INTRODUCTION.

[Sidenote: _Gorgias._]

[Sidenote: INTRODUCTION.]

In several of the dialogues of Plato, doubts have arisen among his

interpreters as to which of the various subjects discussed in them is the

main thesis. The speakers have the freedom of conversation; no severe

rules of art restrict them, and sometimes we are inclined to think,

with one of the dramatis personae in the Theaetetus (177 C), that the

digressions have the greater interest. Yet in the most irregular of the

dialogues there is also a certain natural growth or unity; the beginning

is not forgotten at the end, and numerous allusions and references are

interspersed, which form the loose connecting links of the whole. We

must not neglect this unity, but neither must we attempt to confine

the Platonic dialogue on the Procrustean bed of a single idea. (Cp.

Introduction to the Phaedrus.)

Two tendencies seem to have beset the interpreters of Plato in this

matter. First, they have endeavoured to hang the dialogues upon one

another by the slightest threads; and have thus been led to opposite and

contradictory assertions respecting their order and sequence. The mantle

of Schleiermacher has descended upon his successors, who have applied his

method with the most various results. The value and use of the method has

been hardly, if at all, examined either by him or them. Secondly, they

have extended almost indefinitely the scope of each separate dialogue;

in this way they think that they have escaped all difficulties, not

seeing that what they have gained in generality they have lost in truth

and distinctness. Metaphysical conceptions easily pass into one another;

and the simpler notions of antiquity, which we can only realize by an

effort, imperceptibly blend with the more familiar theories of modern

philosophers. An eye for proportion is needed (his own art of measuring)

in the study of Plato, as well as of other great artists. We may readily

admit that the moral antithesis of good and pleasure, or the intellectual

antithesis of knowledge and opinion, being an appearance, are never far

off in a Platonic discussion. But because they are in the background,

we should not bring them into the foreground, or expect to discern them

equally in all the dialogues.

[Sidenote: _The subject of the Dialogue._]

There may be some advantage in drawing out a little the main outlines

of the building; but the use of this is limited, and may be easily

exaggerated. We may give Plato too much system, and alter the natural

form and connection of his thoughts. Under the idea that his dialogues

are finished works of art, we may find a reason for everything, and lose

the highest characteristic of art, which is simplicity. Most great works

receive a new light from a new and original mind. But whether these new

lights are true or only suggestive, will depend on their agreement with

the spirit of Plato, and the amount of direct evidence which can be urged

in support of them. When a theory is running away with us, criticism does

a friendly office in counselling moderation, and recalling us to the

indications of the text.

Like the Phaedrus, the Gorgias has puzzled students of Plato by the

appearance of two or more subjects. Under the cover of rhetoric higher

themes are introduced; the argument expands into a general view of the

good and evil of man. After making an ineffectual attempt to obtain

a sound definition of his art from Gorgias, Socrates assumes the

existence of a universal art of flattery or simulation having several

branches;—this is the genus of which rhetoric is only one, and not the

highest species. To flattery is opposed the true and noble art of life

which he who possesses seeks always to impart to others, and which at

last triumphs, if not here, at any rate in another world. These two

aspects of life and knowledge appear to be the two leading ideas of

the dialogue. The true and the false in individuals and states, in the

treatment of the soul as well as of the body, are conceived under the

forms of true and false art. In the development of this opposition there

arise various other questions, such as the two famous paradoxes of

Socrates (paradoxes as they are to the world in general, ideals as they

may be more worthily called): (1) that to do is worse than to suffer

evil; and (2) that when a man has done evil he had better be punished

than unpunished; to which may be added (3) a third Socratic paradox or

ideal, that bad men do what they think best, but not what they desire,

for the desire of all is towards the good. That pleasure is to be

distinguished from good is proved by the simultaneousness of pleasure and

pain, and by the possibility of the bad having in certain cases pleasures

as great as those of the good, or even greater. Not merely rhetoricians,

but poets, musicians, and other artists, the whole tribe of statesmen,

past as well as present, are included in the class of flatterers. The

true and false finally appear before the judgment-seat of the gods below.

[Sidenote: _The character of the Dialogue._]

The dialogue naturally falls into three divisions, to which the three

characters of Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles respectively correspond; and

the form and manner change with the stages of the argument. Socrates is

deferential towards Gorgias, playful and yet cutting in dealing with the

youthful Polus, ironical and sarcastic in his encounter with Callicles.

In the first division the question is asked—What is rhetoric? To this

there is no answer given, for Gorgias is soon made to contradict himself

by Socrates, and the argument is transferred to the hands of his disciple

Polus, who rushes to the defence of his master. The answer has at last

to be given by Socrates himself, but before he can even explain his

meaning to Polus, he must enlighten him upon the great subject of shams

or flatteries. When Polus finds his favourite art reduced to the level

of cookery, he replies that at any rate rhetoricians, like despots, have

great power. Socrates denies that they have any real power, and hence

arise the three paradoxes already mentioned. Although they are strange

to him, Polus is at last convinced of their truth; at least, they seem

to him to follow legitimately from the premises. Thus the second act

of the dialogue closes. Then Callicles appears on the scene, at first

maintaining that pleasure is good, and that might is right, and that law

is nothing but the combination of the many weak against the few strong.

When he is confuted he withdraws from the argument, and leaves Socrates

to arrive at the conclusion by himself. The conclusion is that there

are two kinds of statesmanship, a higher and a lower—that which makes

the people better, and that which only flatters them, and he exhorts

Callicles to choose the higher. The dialogue terminates with a mythus of

a final judgment, in which there will be no more flattery or disguise,

and no further use for the teaching of rhetoric.

[Sidenote: _Contrast of Gorgias and Polus._]

The characters of the three interlocutors also correspond to the parts

which are assigned to them. Gorgias is the great rhetorician, now

advanced in years, who goes from city to city displaying his talents, and

is celebrated throughout Greece. Like all the Sophists in the dialogues

of Plato, he is vain and boastful, yet he has also a certain dignity,

and is treated by Socrates with considerable respect. But he is no match

for him in dialectics. Although he has been teaching rhetoric all his

life, he is still incapable of defining his own art. When his ideas

begin to clear up, he is unwilling to admit that rhetoric can be wholly

separated from justice and injustice, and this lingering sentiment of

morality, or regard for public opinion, enables Socrates to detect him

in a contradiction. Like Protagoras, he is described as of a generous

nature; he expresses his approbation of Socrates’ manner of approaching a

question; he is quite ‘one of Socrates’ sort, ready to be refuted as well

as to refute,’ and very eager that Callicles and Socrates should have the

game out. He knows by experience that rhetoric exercises great influence

over other men, but he is unable to explain the puzzle how rhetoric can

teach everything and know nothing.

