CHAEREPHON: My question is this: If Gorgias had the skill of his
brother Herodicus, what ought we to call him? Ought he not to have the
name which is given to his brother?
POLUS: Certainly.
CHAEREPHON: Then we should be right in calling him a physician?
POLUS: Yes.
CHAEREPHON: And if he had the skill of Aristophon the son of Aglaophon,
or of his brother Polygnotus, what ought we to call him?
POLUS: Clearly, a painter.
CHAEREPHON: But now what shall we call him—what is the art in which he
is skilled.
POLUS: O Chaerephon, there are many arts among mankind which are
experimental, and have their origin in experience, for experience makes
the days of men to proceed according to art, and inexperience according
to chance, and different persons in different ways are proficient in
different arts, and the best persons in the best arts. And our friend
Gorgias is one of the best, and the art in which he is a proficient is
the noblest.
SOCRATES: Polus has been taught how to make a capital speech, Gorgias;
but he is not fulfilling the promise which he made to Chaerephon.
GORGIAS: What do you mean, Socrates?
SOCRATES: I mean that he has not exactly answered the question which he
was asked.
GORGIAS: Then why not ask him yourself?
SOCRATES: But I would much rather ask you, if you are disposed to
answer: for I see, from the few words which Polus has uttered, that he
has attended more to the art which is called rhetoric than to
dialectic.
POLUS: What makes you say so, Socrates?
SOCRATES: Because, Polus, when Chaerephon asked you what was the art
which Gorgias knows, you praised it as if you were answering some one
who found fault with it, but you never said what the art was.
POLUS: Why, did I not say that it was the noblest of arts?
SOCRATES: Yes, indeed, but that was no answer to the question: nobody
asked what was the quality, but what was the nature, of the art, and by
what name we were to describe Gorgias. And I would still beg you
briefly and clearly, as you answered Chaerephon when he asked you at
first, to say what this art is, and what we ought to call Gorgias: Or
rather, Gorgias, let me turn to you, and ask the same question,—what
are we to call you, and what is the art which you profess?
GORGIAS: Rhetoric, Socrates, is my art.
SOCRATES: Then I am to call you a rhetorician?
GORGIAS: Yes, Socrates, and a good one too, if you would call me that
which, in Homeric language, “I boast myself to be.”
SOCRATES: I should wish to do so.
GORGIAS: Then pray do.
SOCRATES: And are we to say that you are able to make other men
rhetoricians?
GORGIAS: Yes, that is exactly what I profess to make them, not only at
Athens, but in all places.
SOCRATES: And will you continue to ask and answer questions, Gorgias,
as we are at present doing, and reserve for another occasion the longer
mode of speech which Polus was attempting? Will you keep your promise,
and answer shortly the questions which are asked of you?
GORGIAS: Some answers, Socrates, are of necessity longer; but I will do
my best to make them as short as possible; for a part of my profession
is that I can be as short as any one.
SOCRATES: That is what is wanted, Gorgias; exhibit the shorter method
now, and the longer one at some other time.
GORGIAS: Well, I will; and you will certainly say, that you never heard
a man use fewer words.
SOCRATES: Very good then; as you profess to be a rhetorician, and a
maker of rhetoricians, let me ask you, with what is rhetoric concerned:
I might ask with what is weaving concerned, and you would reply (would
you not?), with the making of garments?
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And music is concerned with the composition of melodies?
GORGIAS: It is.
SOCRATES: By Here, Gorgias, I admire the surpassing brevity of your
answers.
GORGIAS: Yes, Socrates, I do think myself good at that.
SOCRATES: I am glad to hear it; answer me in like manner about
rhetoric: with what is rhetoric concerned?
GORGIAS: With discourse.
SOCRATES: What sort of discourse, Gorgias?—such discourse as would
teach the sick under what treatment they might get well?
GORGIAS: No.
SOCRATES: Then rhetoric does not treat of all kinds of discourse?
GORGIAS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: And yet rhetoric makes men able to speak?
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And to understand that about which they speak?
GORGIAS: Of course.
SOCRATES: But does not the art of medicine, which we were just now
mentioning, also make men able to understand and speak about the sick?
GORGIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then medicine also treats of discourse?
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Of discourse concerning diseases?
GORGIAS: Just so.
SOCRATES: And does not gymnastic also treat of discourse concerning the
good or evil condition of the body?
GORGIAS: Very true.
SOCRATES: And the same, Gorgias, is true of the other arts:—all of them
treat of discourse concerning the subjects with which they severally
have to do.
GORGIAS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: Then why, if you call rhetoric the art which treats of
discourse, and all the other arts treat of discourse, do you not call
them arts of rhetoric?
