortly, and therefore I had to enter into an explanation. And if I show an equal inability to make use of yours, I hope that you will speak at equal length; but if I am able to understand you, let me have the benefit of your brevity, as is only fair: And now you may do what you please with my answer.
PolusWhat do you mean? do you think that rhetoric is flattery?
SocratesNay, 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?
PolusAnd are the good rhetoricians meanly regarded in states, under the idea that they are flatterers?
SocratesIs that a question or the beginning of a speech?
PolusI am asking a question.
SocratesThen my answer is, that they are not regarded at all.
PolusHow not regarded? Have they not very great power in states?
SocratesNot if you mean to say that power is a good to the possessor.
PolusAnd that is what I do mean to say.
SocratesThen, if so, I think that they have the least power of all the citizens.
PolusWhat! are they not like tyrants? They kill and despoil and exile any one whom they please.
SocratesBy 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.
PolusI am asking a question of you.
SocratesYes, my friend, but you ask two questions at once.
PolusHow two questions?
SocratesWhy, 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?
PolusI did.
SocratesWell 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.
PolusAnd is not that a great power?
SocratesPolus has already said the reverse.
PolusSaid the reverse! nay, that is what I assert.
SocratesNo, by the great—what do you call him?—not you, for you say that power is a good to him who has the power.
PolusI do.
SocratesAnd would you maintain that if a fool does what he thinks best, this is a good, and would you call this great power?
PolusI should not.
SocratesThen 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.
PolusYes; I admit that.
SocratesHow 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?
PolusThis fellow—
SocratesI say that they do not do as they will;—now refute me.
PolusWhy, have you not already said that they do as they think best?
SocratesAnd I say so still.
PolusThen surely they do as they will?
SocratesI deny it.
PolusBut they do what they think best?
SocratesAye.
PolusThat, Socrates, is monstrous and absurd.
SocratesGood 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.
PolusVery well, I am willing to answer that I may know what you mean.
SocratesDo 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?
PolusClearly, the health.
SocratesAnd 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.
SocratesAnd 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.
SocratesAnd are not all things either good or evil, or intermediate and indifferent?
PolusTo be sure, Socrates.
SocratesWisdom and health and wealth and the like you would call goods, and their opposites evils?
SocratesAnd 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?
PolusExactly so.
SocratesAre these indifferent things done for the sake of the good, or the good for the sake of the indifferent?
PolusClearly, the indifferent for the sake of the good.
SocratesWhen 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?
SocratesAnd 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?
SocratesMen who do any of these things do them for the sake of the good?
SocratesAnd 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?
PolusMost true.
SocratesThen 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?
PolusYou are right.
SocratesHence 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?
SocratesBut does he do what he wills if he does what is evil? Why do you not answer?
PolusWell, I suppose not.
SocratesThen if great power is a good as you allow, will such a one have great power in a state?
PolusHe will not.
SocratesThen 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?
PolusAs 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!
SocratesJustly or unjustly, do you mean?
PolusIn either case is he not equally to be envied?
SocratesForbear, Polus!
PolusWhy “forbear”?
SocratesBecause you ought not to envy wretches who are not to be envied, but only to pity them.
PolusAnd are those of whom I spoke wretches?
SocratesYes, certainly they are.
PolusAnd so you think that he who slays any one whom he pleases, and justly slays him, is pitiable and wretched?
SocratesNo, I do not say that of him: but neither do I think that he is to be envied.
PolusWere you not saying just now that he is wretched?
SocratesYes, 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.
PolusAt any rate you will allow that he who is unjustly put to death is wretched, and to be pitied?
SocratesNot so much, Polus, as he who kills him, and not so much as he who is justly killed.
PolusHow can that be, Socrates?
SocratesThat may very well be, inasmuch as doing injustice is the greatest of evils.
PolusBut is it the greatest? Is not suffering injustice a greater evil?
SocratesCertainly not.
PolusThen would you rather suffer than do injustice?
SocratesI should not like either, but if I must choose between them, I would rather suffer than do.
PolusThen you would not wish to be a tyrant?
SocratesNot if you mean by tyranny what I mean.
PolusI 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.
SocratesWell 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?
PolusCertainly not such doing as this.
SocratesBut can you tell me why you disapprove of such a power?
PolusI can.
SocratesWhy then?
PolusWhy, because he who did as you say would be certain to be punished.
SocratesAnd punishment is an evil?
SocratesAnd 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?
SocratesAbout that you and I may be supposed to agree?
SocratesTell me, then, when do you say that they are good and when that they are evil—what principle do you lay down?
PolusI would rather, Socrates, that you should answer as well as ask that question.
SocratesWell, 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.
PolusYou are hard of refutation, Socrates, but might not a child refute that statement?
SocratesThen 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.
PolusYes, Socrates, and I need not go far or appeal to antiquity; events which happened only a few days ago are enough to refute you, and to prove that many men who do wrong are happy.