Polus is an impetuous youth, a runaway ‘colt,’ as Socrates describes

him, who wanted originally to have taken the place of Gorgias under

the pretext that the old man was tired, and now avails himself of the

earliest opportunity to enter the lists. He is said to be the author of

a work on rhetoric (462 C), and is again mentioned in the Phaedrus (267

B), as the inventor of balanced or double forms of speech (cp. Gorg.

448 C, 467 C; Symp. 185 C). At first he is violent and ill-mannered,

and is angry at seeing his master overthrown. But in the judicious

hands of Socrates he is soon restored to good-humour, and compelled

to assent to the required conclusion. Like Gorgias, he is overthrown

because he compromises; he is unwilling to say that to do is fairer or

more honourable than to suffer injustice. Though he is fascinated by the

power of rhetoric, and dazzled by the splendour of success, he is not

insensible to higher arguments. Plato may have felt that there would be

an incongruity in a youth maintaining the cause of injustice against

the world. He has never heard the other side of the question, and he

listens to the paradoxes, as they appear to him, of Socrates with evident

astonishment. He can hardly understand the meaning of Archelaus being

miserable, or of rhetoric being only useful in self-accusation. When the

argument with him has fairly run out,

[Sidenote: _Callicles, the man of the world._]

Callicles, in whose house they are assembled, is introduced on the stage:

he is with difficulty convinced that Socrates is in earnest; for if these

things are true, then, as he says with real emotion, the foundations of

society are upside down. In him another type of character is represented;

he is neither sophist nor philosopher, but man of the world, and an

accomplished Athenian gentleman. He might be described in modern language

as a cynic or materialist, a lover of power and also of pleasure, and

unscrupulous in his means of attaining both. There is no desire on his

part to offer any compromise in the interests of morality; nor is any

concession made by him. Like Thrasymachus in the Republic, though he is

not of the same weak and vulgar class, he consistently maintains that

might is right. His great motive of action is political ambition; in this

he is characteristically Greek. Like Anytus in the Meno, he is the enemy

of the Sophists; but favours the new art of rhetoric, which he regards as

an excellent weapon of attack and defence. He is a despiser of mankind as

he is of philosophy, and sees in the laws of the state only a violation

of the order of nature, which intended that the stronger should govern

the weaker (cp. Rep. ii. 358-360). Like other men of the world who are of

a speculative turn of mind, he generalizes the bad side of human nature,

and has easily brought down his principles to his practice. Philosophy

and poetry alike supply him with distinctions suited to his view of human

life. He has a good will to Socrates, whose talents he evidently admires,

while he censures the puerile use which he makes of them. He expresses

a keen intellectual interest in the argument. Like Anytus, again, he

has a sympathy with other men of the world; the Athenian statesmen of

a former generation, who showed no weakness and made no mistakes, such

as Miltiades, Themistocles, Pericles, are his favourites. His ideal of

human character is a man of great passions and great powers, which he has

developed to the utmost, and which he uses in his own enjoyment and in

the government of others. Had Critias been the name instead of Callicles,

about whom we know nothing from other sources, the opinions of the man

would have seemed to reflect the history of his life.

[Sidenote: _The representation of Socrates in the Gorgias._]

And now the combat deepens. In Callicles, far more than in any sophist or

rhetorician, is concentrated the spirit of evil against which Socrates is

contending, the spirit of the world, the spirit of the many contending

against the one wise man, of which the Sophists, as he describes them in

the Republic, are the imitators rather than the authors, being themselves

carried away by the great tide of public opinion. Socrates approaches his

antagonist warily from a distance, with a sort of irony which touches

with a light hand both his personal vices (probably in allusion to some

scandal of the day) and his servility to the populace. At the same time,

he is in most profound earnest, as Chaerephon remarks. Callicles soon

loses his temper, but the more he is irritated, the more provoking and

matter of fact does Socrates become. A repartee of his which appears

to have been really made to the ‘omniscient’ Hippias, according to the

testimony of Xenophon (Mem. iv. 4, 6, 10), is introduced (490 E). He is

called by Callicles a popular declaimer, and certainly shows that he has

the power, in the words of Gorgias, of being ‘as long as he pleases,’ or

‘as short as he pleases’ (cp. Protag. 336 D). Callicles exhibits great

ability in defending himself and attacking Socrates, whom he accuses

of trifling and word-splitting; he is scandalized (p. 494) that the

legitimate consequences of his own argument should be stated in plain

terms; after the manner of men of the world, he wishes to preserve the

decencies of life. But he cannot consistently maintain the bad sense

of words; and getting confused between the abstract notions of better,

superior, stronger, he is easily turned round by Socrates, and only

induced to continue the argument by the authority of Gorgias. Once, when

Socrates is describing the manner in which the ambitious citizen has to

identify himself with the people, he partially recognizes the truth of

his words.

The Socrates of the Gorgias may be compared with the Socrates of the

Protagoras and Meno. As in other dialogues, he is the enemy of the

Sophists and rhetoricians; and also of the statesmen, whom he regards as

another variety of the same species. His behaviour is governed by that

of his opponents; the least forwardness or egotism on their part is met

by a corresponding irony on the part of Socrates. He must speak, for

philosophy will not allow him to be silent. He is indeed more ironical

and provoking than in any other of Plato’s writings: for he is ‘fooled

to the top of his bent’ by the worldliness of Callicles. But he is also

more deeply in earnest. He rises higher than even in the Phaedo and

Crito: at first enveloping his moral convictions in a cloud of dust and

dialectics, he ends by losing his method, his life, himself, in them.

As in the Protagoras and Phaedrus, throwing aside the veil of irony, he

makes a speech, but, true to his character, not until his adversary has

refused to answer any more questions. The presentiment of his own fate is

hanging over him. He is aware that Socrates, the single real teacher of

politics, as he ventures to call himself, cannot safely go to war with

the whole world, and that in the courts of earth he will be condemned.

But he will be justified in the world below. Then the position of

Socrates and Callicles will be reversed; all those things ‘unfit for ears

polite’ which Callicles has prophesied as likely to happen to him in this

life, the insulting language, the box on the ears, will recoil upon his

assailant. (Compare Rep. x. 613, D, E, and the similar reversal of the

position of the lawyer and the philosopher in the Theaetetus, 173-176.)