GORGIAS: Because, Socrates, the knowledge of the other arts has only to
do with some sort of external action, as of the hand; but there is no
such action of the hand in rhetoric which works and takes effect only
through the medium of discourse. And therefore I am justified in saying
that rhetoric treats of discourse.
SOCRATES: I am not sure whether I entirely understand you, but I dare
say I shall soon know better; please to answer me a question:—you would
allow that there are arts?
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: As to the arts generally, they are for the most part
concerned with doing, and require little or no speaking; in painting,
and statuary, and many other arts, the work may proceed in silence; and
of such arts I suppose you would say that they do not come within the
province of rhetoric.
GORGIAS: You perfectly conceive my meaning, Socrates.
SOCRATES: But there are other arts which work wholly through the medium
of language, and require either no action or very little, as, for
example, the arts of arithmetic, of calculation, of geometry, and of
playing draughts; in some of these speech is pretty nearly co-extensive
with action, but in most of them the verbal element is greater—they
depend wholly on words for their efficacy and power: and I take your
meaning to be that rhetoric is an art of this latter sort?
GORGIAS: Exactly.
SOCRATES: And yet I do not believe that you really mean to call any of
these arts rhetoric; although the precise expression which you used
was, that rhetoric is an art which works and takes effect only through
the medium of discourse; and an adversary who wished to be captious
might say, “And so, Gorgias, you call arithmetic rhetoric.” But I do
not think that you really call arithmetic rhetoric any more than
geometry would be so called by you.
GORGIAS: You are quite right, Socrates, in your apprehension of my
meaning.
SOCRATES: Well, then, let me now have the rest of my answer:—seeing
that rhetoric is one of those arts which works mainly by the use of
words, and there are other arts which also use words, tell me what is
that quality in words with which rhetoric is concerned:—Suppose that a
person asks me about some of the arts which I was mentioning just now;
he might say, “Socrates, what is arithmetic?” and I should reply to
him, as you replied to me, that arithmetic is one of those arts which
take effect through words. And then he would proceed to ask: “Words
about what?” and I should reply, Words about odd and even numbers, and
how many there are of each. And if he asked again: “What is the art of
calculation?” I should say, That also is one of the arts which is
concerned wholly with words. And if he further said, “Concerned with
what?” I should say, like the clerks in the assembly, “as aforesaid” of
arithmetic, but with a difference, the difference being that the art of
calculation considers not only the quantities of odd and even numbers,
but also their numerical relations to themselves and to one another.
And suppose, again, I were to say that astronomy is only words—he would
ask, “Words about what, Socrates?” and I should answer, that astronomy
tells us about the motions of the stars and sun and moon, and their
relative swiftness.
GORGIAS: You would be quite right, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And now let us have from you, Gorgias, the truth about
rhetoric: which you would admit (would you not?) to be one of those
arts which act always and fulfil all their ends through the medium of
words?
GORGIAS: True.
SOCRATES: Words which do what? I should ask. To what class of things do
the words which rhetoric uses relate?
GORGIAS: To the greatest, Socrates, and the best of human things.
SOCRATES: That again, Gorgias is ambiguous; I am still in the dark: for
which are the greatest and best of human things? I dare say that you
have heard men singing at feasts the old drinking song, in which the
singers enumerate the goods of life, first health, beauty next,
thirdly, as the writer of the song says, wealth honestly obtained.
GORGIAS: Yes, I know the song; but what is your drift?
SOCRATES: I mean to say, that the producers of those things which the
author of the song praises, that is to say, the physician, the trainer,
the money-maker, will at once come to you, and first the physician will
say: “O Socrates, Gorgias is deceiving you, for my art is concerned
with the greatest good of men and not his.” And when I ask, Who are
you? he will reply, “I am a physician.” What do you mean? I shall say.
Do you mean that your art produces the greatest good? “Certainly,” he
will answer, “for is not health the greatest good? What greater good
can men have, Socrates?” And after him the trainer will come and say,
“I too, Socrates, shall be greatly surprised if Gorgias can show more
good of his art than I can show of mine.” To him again I shall say, Who
are you, honest friend, and what is your business? “I am a trainer,” he
will reply, “and my business is to make men beautiful and strong in
body.” When I have done with the trainer, there arrives the
money-maker, and he, as I expect, will utterly despise them all.
“Consider Socrates,” he will say, “whether Gorgias or any one else can
produce any greater good than wealth.” Well, you and I say to him, and
are you a creator of wealth? “Yes,” he replies. And who are you? “A
money-maker.” And do you consider wealth to be the greatest good of
man? “Of course,” will be his reply. And we shall rejoin: Yes; but our
friend Gorgias contends that his art produces a greater good than
yours. And then he will be sure to go on and ask, “What good? Let
Gorgias answer.” Now I want you, Gorgias, to imagine that this question
is asked of you by them and by me; What is that which, as you say, is
the greatest good of man, and of which you are the creator? Answer us.