SocratesWhat events?
PolusYou see, I presume, that Archelaus the son of Perdiccas is now the ruler of Macedonia?
SocratesAt any rate I hear that he is.
PolusAnd do you think that he is happy or miserable?
SocratesI cannot say, Polus, for I have never had any acquaintance with him.
PolusAnd cannot you tell at once, and without having an acquaintance with him, whether a man is happy?
SocratesMost certainly not.
PolusThen clearly, Socrates, you would say that you did not even know whether the great king was a happy man?
SocratesAnd I should speak the truth; for I do not know how he stands in the matter of education and justice.
PolusWhat! and does all happiness consist in this?
SocratesYes, 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.
PolusThen, according to your doctrine, the said Archelaus is miserable?
SocratesYes, my friend, if he is wicked.
PolusThat he is wicked I cannot deny; for he had no title at all to the throne which he now occupies, he being only the son of a woman who was the slave of Alcetas the brother of Perdiccas; he himself therefore in strict right was the slave of Alcetas; and if he had meant to do rightly he would have remained his slave, and then, according to your doctrine, he would have been happy. But now he is unspeakably miserable, for he has been guilty of the greatest crimes: in the first place he invited his uncle and master, Alcetas, to come to him, under the pretence that he would restore to him the throne which Perdiccas has usurped, and after entertaining him and his son Alexander, who was his own cousin, and nearly of an age with him, and making them drunk, he threw them into a waggon and carried them off by night, and slew them, and got both of them out of the way; and when he had done all this wickedness he never discovered that he was the most miserable of all men, and was very far from repenting: shall I tell you how he showed his remorse? he had a younger brother, a child of seven years old, who was the legitimate son of Perdiccas, and to him of right the kingdom belonged; Archelaus, however, had no mind to bring him up as he ought and restore the kingdom to him; that was not his notion of happiness; but not long afterwards he threw him into a well and drowned him, and declared to his mother Cleopatra that he had fallen in while running after a goose, and had been killed. And now as he is the greatest criminal of all the Macedonians, he may be supposed to be the most miserable and not the happiest of them, and I dare say that there are many Athenians, and you would be at the head of them, who would rather be any other Macedonian than Archelaus!
SocratesI 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.
PolusThat is because you will not; for you surely must think as I do.
SocratesNot so, my simple friend, but because you will refute me after the manner which rhetoricians practise in courts of law. For there the one party think that they refute the other when they bring forward a number of witnesses of good repute in proof of their allegations, and their adversary has only a single one or none at all. But this kind of proof is of no value where truth is the aim; a man may often be sworn down by a multitude of false witnesses who have a great air of respectability. And in this argument nearly every one, Athenian and stranger alike, would be on your side, if you should bring witnesses in disproof of my statement;—you may, if you will, summon Nicias the son of Niceratus, and let his brothers, who gave the row of tripods which stand in the precincts of Dionysus, come with him; or you may summon Aristocrates, the son of Scellius, who is the giver of that famous offering which is at Delphi; summon, if you will, the whole house of Pericles, or any other great Athenian family whom you choose;—they will all agree with you: I only am left alone and cannot agree, for you do not convince me; although you produce many false witnesses against me, in the hope of depriving me of my inheritance, which is the truth. But I consider that nothing worth speaking of will have been effected by me unless I make you the one witness of my words; nor by you, unless you make me the one witness of yours; no matter about the rest of the world. For there are two ways of refutation, one which is yours and that of the world in general; but mine is of another sort—let us compare them, and see in what they differ. For, indeed, we are at issue about matters which to know is honourable and not to know disgraceful; to know or not to know happiness and misery—that is the chief of them. And what knowledge can be nobler? or what ignorance more disgraceful than this? And therefore I will begin by asking you whether you do not think that a man who is unjust and doing injustice can be happy, seeing that you think Archelaus unjust, and yet happy? May I assume this to be your opinion?
SocratesBut 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?
PolusCertainly not; in that case he will be most miserable.
SocratesOn the other hand, if the unjust be not punished, then, according to you, he will be happy?
SocratesBut 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.
PolusYou are maintaining a strange doctrine, Socrates.
SocratesI 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?
PolusExactly so.
SocratesAnd you said the opposite?
SocratesI said also that the wicked are miserable, and you refuted me?
PolusBy Zeus, I did.
SocratesIn your own opinion, Polus.
PolusYes, and I rather suspect that I was in the right.
SocratesYou further said that the wrong-doer is happy if he be unpunished?
SocratesAnd I affirm that he is most miserable, and that those who are punished are less miserable—are you going to refute this proposition also?
PolusA proposition which is harder of refutation than the other, Socrates.
SocratesSay rather, Polus, impossible; for who can refute the truth?
PolusWhat 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?
SocratesThere 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”?
PolusYes, I did.