[Sidenote: _The representation of Socrates in the Gorgias._]

There is an interesting allusion to his own behaviour at the trial of the

generals after the battle of Arginusae, which he ironically attributes

to his ignorance of the manner in which a vote of the assembly should be

taken (473 E). This is said to have happened ‘last year’ (B. C. 406), and

therefore the assumed date of the dialogue has been fixed at 405 B. C.,

when Socrates would already have been an old man. The date is clearly

marked, but is scarcely reconcilable with another indication of time,

viz. the ‘recent’ usurpation of Archelaus, which occurred in the year 413

(470 D); and still less with the ‘recent’ death (503 B) of Pericles, who

really died twenty-four years previously (429 B. C.) and is afterwards

reckoned among the statesmen of a past age (cp. 517 A); or with the

mention of Nicias, who died in 413, and is nevertheless spoken of as a

living witness (472 A, B). But we shall hereafter have reason to observe,

that although there is a general consistency of times and persons in

the Dialogues of Plato, a precise dramatic date is an invention of his

commentators (Preface to Republic, p. ix).

[Sidenote: _Socrates the only true politician._]

The conclusion of the Dialogue is remarkable, (1) for the truly

characteristic declaration of Socrates (p. 509 A) that he is ignorant of

the true nature and bearing of these things, while he affirms at the same

time that no one can maintain any other view without being ridiculous.

The profession of ignorance reminds us of the earlier and more

exclusively Socratic Dialogues. But neither in them, nor in the Apology,

nor in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, does Socrates express any doubt of

the fundamental truths of morality. He evidently regards this ‘among

the multitude of questions’ which agitate human life ‘as the principle

which alone remains unshaken’ (527 B). He does not insist here, any more

than in the Phaedo, on the literal truth of the myth, but only on the

soundness of the doctrine which is contained in it, that doing wrong is

worse than suffering, and that a man should be rather than seem; for the

next best thing to a man’s being just is that he should be corrected and

become just; also that he should avoid all flattery, whether of himself

or of others; and that rhetoric should be employed for the maintenance of

the right only. The revelation of another life is a recapitulation of the

argument in a figure.

(2) Socrates makes the singular remark, that he is himself the only true

politician of his age. In other passages, especially in the Apology, he

disclaims being a politician at all. There he is convinced that he or

any other good man who attempted to resist the popular will would be

put to death before he had done any good to himself or others. Here he

anticipates such a fate for himself, from the fact that he is ‘the only

man of the present day who performs his public duties at all’ (521 D).

The two points of view are not really inconsistent, but the difference

between them is worth noticing: Socrates is and is not a public man. Not

in the ordinary sense, like Alcibiades or Pericles, but in a higher one;

and this will sooner or later entail the same consequences on him. He

cannot be a private man if he would; neither can he separate morals from

politics. Nor is he unwilling to be a politician, although he foresees

the dangers which await him; but he must first become a better and

wiser man, for he as well as Callicles is in a state of perplexity and

uncertainty (527 D, E). And yet there is an inconsistency: for should not

Socrates too have taught the citizens better than to put him to death

(519)?

And now, as he himself says (506 D), we will ‘resume the argument from

the beginning.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: ANALYSIS.]

[Sidenote: _Analysis 447-451._]

Socrates, who is attended by his inseparable disciple, =Steph.= 447

Chaerephon, meets Callicles in the streets of Athens. He is

informed that he has just missed an exhibition of Gorgias, which he

regrets, because he was desirous, not of hearing Gorgias display

his rhetoric, but of interrogating him concerning the nature of his

art. Callicles proposes that they shall go with him to his own

house, where Gorgias is staying. There they find the great

rhetorician and his younger friend and disciple Polus. 448

_Soc._ Put the question to him, Chaerephon. _Ch._ What question?

_Soc._ Who is he?—such a question as would elicit from a man the

answer, ‘I am a cobbler.’ Polus suggests that Gorgias may be

tired, and desires to answer for him. ‘Who is Gorgias?’ asks

Chaerephon, imitating the manner of his master Socrates. ‘One of

the best of men, and a proficient in the best and noblest of

experimental arts,’ etc., replies Polus, in rhetorical and balanced

phrases. Socrates is dissatisfied at the length and unmeaningness of

the answer; he tells the disconcerted volunteer that he has mistaken

the quality for the nature of the art, and remarks to Gorgias, that

Polus has learnt how to make a speech, but not how to answer a

question. He wishes that Gorgias would answer him. Gorgias is

willing enough, and replies to the question asked by Chaerephon,—that

he is a rhetorician, and in Homeric language, ‘boasts

himself to be a good one.’ At the request of Socrates he promises 449

to be brief; for ‘he can be as long as he pleases, and as short as

he pleases.’ Socrates would have him bestow his length on

others, and proceeds to ask him a number of questions, which are

answered by him to his own great satisfaction, and with a brevity

which excites the admiration of Socrates. The result of the

discussion may be summed up as follows:—

[Sidenote: _Analysis 451-456._]

Rhetoric treats of discourse; but music and medicine, and 450

other particular arts, are also concerned with discourse; in what

way then does rhetoric differ from them? Gorgias draws a

distinction between the arts which deal with words, and the arts

which have to do with external actions. Socrates extends this

distinction further, and divides all productive arts into two

classes: (1) arts which may be carried on in silence; and (2) arts

which have to do with words, or in which words are coextensive

with action, such as arithmetic, geometry, rhetoric. But still

Gorgias could hardly have meant to say that arithmetic was the 451

same as rhetoric. Even in the arts which are concerned with

words there are differences. What then distinguishes rhetoric

from the other arts which have to do with words? ‘The words

which rhetoric uses relate to the best and greatest of human

things.’ But tell me, Gorgias, what are the best? ‘Health first,

beauty next, wealth third,’ in the words of the old song, or how

would you rank them? The arts will come to you in a body, each 452

claiming precedence and saying that her own good is superior to

that of the rest—How will you choose between them? ‘I should

say, Socrates, that the art of persuasion, which gives freedom to

all men, and to individuals power in the state, is the greatest 453

good.’ But what is the exact nature of this persuasion?—is the

persevering retort: You could not describe Zeuxis as a painter,

or even as a painter of figures, if there were other painters of

figures; neither can you define rhetoric simply as an art of

persuasion, because there are other arts which persuade, such as

arithmetic, which is an art of persuasion about odd and even

numbers. Gorgias is made to see the necessity of a further

limitation, and he now defines rhetoric as the art of persuading 454

in the law courts, and in the assembly, about the just and unjust.