GORGIAS: That good, Socrates, which is truly the greatest, being that
which gives to men freedom in their own persons, and to individuals the
power of ruling over others in their several states.
SOCRATES: And what would you consider this to be?
GORGIAS: What is there greater than the word which persuades the judges
in the courts, or the senators in the council, or the citizens in the
assembly, or at any other political meeting?—if you have the power of
uttering this word, you will have the physician your slave, and the
trainer your slave, and the money-maker of whom you talk will be found
to gather treasures, not for himself, but for you who are able to speak
and to persuade the multitude.
SOCRATES: Now I think, Gorgias, that you have very accurately explained
what you conceive to be the art of rhetoric; and you mean to say, if I
am not mistaken, that rhetoric is the artificer of persuasion, having
this and no other business, and that this is her crown and end. Do you
know any other effect of rhetoric over and above that of producing
persuasion?
GORGIAS: No: the definition seems to me very fair, Socrates; for
persuasion is the chief end of rhetoric.
SOCRATES: Then hear me, Gorgias, for I am quite sure that if there ever
was a man who entered on the discussion of a matter from a pure love of
knowing the truth, I am such a one, and I should say the same of you.
GORGIAS: What is coming, Socrates?
SOCRATES: I will tell you: I am very well aware that I do not know
what, according to you, is the exact nature, or what are the topics of
that persuasion of which you speak, and which is given by rhetoric;
although I have a suspicion about both the one and the other. And I am
going to ask—what is this power of persuasion which is given by
rhetoric, and about what? But why, if I have a suspicion, do I ask
instead of telling you? Not for your sake, but in order that the
argument may proceed in such a manner as is most likely to set forth
the truth. And I would have you observe, that I am right in asking this
further question: If I asked, “What sort of a painter is Zeuxis?” and
you said, “The painter of figures,” should I not be right in asking,
“What kind of figures, and where do you find them?”
GORGIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And the reason for asking this second question would be, that
there are other painters besides, who paint many other figures?
GORGIAS: True.
SOCRATES: But if there had been no one but Zeuxis who painted them,
then you would have answered very well?
GORGIAS: Quite so.
SOCRATES: Now I want to know about rhetoric in the same way;—is
rhetoric the only art which brings persuasion, or do other arts have
the same effect? I mean to say—Does he who teaches anything persuade
men of that which he teaches or not?
GORGIAS: He persuades, Socrates,—there can be no mistake about that.
SOCRATES: Again, if we take the arts of which we were just now
speaking:—do not arithmetic and the arithmeticians teach us the
properties of number?
GORGIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And therefore persuade us of them?
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then arithmetic as well as rhetoric is an artificer of
persuasion?
GORGIAS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: And if any one asks us what sort of persuasion, and about
what,—we shall answer, persuasion which teaches the quantity of odd and
even; and we shall be able to show that all the other arts of which we
were just now speaking are artificers of persuasion, and of what sort,
and about what.
GORGIAS: Very true.
SOCRATES: Then rhetoric is not the only artificer of persuasion?
GORGIAS: True.
SOCRATES: Seeing, then, that not only rhetoric works by persuasion, but
that other arts do the same, as in the case of the painter, a question
has arisen which is a very fair one: Of what persuasion is rhetoric the
artificer, and about what?—is not that a fair way of putting the
question?
GORGIAS: I think so.
SOCRATES: Then, if you approve the question, Gorgias, what is the
answer?
GORGIAS: I answer, Socrates, that rhetoric is the art of persuasion in
courts of law and other assemblies, as I was just now saying, and about
the just and unjust.
SOCRATES: And that, Gorgias, was what I was suspecting to be your
notion; yet I would not have you wonder if by-and-by I am found
repeating a seemingly plain question; for I ask not in order to confute
you, but as I was saying that the argument may proceed consecutively,
and that we may not get the habit of anticipating and suspecting the
meaning of one another’s words; I would have you develope your own
views in your own way, whatever may be your hypothesis.
GORGIAS: I think that you are quite right, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then let me raise another question; there is such a thing as
“having learned”?
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And there is also “having believed”?
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And is the “having learned” the same as “having believed,”
and are learning and belief the same things?
GORGIAS: In my judgment, Socrates, they are not the same.
SOCRATES: And your judgment is right, as you may ascertain in this
way:—If a person were to say to you, “Is there, Gorgias, a false belief
as well as a true?”—you would reply, if I am not mistaken, that there
is.
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Well, but is there a false knowledge as well as a true?
GORGIAS: No.
SOCRATES: No, indeed; and this again proves that knowledge and belief
differ.
GORGIAS: Very true.
SOCRATES: And yet those who have learned as well as those who have
believed are persuaded?
GORGIAS: Just so.