SocratesThen I say that neither of them will be happier than the other,—neither he who unjustly acquires a tyranny, nor he who suffers in the attempt, for of two miserables one cannot be the happier, but that he who escapes and becomes a tyrant is the more miserable of the two. Do you laugh, Polus? Well, this is a new kind of refutation,—when any one says anything, instead of refuting him to laugh at him.
PolusBut do you not think, Socrates, that you have been sufficiently refuted, when you say that which no human being will allow? Ask the company.
SocratesO 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.
PolusAnd I should say neither I, nor any man: would you yourself, for example, suffer rather than do injustice?
SocratesYes, and you, too; I or any man would.
PolusQuite the reverse; neither you, nor I, nor any man.
SocratesBut will you answer?
PolusTo be sure, I will; for I am curious to hear what you can have to say.
SocratesTell me, then, and you will know, and let us suppose that I am beginning at the beginning: which of the two, Polus, in your opinion, is the worst?—to do injustice or to suffer?
PolusI should say that suffering was worst.
SocratesAnd which is the greater disgrace?—Answer.
PolusTo do.
SocratesAnd the greater disgrace is the greater evil?
PolusCertainly not.
SocratesI understand you to say, if I am not mistaken, that the honourable is not the same as the good, or the disgraceful as the evil?
PolusCertainly not.
SocratesLet me ask a question of you: When you speak of beautiful things, such as bodies, colours, figures, sounds, institutions, do you not call them beautiful in reference to some standard: bodies, for example, are beautiful in proportion as they are useful, or as the sight of them gives pleasure to the spectators; can you give any other account of personal beauty?
PolusI cannot.
SocratesAnd you would say of figures or colours generally that they were beautiful, either by reason of the pleasure which they give, or of their use, or of both?
PolusYes, I should.
SocratesAnd you would call sounds and music beautiful for the same reason?
SocratesLaws and institutions also have no beauty in them except in so far as they are useful or pleasant or both?
PolusI think not.
SocratesAnd may not the same be said of the beauty of knowledge?
PolusTo be sure, Socrates; and I very much approve of your measuring beauty by the standard of pleasure and utility.
SocratesAnd deformity or disgrace may be equally measured by the opposite standard of pain and evil?
SocratesThen 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?
PolusVery true.
SocratesAnd of two deformed things, that which exceeds in deformity or disgrace, exceeds either in pain or evil—must it not be so?
SocratesBut 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?
PolusI did.
SocratesThen, if doing wrong is more disgraceful than suffering, the more disgraceful must be more painful and must exceed in pain or in evil or both: does not that also follow?
PolusOf course.
SocratesFirst, then, let us consider whether the doing of injustice exceeds the suffering in the consequent pain: Do the injurers suffer more than the injured?
PolusNo, Socrates; certainly not.
SocratesThen they do not exceed in pain?
PolusNo.
SocratesBut if not in pain, then not in both?
PolusCertainly not.
SocratesThen they can only exceed in the other?
SocratesThat is to say, in evil?
SocratesThen doing injustice will have an excess of evil, and will therefore be a greater evil than suffering injustice?
SocratesBut have not you and the world already agreed that to do injustice is more disgraceful than to suffer?
SocratesAnd that is now discovered to be more evil?
SocratesAnd would you prefer a greater evil or a greater dishonour to a less one? Answer, Polus, and fear not; for you will come to no harm if you nobly resign yourself into the healing hand of the argument as to a physician without shrinking, and either say “Yes” or “No” to me.
PolusI should say “No.”
SocratesWould any other man prefer a greater to a less evil?
PolusNo, not according to this way of putting the case, Socrates.
SocratesThen 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.
PolusThat is the conclusion.
SocratesYou see, Polus, when you compare the two kinds of refutations, how unlike they are. All men, with the exception of myself, are of your way of thinking; but your single assent and witness are enough for me,—I have no need of any other, I take your suffrage, and am regardless of the rest. Enough of this, and now let us proceed to the next question; which is, Whether the greatest of evils to a guilty man is to suffer punishment, as you supposed, or whether to escape punishment is not a greater evil, as I supposed. Consider:—You would say that to suffer punishment is another name for being justly corrected when you do wrong?
SocratesAnd would you not allow that all just things are honourable in so far as they are just? Please to reflect, and tell me your opinion.
PolusYes, Socrates, I think that they are.
SocratesConsider again:—Where there is an agent, must there not also be a patient?
PolusI should say so.
SocratesAnd 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?
SocratesAnd if the striker strikes violently or quickly, that which is struck will be struck violently or quickly?
SocratesAnd the suffering to him who is stricken is of the same nature as the act of him who strikes?
SocratesAnd if a man burns, there is something which is burned?
SocratesAnd if he burns in excess or so as to cause pain, the thing burned will be burned in the same way?
PolusTruly.
SocratesAnd if he cuts, the same argument holds—there will be something cut?
SocratesAnd if the cutting be great or deep or such as will cause pain, the cut will be of the same nature?
SocratesThen 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?