But still there are two sorts of persuasion: one which gives

knowledge, and another which gives belief without knowledge;

and knowledge is always true, but belief may be either true or 455

false,—there is therefore a further question: which of the two

sorts of persuasion does rhetoric effect in courts of law and

assemblies? Plainly that which gives belief and not that which

gives knowledge; for no one can impart a real knowledge of such

matters to a crowd of persons in a few minutes. And there is

another point to be considered:—when the assembly meets to

advise about walls or docks or military expeditions, the rhetorician

is not taken into counsel, but the architect, or the general. How

would Gorgias explain this phenomenon? All who intend to

become disciples, of whom there are several in the company, and

not Socrates only, are eagerly asking:—About what then will

rhetoric teach us to persuade or advise the state?

[Sidenote: _Analysis 456-461._]

Gorgias illustrates the nature of rhetoric by adducing the

example of Themistocles, who persuaded the Athenians to build

their docks and walls, and of Pericles, whom Socrates himself has

heard speaking about the middle wall of the Piraeus. He adds 456

that he has exercised a similar power over the patients of his

brother Herodicus. He could be chosen a physician by the

assembly if he pleased, for no physician could compete with a

rhetorician in popularity and influence. He could persuade the

multitude of anything by the power of his rhetoric; not that the

rhetorician ought to abuse this power any more than a boxer

should abuse the art of self-defence. Rhetoric is a good thing, 457

but, like all good things, may be unlawfully used. Neither is the

teacher of the art to be deemed unjust because his pupils are

unjust and make a bad use of the lessons which they have learned

from him.

Socrates would like to know before he replies, whether Gorgias

will quarrel with him if he points out a slight inconsistency into

which he has fallen, or whether he, like himself, is one who loves

to be refuted. Gorgias declares that he is quite one of his sort, 458

but fears that the argument may be tedious to the company. The

company cheer, and Chaerephon and Callicles exhort them to

proceed. Socrates gently points out the supposed inconsistency

into which Gorgias appears to have fallen, and which he is

inclined to think may arise out of a misapprehension of his own.

The rhetorician has been declared by Gorgias to be more persuasive 459

to the ignorant than the physician, or any other expert.

And he is said to be ignorant, and this ignorance of his is

regarded by Gorgias as a happy condition, for he has escaped the

trouble of learning. But is he as ignorant of just and unjust as he

is of medicine or building? Gorgias is compelled to admit that if 460

he did not know them previously he must learn them from his

teacher as a part of the art of rhetoric. But he who has learned

carpentry is a carpenter, and he who has learned music is a

musician, and he who has learned justice is just. The rhetorician

then must be a just man, and rhetoric is a just thing. But Gorgias

has already admitted the opposite of this, viz. that rhetoric may

be abused, and that the rhetorician may act unjustly. How is the

inconsistency to be explained? 461

[Sidenote: _Analysis 461-464._]

The fallacy of this argument is twofold; for in the first place,

a man may know justice and not be just—here is the old confusion

of the arts and the virtues;—nor can any teacher be

expected to counteract wholly the bent of natural character; and

secondly, a man may have a degree of justice, but not sufficient

to prevent him from ever doing wrong. Polus is naturally

exasperated at the sophism, which he is unable to detect; of

course, he says, the rhetorician, like every one else, will admit

that he knows justice (how can he do otherwise when pressed by

the interrogations of Socrates?), but he thinks that great want of

manners is shown in bringing the argument to such a pass.

Socrates ironically replies, that when old men trip, the young set 462

them on their legs again; and he is quite willing to retract, if he

can be shown to be in error, but upon one condition, which is

that Polus studies brevity. Polus is in great indignation at not

being allowed to use as many words as he pleases in the free

state of Athens. Socrates retorts, that yet harder will be his own

case, if he is compelled to stay and listen to them. After some

altercation they agree (cp. Protag. 338), that Polus shall ask and

Socrates answer.

[Sidenote: _Analysis 464-472._]

‘What is the art of Rhetoric?’ says Polus. Not an art at all,

replies Socrates, but a thing which in your book you affirm to

have created art. Polus asks, ‘What thing?’ and Socrates

answers, An experience or routine of making a sort of delight

or gratification. ‘But is not rhetoric a fine thing?’ I have not

yet told you what rhetoric is. Will you ask me another question—What

is cookery? ‘What is cookery?’ An experience or

routine of making a sort of delight or gratification. Then they

are the same, or rather fall under the same class, and rhetoric 463

has still to be distinguished from cookery. ‘What is rhetoric?’

asks Polus once more. A part of a not very creditable whole,

which may be termed flattery, is the reply. ‘But what part?’ A

shadow of a part of politics. This, as might be expected, is

wholly unintelligible, both to Gorgias and Polus; and, in order 464

to explain his meaning to them, Socrates draws a distinction

between shadows or appearances and realities; e. g. there is real

health of body or soul, and the appearance of them; real arts and

sciences, and the simulations of them. Now the soul and body

have two arts waiting upon them, first the art of politics, which

attends on the soul, having a legislative part and a judicial part;

and another art attending on the body, which has no generic

name, but may also be described as having two divisions, one of

which is medicine and the other gymnastic. Corresponding with

these four arts or sciences there are four shams or simulations of

them, mere experiences, as they may be termed, because they

give no reason of their own existence. The art of dressing up is

the sham or simulation of gymnastic, the art of cookery, of medicine;

rhetoric is the simulation of justice, and sophistic of 465

legislation. They may be summed up in an arithmetical formula:—

Tiring : gymnastic :: cookery : medicine :: sophistic : legislation.

And,

Cookery : medicine :: rhetoric : the art of justice.

And this is the true scheme of them, but when measured only by

the gratification which they procure, they become jumbled together

and return to their aboriginal chaos. Socrates apologizes for the

length of his speech, which was necessary to the explanation of 466

the subject, and begs Polus not unnecessarily to retaliate on him.

‘Do you mean to say that the rhetoricians are esteemed

flatterers?’ They are not esteemed at all. ‘Why, have they not

great power, and can they not do whatever they desire?’ They have 467

no power, and they only do what they think best, and never what

they desire; for they never attain the true object of desire, which

is the good. ‘As if you, Socrates, would not envy the possessor

of despotic power, who can imprison, exile, kill any one whom he

pleases.’ But Socrates replies that he has no wish to put any one -469

to death; he who kills another, even justly, is not to be envied,

and he who kills him unjustly is to be pitied; it is better to suffer

than to do injustice. He does not consider that going about with

a dagger and putting men out of the way, or setting a house on

fire, is real power. To this Polus assents, on the ground that 470

such acts would be punished, but he is still of opinion that

evil-doers, if they are unpunished, may be happy enough. He

instances Archelaus, son of Perdiccas, the usurper of Macedonia.