SOCRATES: Shall we then assume two sorts of persuasion,—one which is
the source of belief without knowledge, as the other is of knowledge?
GORGIAS: By all means.
SOCRATES: And which sort of persuasion does rhetoric create in courts
of law and other assemblies about the just and unjust, the sort of
persuasion which gives belief without knowledge, or that which gives
knowledge?
GORGIAS: Clearly, Socrates, that which only gives belief.
SOCRATES: Then rhetoric, as would appear, is the artificer of a
persuasion which creates belief about the just and unjust, but gives no
instruction about them?
GORGIAS: True.
SOCRATES: And the rhetorician does not instruct the courts of law or
other assemblies about things just and unjust, but he creates belief
about them; for no one can be supposed to instruct such a vast
multitude about such high matters in a short time?
GORGIAS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Come, then, and let us see what we really mean about
rhetoric; for I do not know what my own meaning is as yet. When the
assembly meets to elect a physician or a shipwright or any other
craftsman, will the rhetorician be taken into counsel? Surely not. For
at every election he ought to be chosen who is most skilled; and,
again, when walls have to be built or harbours or docks to be
constructed, not the rhetorician but the master workman will advise; or
when generals have to be chosen and an order of battle arranged, or a
position taken, then the military will advise and not the rhetoricians:
what do you say, Gorgias? Since you profess to be a rhetorician and a
maker of rhetoricians, I cannot do better than learn the nature of your
art from you. And here let me assure you that I have your interest in
view as well as my own. For likely enough some one or other of the
young men present might desire to become your pupil, and in fact I see
some, and a good many too, who have this wish, but they would be too
modest to question you. And therefore when you are interrogated by me,
I would have you imagine that you are interrogated by them. “What is
the use of coming to you, Gorgias?” they will say—“about what will you
teach us to advise the state?—about the just and unjust only, or about
those other things also which Socrates has just mentioned?” How will
you answer them?
GORGIAS: I like your way of leading us on, Socrates, and I will
endeavour to reveal to you the whole nature of rhetoric. You must have
heard, I think, that the docks and the walls of the Athenians and the
plan of the harbour were devised in accordance with the counsels,
partly of Themistocles, and partly of Pericles, and not at the
suggestion of the builders.
SOCRATES: Such is the tradition, Gorgias, about Themistocles; and I
myself heard the speech of Pericles when he advised us about the middle
wall.
GORGIAS: And you will observe, Socrates, that when a decision has to be
given in such matters the rhetoricians are the advisers; they are the
men who win their point.
SOCRATES: I had that in my admiring mind, Gorgias, when I asked what is
the nature of rhetoric, which always appears to me, when I look at the
matter in this way, to be a marvel of greatness.
GORGIAS: A marvel, indeed, Socrates, if you only knew how rhetoric
comprehends and holds under her sway all the inferior arts. Let me
offer you a striking example of this. On several occasions I have been
with my brother Herodicus or some other physician to see one of his
patients, who would not allow the physician to give him medicine, or
apply the knife or hot iron to him; and I have persuaded him to do for
me what he would not do for the physician just by the use of rhetoric.
And I say that if a rhetorician and a physician were to go to any city,
and had there to argue in the Ecclesia or any other assembly as to
which of them should be elected state-physician, the physician would
have no chance; but he who could speak would be chosen if he wished;
and in a contest with a man of any other profession the rhetorician
more than any one would have the power of getting himself chosen, for
he can speak more persuasively to the multitude than any of them, and
on any subject. Such is the nature and power of the art of rhetoric!
And yet, Socrates, rhetoric should be used like any other competitive
art, not against everybody,—the rhetorician ought not to abuse his
strength any more than a pugilist or pancratiast or other master of
fence;—because he has powers which are more than a match either for
friend or enemy, he ought not therefore to strike, stab, or slay his
friends. Suppose a man to have been trained in the palestra and to be a
skilful boxer,—he in the fulness of his strength goes and strikes his
father or mother or one of his familiars or friends; but that is no
reason why the trainers or fencing-masters should be held in
detestation or banished from the city;—surely not. For they taught
their art for a good purpose, to be used against enemies and
evil-doers, in self-defence not in aggression, and others have
perverted their instructions, and turned to a bad use their own
strength and skill. But not on this account are the teachers bad,
neither is the art in fault, or bad in itself; I should rather say that
those who make a bad use of the art are to blame. And the same argument
holds good of rhetoric; for the rhetorician can speak against all men
and upon any subject,—in short, he can persuade the multitude better
than any other man of anything which he pleases, but he should not
therefore seek to defraud the physician or any other artist of his
reputation merely because he has the power; he ought to use rhetoric
fairly, as he would also use his athletic powers. And if after having
become a rhetorician he makes a bad use of his strength and skill, his
instructor surely ought not on that account to be held in detestation
or banished. For he was intended by his teacher to make a good use of
his instructions, but he abuses them. And therefore he is the person
who ought to be held in detestation, banished, and put to death, and
not his instructor.