Does not Socrates think him happy?—Socrates would like to 471

know more about him; he cannot pronounce even the great king

to be happy, unless he knows his mental and moral condition.

Polus explains that Archelaus was a slave, being the son of a

woman who was the slave of Alcetas, brother of Perdiccas king

of Macedon—and he, by every species of crime, first murdering

his uncle and cousin and then his half-brother, obtained the

kingdom. This was very wicked, and yet all the world, including

Socrates, would like to have his place. Socrates dismisses the 472

appeal to numbers; Polus, if he will, may summon all the rich

men of Athens, Nicias and his brothers, Aristocrates, the house of

Pericles, or any other great family—this is the kind of evidence

which is adduced in courts of justice, where truth depends upon

numbers. But Socrates employs proof of another sort; his

appeal is to one witness only,—that is to say, the person with

whom he is speaking; him he will convict out of his own mouth.

And he is prepared to show, after his manner, that Archelaus

cannot be a wicked man and yet happy. 473

[Sidenote: _Analysis 472-475._]

The evil-doer is deemed happy if he escapes, and miserable if

he suffers punishment; but Socrates thinks him less miserable if

he suffers than if he escapes. Polus is of opinion that such a paradox

as this hardly deserves refutation, and is at any rate sufficiently

refuted by the fact. Socrates has only to compare the lot of the

successful tyrant who is the envy of the world, and of the wretch

who, having been detected in a criminal attempt against the state,

is crucified or burnt to death. Socrates replies, that if they are

both criminal they are both miserable, but that the unpunished is

the more miserable of the two. At this Polus laughs outright, which

leads Socrates to remark that laughter is a new species of refutation.

Polus replies, that he is already refuted; for if he will take the

votes of the company, he will find that no one agrees with him. 474

To this Socrates rejoins, that he is not a public man, and

(referring to his own conduct at the trial of the generals after the

battle of Arginusae) is unable to take the suffrages of any company,

as he had shown on a recent occasion; he can only deal with one

witness at a time, and that is the person with whom he is arguing.

But he is certain that in the opinion of any man to do is worse

than to suffer evil.

Polus, though he will not admit this, is ready to acknowledge

that to do evil is considered the more foul or dishonourable of the

two. But what is fair and what is foul; whether the terms are

applied to bodies, colours, figures, laws, habits, studies, must

they not be defined with reference to pleasure and utility? Polus 475

assents to this latter doctrine, and is easily persuaded that the

fouler of two things must exceed either in pain or in hurt. But the

doing cannot exceed the suffering of evil in pain, and therefore

must exceed in hurt. Thus doing is proved by the testimony of

Polus himself to be worse or more hurtful than suffering.

[Sidenote: _Analysis 476-482._]

There remains the other question: Is a guilty man better off

when he is punished or when he is unpunished? Socrates replies, 476

that what is done justly is suffered justly: if the act is just, the

effect is just; if to punish is just, to be punished is just, and

therefore fair, and therefore beneficent; and the benefit is that the

soul is improved. There are three evils from which a man may 477

suffer, and which affect him in estate, body, and soul;—these are,

poverty, disease, injustice; and the foulest of these is injustice, the

evil of the soul, because that brings the greatest hurt. And there are

three arts which heal these evils—trading, medicine, justice—and 478

the fairest of these is justice. Happy is he who has never committed

injustice, and happy in the second degree he who has been 479

healed by punishment. And therefore the criminal should himself

go to the judge as he would to the physician, and purge away his 480

crime. Rhetoric will enable him to display his guilt in proper

colours, and to sustain himself and others in enduring the necessary

penalty. And similarly if a man has an enemy, he will desire not 481

to punish him, but that he shall go unpunished and become worse

and worse, taking care only that he does no injury to himself.

These are at least conceivable uses of the art, and no others have

been discovered by us.

Here Callicles, who has been listening in silent amazement, asks

Chaerephon whether Socrates is in earnest, and on receiving the

assurance that he is, proceeds to ask the same question of Socrates

himself. For if such doctrines are true, life must have been turned

upside down, and all of us are doing the opposite of what we ought

to be doing.

[Sidenote: _Analysis 482-486._]

Socrates replies in a style of playful irony, that before men can

understand one another they must have some common feeling.

And such a community of feeling exists between himself and

Callicles, for both of them are lovers, and they have both a pair of

loves; the beloved of Callicles are the Athenian Demos and Demos 482

the son of Pyrilampes; the beloved of Socrates are Alcibiades

and philosophy. The peculiarity of Callicles is that he can never

contradict his loves; he changes as his Demos changes in all his

opinions; he watches the countenance of both his loves, and

repeats their sentiments, and if any one is surprised at his sayings

and doings, the explanation of them is, that he is not a free agent,

but must always be imitating his two loves. And this is the

explanation of Socrates’ peculiarities also. He is always repeating

what his mistress, Philosophy, is saying to him, who, unlike his

other love, Alcibiades, is ever the same, ever true. Callicles must

refute her, or he will never be at unity with himself; and discord

in life is far worse than the discord of musical sounds.

Callicles answers, that Gorgias was overthrown because, as Polus

said, in compliance with popular prejudice he had admitted that if

his pupil did not know justice the rhetorician must teach him; and

Polus has been similarly entangled, because his modesty led him

to admit that to suffer is more honourable than to do injustice. By

custom ‘yes,’ but not by nature, says Callicles. And Socrates is 483

always playing between the two points of view, and putting one in

the place of the other. In this very argument, what Polus only

meant in a conventional sense has been affirmed by him to be a

law of nature. For convention says that ‘injustice is dishonourable,’

but nature says that ‘might is right.’ And we are always

taming down the nobler spirits among us to the conventional level.

But sometimes a great man will rise up and reassert his original

rights, trampling under foot all our formularies, and then the 484

light of natural justice shines forth. Pindar says, ‘Law, the king

of all, does violence with high hand;’ as is indeed proved by the

example of Heracles, who drove off the oxen of Geryon and never

paid for them.

This is the truth, Socrates, as you will be convinced, if you leave

philosophy and pass on to the real business of life. A little

philosophy is an excellent thing; too much is the ruin of a man. He

who has not ‘passed his metaphysics’ before he has grown up to

manhood will never know the world. Philosophers are ridiculous

when they take to politics, and I dare say that politicians are

equally ridiculous when they take to philosophy: ‘Every man,’ as

Euripides says, ‘is fondest of that in which he is best.’ 485

Philosophy is graceful in youth, like the lisp of infancy, and

should be cultivated as a part of education; but when a grown-up

man lisps or studies philosophy, I should like to beat him. None

of those over-refined natures ever come to any good; they avoid

the busy haunts of men, and skulk in corners, whispering to a few

admiring youths, and never giving utterance to any noble sentiments.