SOCRATES: You, Gorgias, like myself, have had great experience of
disputations, and you must have observed, I think, that they do not
always terminate in mutual edification, or in the definition by either
party of the subjects which they are discussing; but disagreements are
apt to arise—somebody says that another has not spoken truly or
clearly; and then they get into a passion and begin to quarrel, both
parties conceiving that their opponents are arguing from personal
feeling only and jealousy of themselves, not from any interest in the
question at issue. And sometimes they will go on abusing one another
until the company at last are quite vexed at themselves for ever
listening to such fellows. Why do I say this? Why, because I cannot
help feeling that you are now saying what is not quite consistent or
accordant with what you were saying at first about rhetoric. And I am
afraid to point this out to you, lest you should think that I have some
animosity against you, and that I speak, not for the sake of
discovering the truth, but from jealousy of you. Now if you are one of
my sort, I should like to cross-examine you, but if not I will let you
alone. And what is my sort? you will ask. I am one of those who are
very willing to be refuted if I say anything which is not true, and
very willing to refute any one else who says what is not true, and
quite as ready to be refuted as to refute; for I hold that this is the
greater gain of the two, just as the gain is greater of being cured of
a very great evil than of curing another. For I imagine that there is
no evil which a man can endure so great as an erroneous opinion about
the matters of which we are speaking; and if you claim to be one of my
sort, let us have the discussion out, but if you would rather have
done, no matter;—let us make an end of it.
GORGIAS: I should say, Socrates, that I am quite the man whom you
indicate; but, perhaps, we ought to consider the audience, for, before
you came, I had already given a long exhibition, and if we proceed the
argument may run on to a great length. And therefore I think that we
should consider whether we may not be detaining some part of the
company when they are wanting to do something else.
CHAEREPHON: You hear the audience cheering, Gorgias and Socrates, which
shows their desire to listen to you; and for myself, Heaven forbid that
I should have any business on hand which would take me away from a
discussion so interesting and so ably maintained.
CALLICLES: By the gods, Chaerephon, although I have been present at
many discussions, I doubt whether I was ever so much delighted before,
and therefore if you go on discoursing all day I shall be the better
pleased.
SOCRATES: I may truly say, Callicles, that I am willing, if Gorgias is.
GORGIAS: After all this, Socrates, I should be disgraced if I refused,
especially as I have promised to answer all comers; in accordance with
the wishes of the company, then, do you begin, and ask of me any
question which you like.
SOCRATES: Let me tell you then, Gorgias, what surprises me in your
words; though I dare say that you may be right, and I may have
misunderstood your meaning. You say that you can make any man, who will
learn of you, a rhetorician?
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Do you mean that you will teach him to gain the ears of the
multitude on any subject, and this not by instruction but by
persuasion?
GORGIAS: Quite so.
SOCRATES: You were saying, in fact, that the rhetorician will have
greater powers of persuasion than the physician even in a matter of
health?
GORGIAS: Yes, with the multitude,—that is.
SOCRATES: You mean to say, with the ignorant; for with those who know
he cannot be supposed to have greater powers of persuasion.
GORGIAS: Very true.
SOCRATES: But if he is to have more power of persuasion than the
physician, he will have greater power than he who knows?
GORGIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Although he is not a physician:—is he?
GORGIAS: No.
SOCRATES: And he who is not a physician must, obviously, be ignorant of
what the physician knows.
GORGIAS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: Then, when the rhetorician is more persuasive than the
physician, the ignorant is more persuasive with the ignorant than he
who has knowledge?—is not that the inference?
GORGIAS: In the case supposed:—yes.
SOCRATES: And the same holds of the relation of rhetoric to all the
other arts; the rhetorician need not know the truth about things; he
has only to discover some way of persuading the ignorant that he has
more knowledge than those who know?
GORGIAS: Yes, Socrates, and is not this a great comfort?—not to have
learned the other arts, but the art of rhetoric only, and yet to be in
no way inferior to the professors of them?
SOCRATES: Whether the rhetorician is or not inferior on this account is
a question which we will hereafter examine if the enquiry is likely to
be of any service to us; but I would rather begin by asking, whether he
is or is not as ignorant of the just and unjust, base and honourable,
good and evil, as he is of medicine and the other arts; I mean to say,
does he really know anything of what is good and evil, base or
honourable, just or unjust in them; or has he only a way with the
ignorant of persuading them that he not knowing is to be esteemed to
know more about these things than some one else who knows? Or must the
pupil know these things and come to you knowing them before he can
acquire the art of rhetoric? If he is ignorant, you who are the teacher
of rhetoric will not teach him—it is not your business; but you will
make him seem to the multitude to know them, when he does not know
them; and seem to be a good man, when he is not. Or will you be unable
to teach him rhetoric at all, unless he knows the truth of these things
first? What is to be said about all this? By heavens, Gorgias, I wish
that you would reveal to me the power of rhetoric, as you were saying
that you would.
GORGIAS: Well, Socrates, I suppose that if the pupil does chance not to
know them, he will have to learn of me these things as well.
SOCRATES: Say no more, for there you are right; and so he whom you make
a rhetorician must either know the nature of the just and unjust
already, or he must be taught by you.
GORGIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Well, and is not he who has learned carpentering a carpenter?
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And he who has learned music a musician?
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And he who has learned medicine is a physician, in like
manner? He who has learned anything whatever is that which his
knowledge makes him.
GORGIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And in the same way, he who has learned what is just is just?
GORGIAS: To be sure.
SOCRATES: And he who is just may be supposed to do what is just?
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And must not the just man always desire to do what is just?
GORGIAS: That is clearly the inference.
SOCRATES: Surely, then, the just man will never consent to do
injustice?
GORGIAS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: And according to the argument the rhetorician must be a just
man?
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And will therefore never be willing to do injustice?
GORGIAS: Clearly not.
SOCRATES: But do you remember saying just now that the trainer is not
to be accused or banished if the pugilist makes a wrong use of his
pugilistic art; and in like manner, if the rhetorician makes a bad and
unjust use of his rhetoric, that is not to be laid to the charge of his
teacher, who is not to be banished, but the wrong-doer himself who made
a bad use of his rhetoric—he is to be banished—was not that said?
GORGIAS: Yes, it was.
SOCRATES: But now we are affirming that the aforesaid rhetorician will
never have done injustice at all?
GORGIAS: True.
SOCRATES: And at the very outset, Gorgias, it was said that rhetoric
treated of discourse, not (like arithmetic) about odd and even, but
about just and unjust? Was not this said?
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: I was thinking at the time, when I heard you saying so, that
rhetoric, which is always discoursing about justice, could not possibly
be an unjust thing. But when you added, shortly afterwards, that the
rhetorician might make a bad use of rhetoric I noted with surprise the
inconsistency into which you had fallen; and I said, that if you
thought, as I did, that there was a gain in being refuted, there would
be an advantage in going on with the question, but if not, I would
leave off. And in the course of our investigations, as you will see
yourself, the rhetorician has been acknowledged to be incapable of
making an unjust use of rhetoric, or of willingness to do injustice. By
the dog, Gorgias, there will be a great deal of discussion, before we
get at the truth of all this.
POLUS: And do even you, Socrates, seriously believe what you are now
saying about rhetoric? What! because Gorgias was ashamed to deny that
the rhetorician knew the just and the honourable and the good, and
admitted that to any one who came to him ignorant of them he could
teach them, and then out of this admission there arose a
contradiction—the thing which you dearly love, and to which not he, but
you, brought the argument by your captious questions—(do you seriously
believe that there is any truth in all this?) For will any one ever
acknowledge that he does not know, or cannot teach, the nature of
justice? The truth is, that there is great want of manners in bringing
the argument to such a pass.
SOCRATES: Illustrious Polus, the reason why we provide ourselves with
friends and children is, that when we get old and stumble, a younger
generation may be at hand to set us on our legs again in our words and
in our actions: and now, if I and Gorgias are stumbling, here are you
who should raise us up; and I for my part engage to retract any error
into which you may think that I have fallen-upon one condition:
POLUS: What condition?
SOCRATES: That you contract, Polus, the prolixity of speech in which
you indulged at first.
POLUS: What! do you mean that I may not use as many words as I please?
SOCRATES: Only to think, my friend, that having come on a visit to
Athens, which is the most free-spoken state in Hellas, you when you got
there, and you alone, should be deprived of the power of speech—that
would be hard indeed. But then consider my case:—shall not I be very
hardly used, if, when you are making a long oration, and refusing to
answer what you are asked, I am compelled to stay and listen to you,
and may not go away? I say rather, if you have a real interest in the
argument, or, to repeat my former expression, have any desire to set it
on its legs, take back any statement which you please; and in your turn
ask and answer, like myself and Gorgias—refute and be refuted: for I
suppose that you would claim to know what Gorgias knows—would you not?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And you, like him, invite any one to ask you about anything
which he pleases, and you will know how to answer him?
POLUS: To be sure.
SOCRATES: And now, which will you do, ask or answer?
POLUS: I will ask; and do you answer me, Socrates, the same question
which Gorgias, as you suppose, is unable to answer: What is rhetoric?
SOCRATES: Do you mean what sort of an art?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: To say the truth, Polus, it is not an art at all, in my
opinion.
POLUS: Then what, in your opinion, is rhetoric?