[Sidenote: _Analysis 486-491._]

For you, Socrates, I have a regard, and therefore I say to you,

as Zethus says to Amphion in the play, that you have ‘a noble soul 486

disguised in a puerile exterior.’ And I would have you consider

the danger which you and other philosophers incur. For you

would not know how to defend yourself if any one accused you in

a law-court,—there you would stand, with gaping mouth and dizzy

brain, and might be murdered, robbed, boxed on the ears with

impunity. Take my advice, then, and get a little common sense;

leave to others these frivolities; walk in the ways of the wealthy

and be wise.

Socrates professes to have found in Callicles the philosopher’s

touchstone; and he is certain that any opinion in which they both

agree must be the very truth. Callicles has all the three qualities

which are needed in a critic—knowledge, good-will, frankness; 487

Gorgias and Polus, although learned men, were too modest, and

their modesty made them contradict themselves. But Callicles is

well-educated; and he is not too modest to speak out (of this he

has already given proof), and his good-will is shown both by his

own profession and by his giving the same caution against philosophy

to Socrates, which Socrates remembers hearing him give

long ago to his own clique of friends. He will pledge himself to 488

retract any error into which he may have fallen, and which Callicles

may point out. But he would like to know first of all what he and

Pindar mean by natural justice. Do they suppose that the rule of

justice is the rule of the stronger or of the better? ‘There is no

difference.’ Then are not the many superior to the one, and the

opinions of the many better? And their opinion is that justice is

equality, and that to do is more dishonourable than to suffer wrong.

And as they are the superior or stronger, this opinion of theirs 489

must be in accordance with natural as well as conventional justice.

‘Why will you continue splitting words? Have I not told you that

the superior is the better?’ But what do you mean by the better?

Tell me that, and please to be a little milder in your language, if

you do not wish to drive me away. ‘I mean the worthier, the 490

wiser.’ You mean to say that one man of sense ought to rule

over ten thousand fools? ‘Yes, that is my meaning.’ Ought the

physician then to have a larger share of meats and drinks? or

the weaver to have more coats, or the cobbler larger shoes, or the

farmer more seed? ‘You are always saying the same things, 491

Socrates.’ Yes, and on the same subjects too; but you are never

saying the same things. For, first, you defined the superior to be

the stronger, and then the wiser, and now something else;—what

_do_ you mean? ‘I mean men of political ability, who ought to

govern and to have more than the governed.’ Than themselves?

‘What do you mean?’ I mean to say that every man is his own

governor. ‘I see that you mean those dolts, the temperate. But

my doctrine is, that a man should let his desires grow, and take

the means of satisfying them. To the many this is impossible, 492

and therefore they combine to prevent him. But if he is a king,

and has power, how base would he be in submitting to them! To

invite the common herd to be lord over him, when he might have

the enjoyment of all things! For the truth is, Socrates, that

luxury and self-indulgence are virtue and happiness; all the rest

is mere talk.’

[Sidenote: _Analysis 491-494._]

Socrates compliments Callicles on his frankness in saying what

other men only think. According to his view, those who want

nothing are not happy. ‘Why,’ says Callicles, ‘if they were,

stones and the dead would be happy.’ Socrates in reply is led

into a half-serious, half-comic vein of reflection. ‘Who knows,’ as

Euripides says, ‘whether life may not be death, and death life?’

Nay, there are philosophers who maintain that even in life we are 493

dead, and that the body (σῶμα) is the tomb (σῆμα) of the soul. And

some ingenious Sicilian has made an allegory, in which he represents

fools as the uninitiated, who are supposed to be carrying

water to a vessel, which is full of holes, in a similarly holey sieve,

and this sieve is their own soul. The idea is fanciful, but

nevertheless is a figure of a truth which I want to make you

acknowledge, viz. that the life of contentment is better than the life

of indulgence. Are you disposed to admit that? ‘Far otherwise.’

Then hear another parable. The life of self-contentment and

self-indulgence may be represented respectively by two men, who are

filling jars with streams of wine, honey, milk,—the jars of the one

are sound, and the jars of the other leaky; the first fills his jars,

and has no more trouble with them; the second is always filling 494

them, and would suffer extreme misery if he desisted. Are you

of the same opinion still? ‘Yes, Socrates, and the figure expresses

what I mean. For true pleasure is a perpetual stream, flowing in

and flowing out. To be hungry and always eating, to be thirsty

and always drinking, and to have all the other desires and to

satisfy them, that, as I admit, is my idea of happiness.’ And to be

itching and always scratching? ‘I do not deny that there may be

happiness even in that.’ And to indulge unnatural desires, if they

are abundantly satisfied? Callicles is indignant at the introduction

of such topics. But he is reminded by Socrates that they are

introduced, not by him, but by the maintainer of the identity of 495

pleasure and good. Will Callicles still maintain this? ‘Yes, for

the sake of consistency, he will.’ The answer does not satisfy

Socrates, who fears that he is losing his touchstone. A profession

of seriousness on the part of Callicles reassures him, and they

proceed with the argument. Pleasure and good are the same,

but knowledge and courage are not the same either with pleasure

or good, or with one another. Socrates disproves the first of these

statements by showing that two opposites cannot co-exist, but must

alternate with one another—to be well and ill together is 496

impossible. But pleasure and pain are simultaneous, and the cessation

of them is simultaneous; e. g. in the case of drinking and thirsting,

whereas good and evil are not simultaneous, and do not cease 497

simultaneously, and therefore pleasure cannot be the same as

good.

[Sidenote: _Analysis 494-501._]

Callicles has already lost his temper, and can only be persuaded

to go on by the interposition of Gorgias. Socrates, having already

guarded against objections by distinguishing courage and knowledge

from pleasure and good, proceeds:—The good are good by

the presence of good, and the bad are bad by the presence of evil.

And the brave and wise are good, and the cowardly and foolish 498

are bad. And he who feels pleasure is good, and he who feels

pain is bad, and both feel pleasure and pain in nearly the same

degree, and sometimes the bad man or coward in a greater degree.

Therefore the bad man or coward is as good as the brave or may 499

be even better.