SOCRATES: A thing which, as I was lately reading in a book of yours,
you say that you have made an art.
POLUS: What thing?
SOCRATES: I should say a sort of experience.
POLUS: Does rhetoric seem to you to be an experience?
SOCRATES: That is my view, but you may be of another mind.
POLUS: An experience in what?
SOCRATES: An experience in producing a sort of delight and
gratification.
POLUS: And if able to gratify others, must not rhetoric be a fine
thing?
SOCRATES: What are you saying, Polus? Why do you ask me whether
rhetoric is a fine thing or not, when I have not as yet told you what
rhetoric is?
POLUS: Did I not hear you say that rhetoric was a sort of experience?
SOCRATES: Will you, who are so desirous to gratify others, afford a
slight gratification to me?
POLUS: I will.
SOCRATES: Will you ask me, what sort of an art is cookery?
POLUS: What sort of an art is cookery?
SOCRATES: Not an art at all, Polus.
POLUS: What then?
SOCRATES: I should say an experience.
POLUS: In what? I wish that you would explain to me.
SOCRATES: An experience in producing a sort of delight and
gratification, Polus.
POLUS: Then are cookery and rhetoric the same?
SOCRATES: No, they are only different parts of the same profession.
POLUS: Of what profession?
SOCRATES: I am afraid that the truth may seem discourteous; and I
hesitate to answer, lest Gorgias should imagine that I am making fun of
his own profession. For whether or not this is that art of rhetoric
which Gorgias practises I really cannot tell:—from what he was just now
saying, nothing appeared of what he thought of his art, but the
rhetoric which I mean is a part of a not very creditable whole.
GORGIAS: A part of what, Socrates? Say what you mean, and never mind
me.
SOCRATES: In my opinion then, Gorgias, the whole of which rhetoric is a
part is not an art at all, but the habit of a bold and ready wit, which
knows how to manage mankind: this habit I sum up under the word
“flattery”; and it appears to me to have many other parts, one of which
is cookery, which may seem to be an art, but, as I maintain, is only an
experience or routine and not an art:—another part is rhetoric, and the
art of attiring and sophistry are two others: thus there are four
branches, and four different things answering to them. And Polus may
ask, if he likes, for he has not as yet been informed, what part of
flattery is rhetoric: he did not see that I had not yet answered him
when he proceeded to ask a further question: Whether I do not think
rhetoric a fine thing? But I shall not tell him whether rhetoric is a
fine thing or not, until I have first answered, “What is rhetoric?” For
that would not be right, Polus; but I shall be happy to answer, if you
will ask me, What part of flattery is rhetoric?
POLUS: I will ask and do you answer? What part of flattery is rhetoric?
SOCRATES: Will you understand my answer? Rhetoric, according to my
view, is the ghost or counterfeit of a part of politics.
POLUS: And noble or ignoble?
SOCRATES: Ignoble, I should say, if I am compelled to answer, for I
call what is bad ignoble: though I doubt whether you understand what I
was saying before.
GORGIAS: Indeed, Socrates, I cannot say that I understand myself.
SOCRATES: I do not wonder, Gorgias; for I have not as yet explained
myself, and our friend Polus, colt by name and colt by nature, is apt
to run away. (This is an untranslatable play on the name “Polus,” which
means “a colt.”)
GORGIAS: Never mind him, but explain to me what you mean by saying that
rhetoric is the counterfeit of a part of politics.
SOCRATES: I will try, then, to explain my notion of rhetoric, and if I
am mistaken, my friend Polus shall refute me. We may assume the
existence of bodies and of souls?
GORGIAS: Of course.
SOCRATES: You would further admit that there is a good condition of
either of them?
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Which condition may not be really good, but good only in
appearance? I mean to say, that there are many persons who appear to be
in good health, and whom only a physician or trainer will discern at
first sight not to be in good health.
GORGIAS: True.
SOCRATES: And this applies not only to the body, but also to the soul:
in either there may be that which gives the appearance of health and
not the reality?
GORGIAS: Yes, certainly.
SOCRATES: And now I will endeavour to explain to you more clearly what
I mean: The soul and body being two, have two arts corresponding to
them: there is the art of politics attending on the soul; and another
art attending on the body, of which I know no single name, but which
may be described as having two divisions, one of them gymnastic, and
the other medicine. And in politics there is a legislative part, which
answers to gymnastic, as justice does to medicine; and the two parts
run into one another, justice having to do with the same subject as
legislation, and medicine with the same subject as gymnastic, but with
a difference. Now, seeing that there are these four arts, two attending
on the body and two on the soul for their highest good; flattery
knowing, or rather guessing their natures, has distributed herself into
four shams or simulations of them; she puts on the likeness of some one
or other of them, and pretends to be that which she simulates, and
having no regard for men’s highest interests, is ever making pleasure
the bait of the unwary, and deceiving them into the belief that she is
of the highest value to them. Cookery simulates the disguise of
medicine, and pretends to know what food is the best for the body; and
if the physician and the cook had to enter into a competition in which
children were the judges, or men who had no more sense than children,
as to which of them best understands the goodness or badness of food,
the physician would be starved to death. A flattery I deem this to be
and of an ignoble sort, Polus, for to you I am now addressing myself,
because it aims at pleasure without any thought of the best. An art I
do not call it, but only an experience, because it is unable to explain
or to give a reason of the nature of its own applications. And I do not
call any irrational thing an art; but if you dispute my words, I am
prepared to argue in defence of them.
Cookery, then, I maintain to be a flattery which takes the form of
medicine; and tiring, in like manner, is a flattery which takes the
form of gymnastic, and is knavish, false, ignoble, illiberal, working
deceitfully by the help of lines, and colours, and enamels, and
garments, and making men affect a spurious beauty to the neglect of the
true beauty which is given by gymnastic.
I would rather not be tedious, and therefore I will only say, after the
manner of the geometricians (for I think that by this time you will be
able to follow)
as tiring: gymnastic:: cookery: medicine;
or rather,
as tiring: gymnastic:: sophistry: legislation;
and
as cookery: medicine:: rhetoric: justice.
And this, I say, is the natural difference between the rhetorician and
the sophist, but by reason of their near connection, they are apt to be
jumbled up together; neither do they know what to make of themselves,
nor do other men know what to make of them. For if the body presided
over itself, and were not under the guidance of the soul, and the soul
did not discern and discriminate between cookery and medicine, but the
body was made the judge of them, and the rule of judgment was the
bodily delight which was given by them, then the word of Anaxagoras,
that word with which you, friend Polus, are so well acquainted, would
prevail far and wide: “Chaos” would come again, and cookery, health,
and medicine would mingle in an indiscriminate mass. And now I have
told you my notion of rhetoric, which is, in relation to the soul, what
cookery is to the body. I may have been inconsistent in making a long
speech, when I would not allow you to discourse at length. But I think
that I may be excused, because you did not understand me, and could
make no use of my answer when I spoke shortly, and therefore I had to
enter into an explanation. And if I show an equal inability to make use
of yours, I hope that you will speak at equal length; but if I am able
to understand you, let me have the benefit of your brevity, as is only
fair: And now you may do what you please with my answer.
POLUS: What do you mean? do you think that rhetoric is flattery?
SOCRATES: Nay, I said a part of flattery; if at your age, Polus, you
cannot remember, what will you do by-and-by, when you get older?
POLUS: And are the good rhetoricians meanly regarded in states, under
the idea that they are flatterers?
SOCRATES: Is that a question or the beginning of a speech?
POLUS: I am asking a question.
SOCRATES: Then my answer is, that they are not regarded at all.
POLUS: How not regarded? Have they not very great power in states?
SOCRATES: Not if you mean to say that power is a good to the possessor.
POLUS: And that is what I do mean to say.
SOCRATES: Then, if so, I think that they have the least power of all
the citizens.
POLUS: What! are they not like tyrants? They kill and despoil and exile
any one whom they please.
SOCRATES: By the dog, Polus, I cannot make out at each deliverance of
yours, whether you are giving an opinion of your own, or asking a
question of me.
POLUS: I am asking a question of you.
SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, but you ask two questions at once.
POLUS: How two questions?
SOCRATES: Why, did you not say just now that the rhetoricians are like
tyrants, and that they kill and despoil or exile any one whom they
please?
POLUS: I did.
SOCRATES: Well then, I say to you that here are two questions in one,
and I will answer both of them. And I tell you, Polus, that
rhetoricians and tyrants have the least possible power in states, as I
was just now saying; for they do literally nothing which they will, but
only what they think best.
POLUS: And is not that a great power?
SOCRATES: Polus has already said the reverse.
POLUS: Said the reverse! nay, that is what I assert.
SOCRATES: No, by the great—what do you call him?—not you, for you say
that power is a good to him who has the power.
POLUS: I do.
SOCRATES: And would you maintain that if a fool does what he thinks
best, this is a good, and would you call this great power?
POLUS: I should not.
SOCRATES: Then you must prove that the rhetorician is not a fool, and
that rhetoric is an art and not a flattery—and so you will have refuted
me; but if you leave me unrefuted, why, the rhetoricians who do what
they think best in states, and the tyrants, will have nothing upon
which to congratulate themselves, if as you say, power be indeed a
good, admitting at the same time that what is done without sense is an
evil.
POLUS: Yes; I admit that.
SOCRATES: How then can the rhetoricians or the tyrants have great power
in states, unless Polus can refute Socrates, and prove to him that they
do as they will?