Callicles endeavours now to avert the inevitable absurdity by

affirming that he and all mankind admitted some pleasures to be

good and others bad. The good are the beneficial, and the bad

are the hurtful, and we should choose the one and avoid the other.

But this, as Socrates observes, is a return to the old doctrine of

himself and Polus, that all things should be done for the sake of

the good.

[Sidenote: _Analysis 501-506._]

Callicles assents to this, and Socrates, finding that they are 500

agreed in distinguishing pleasure from good, returns to his old

division of empirical habits, or shams, or flatteries, which study 501

pleasure only, and the arts which are concerned with the higher

interests of soul and body. Does Callicles agree to this division?

Callicles will agree to anything, in order that he may get through

the argument. Which of the arts then are flatteries? Flute-playing,

harp-playing, choral exhibitions, the dithyrambics of

Cinesias are all equally condemned on the ground that they give

pleasure only; and Meles the harp-player, who was the father of 502

Cinesias, failed even in that. The stately muse of Tragedy is bent

upon pleasure, and not upon improvement. Poetry in general is

only a rhetorical address to a mixed audience of men, women, and

children. And the orators are very far from speaking with a view

to what is best; their way is to humour the assembly as if they

were children.

Callicles replies, that this is only true of some of them; others

have a real regard for their fellow-citizens. Granted; then there

are two species of oratory; the one a flattery, another which has

a real regard for the citizens. But where are the orators among

whom you find the latter? Callicles admits that there are none 503

remaining, but there were such in the days when Themistocles,

Cimon, Miltiades, and the great Pericles were still alive. Socrates

replies that none of these were true artists, setting before

themselves the duty of bringing order out of disorder. The good 504

man and true orator has a settled design, running through his

life, to which he conforms all his words and actions; he desires

to implant justice and eradicate injustice, to implant all virtue

and eradicate all vice in the minds of his citizens. He is the 505

physician who will not allow the sick man to indulge his appetites

with a variety of meats and drinks, but insists on his exercising

self-restraint. And this is good for the soul, and better than the

unrestrained indulgence which Callicles was recently approving.

Here Callicles, who had been with difficulty brought to this

point, turns restive, and suggests that Socrates shall answer his

own questions. ‘Then,’ says Socrates, ‘one man must do for

two;’ and though he had hoped to have given Callicles an ‘Amphion’

in return for his ‘Zethus,’ he is willing to proceed; at the 506

same time, he hopes that Callicles will correct him, if he falls

into error. He recapitulates the advantages which he has already

won:—

[Sidenote: _Analysis 506-511._]

The pleasant is not the same as the good—Callicles and I are

agreed about that,—but pleasure is to be pursued for the sake of

the good, and the good is that of which the presence makes us

good; we and all things good have acquired some virtue or other.

And virtue, whether of body or soul, of things or persons, is

not attained by accident, but is due to order and harmonious

arrangement. And the soul which has order is better than the soul 507

which is without order, and is therefore temperate and is therefore

good, and the intemperate is bad. And he who is temperate

is also just and brave and pious, and has attained the perfection of

goodness and therefore of happiness, and the intemperate whom

you approve is the opposite of all this and is wretched. He

therefore who would be happy must pursue temperance and avoid

intemperance, and if possible escape the necessity of punishment,

but if he have done wrong he must endure punishment. In this

way states and individuals should seek to attain harmony, which, 508

as the wise tell us, is the bond of heaven and earth, of gods and

men. Callicles has never discovered the power of geometrical

proportion in both worlds; he would have men aim at disproportion

and excess. But if he be wrong in this, and if self-control is the

true secret of happiness, then the paradox is true that the only

use of rhetoric is in self-accusation, and Polus was right in saying

that to do wrong is worse than to suffer wrong, and Gorgias was

right in saying that the rhetorician must be a just man. And you

were wrong in taunting me with my defenceless condition, and in

saying that I might be accused or put to death or boxed on the

ears with impunity. For I may repeat once more, that to strike is

worse than to be stricken—to do than to suffer. What I said then 509

is now made fast in adamantine bonds. I myself know not the

true nature of these things, but I know that no one can deny my

words and not be ridiculous. To do wrong is the greatest of evils,

and to suffer wrong is the next greatest evil. He who would 510

avoid the last must be a ruler, or the friend of a ruler; and to be

the friend he must be the equal of the ruler, and must also resemble

him. Under his protection he will suffer no evil, but will

he also do no evil? Nay, will he not rather do all the evil which

he can and escape? And in this way the greatest of all evils will 511

befall him. ‘But this imitator of the tyrant,’ rejoins Callicles,

‘will kill any one who does not similarly imitate him.’ Socrates

replies that he is not deaf, and that he has heard that repeated

many times, and can only reply, that a bad man will kill a good

one. ‘Yes, and that is the provoking thing.’ Not provoking to a

man of sense who is not studying the arts which will preserve

him from danger; and this, as you say, is the use of rhetoric in

courts of justice. But how many other arts are there which also

save men from death, and are yet quite humble in their

pretensions—such as the art of swimming, or the art of the pilot?

Does not the pilot do men at least as much service as the

rhetorician, and yet for the voyage from Aegina to Athens he does

not charge more than two obols, and when he disembarks is quite

unassuming in his demeanour? The reason is that he is not certain 512

whether he has done his passengers any good in saving them from

death, if one of them is diseased in body, and still more if he is

diseased in mind—who can say? The engineer too will often

save whole cities, and yet you despise him, and would not

allow your son to marry his daughter, or his son to marry yours.

But what reason is there in this? For if virtue only means the

saving of life, whether your own or another’s, you have no right to

despise him or any practiser of saving arts. But is not virtue

something different from saving and being saved? I would have 513

you rather consider whether you ought not to disregard length of

life, and think only how you can live best, leaving all besides to

the will of Heaven. For you must not expect to have influence

either with the Athenian Demos or with Demos the son of Pyrilampes,

unless you become like them. What do you say to this?

[Sidenote: _Analysis 511-515._]

‘There is some truth in what you are saying, but I do not

entirely believe you.’

[Sidenote: _Analysis 515-520._]

That is because you are in love with Demos. But let us have a

little more conversation. You remember the two processes—one

which was directed to pleasure, the other which was directed to

making men as good as possible. And those who have the care

of the city should make the citizens as good as possible. But who 514

would undertake a public building, if he had never had a teacher

of the art of building, and had never constructed a building before?

or who would undertake the duty of state-physician, if he had

never cured either himself or any one else? Should we not

examine him before we entrusted him with the office? And as

Callicles is about to enter public life, should we not examine

him? Whom has he made better? For we have already admitted that 515

this is the statesman’s proper business. And we must ask the

same question about Pericles, and Cimon, and Miltiades, and

Themistocles. Whom did they make better? Nay, did not Pericles

make the citizens worse? For he gave them pay, and at first he

was very popular with them, but at last they condemned him to

death. Yet surely he would be a bad tamer of animals who, 516

having received them gentle, taught them to kick and butt, and

man is an animal; and Pericles who had the charge of man only

made him wilder, and more savage and unjust, and therefore he

could not have been a good statesman. The same tale might

be repeated about Cimon, Themistocles, Miltiades. But the

charioteer who keeps his seat at first is not thrown out when he 517

gains greater experience and skill. The inference is, that the

statesmen of a past age were no better than those of our own.

They may have been cleverer constructors of docks and harbours,

but they did not improve the character of the citizens. I have

told you again and again (and I purposely use the same images)

that the soul, like the body, may be treated in two ways—there is

the meaner and the higher art. You seemed to understand what 518

I said at the time, but when I ask you who were the really good

statesmen, you answer—as if I asked you who were the good

trainers, and you answered, Thearion, the baker, Mithoecus, the

author of the Sicilian cookery-book, Sarambus, the vintner. And

you would be affronted if I told you that these are a parcel of

cooks who make men fat only to make them thin. And those

whom they have fattened applaud them, instead of finding fault

with them, and lay the blame of their subsequent disorders on

their physicians. In this respect, Callicles, you are like them;

you applaud the statesmen of old, who pandered to the vices of the

citizens, and filled the city with docks and harbours, but neglected

virtue and justice. And when the fit of illness comes, the 519

citizens who in like manner applauded Themistocles, Pericles, and

others, will lay hold of you and my friend Alcibiades, and you will

suffer for the misdeeds of your predecessors. The old story is always

being repeated—‘after all his services, the ungrateful city banished

him, or condemned him to death.’ As if the statesman should not

have taught the city better! He surely cannot blame the state for

having unjustly used him, any more than the sophist or teacher

can find fault with his pupils if they cheat him. And the sophist 520

and orator are in the same case; although you admire rhetoric

and despise sophistic, whereas sophistic is really the higher of the

two. The teacher of the arts takes money, but the teacher of

virtue or politics takes no money, because this is the only kind of

service which makes the disciple desirous of requiting his teacher.

[Sidenote: _Analysis 520-524._]

Socrates concludes by finally asking, to which of the two modes

of serving the state Callicles invites him:—‘to the inferior and

ministerial one,’ is the ingenuous reply. That is the only way of 521

avoiding death, replies Socrates; and he has heard often enough,

and would rather not hear again, that the bad man will kill the

good. But he thinks that such a fate is very likely reserved for

him, because he remarks that he is the only person who teaches

the true art of politics. And very probably, as in the case which 522

he described to Polus, he may be the physician who is tried by a

jury of children. He cannot say that he has procured the citizens

any pleasure, and if any one charges him with perplexing them, or

with reviling their elders, he will not be able to make them

understand that he has only been actuated by a desire for their

good. And therefore there is no saying what his fate may be. ‘And

do you think that a man who is unable to help himself is in a good

condition?’ Yes, Callicles, if he have the true self-help, which is

never to have said or done any wrong to himself or others. If I

had not this kind of self-help, I should be ashamed; but if I die

for want of your flattering rhetoric, I shall die in peace. For

death is no evil, but to go to the world below laden with offences

is the worst of evils. In proof of which I will tell you a tale:—

Under the rule of Cronos, men were judged on the day of their 523

death, and when judgment had been given upon them they departed—the

good to the islands of the blest, the bad to the house of vengeance.

But as they were still living, and had their clothes on at

the time when they were being judged, there was favouritism, and

Zeus, when he came to the throne, was obliged to alter the mode

of procedure, and try them after death, having first sent down

Prometheus to take away from them the foreknowledge of death.

Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus were appointed to be the 524

judges; Rhadamanthus for Asia, Aeacus for Europe, and Minos

was to hold the court of appeal. Now death is the separation of

soul and body, but after death soul and body alike retain their

characteristics; the fat man, the dandy, the branded slave, are all

distinguishable. Some prince or potentate, perhaps even the great

king himself, appears before Rhadamanthus, and he instantly

detects him, though he knows not who he is; he sees the scars of 525

perjury and iniquity, and sends him away to the house of torment.

[Sidenote: _Analysis 524-527._]

For there are two classes of souls who undergo punishment—the

curable and the incurable. The curable are those who are

benefited by their punishment; the incurable are such as Archelaus,

who benefit others by becoming a warning to them. The

latter class are generally kings and potentates; meaner persons,

happily for themselves, have not the same power of doing injustice.

Sisyphus and Tityus, not Thersites, are supposed by

Homer to be undergoing everlasting punishment. Not that there

is anything to prevent a great man from being a good one, as is

shown by the famous example of Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus. 526

But to Rhadamanthus the souls are only known as good or

bad; they are stripped of their dignities and preferments; he

despatches the bad to Tartarus, labelled either as curable or

incurable, and looks with love and admiration on the soul of some

just one, whom he sends to the islands of the blest. Similar is

the practice of Aeacus; and Minos overlooks them, holding a

golden sceptre, as Odysseus in Homer saw him

‘Wielding a sceptre of gold, and giving laws to the dead.’

My wish for myself and my fellow-men is, that we may present

our souls undefiled to the judge in that day; my desire in life is

to be able to meet death. And I exhort you, and retort upon you 527

the reproach which you cast upon me,—that you will stand before

the judge, gaping, and with dizzy brain, and any one may box you

on the ear, and do you all manner of evil.

Perhaps you think that this is an old wives’ fable. But you,

who are the three wisest men in Hellas, have nothing better to

say, and no one will ever show that to do is better than to suffer

evil. A man should study to be, and not merely to seem. If he

is bad, he should become good, and avoid all flattery, whether of

the many or of the few.

Follow me, then; and if you are looked down upon, that will do

you no harm. And when we have practised virtue, we will betake

ourselves to politics, but not until we are delivered from the

shameful state of ignorance and uncertainty in which we are at

present. Let us follow in the way of virtue and justice, and not in

the way to which you, Callicles, invite us; for that way is nothing

worth.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _The logic and dialectic of the Dialogue._]

[Sidenote: INTRODUCTION.]

We will now consider in order some of the principal points of the

dialogue. Having regard (1) to the age of Plato and the ironical

character of his writings, we may compare him with himself and with

other great teachers, and we may note in passing the objections of his

critics. And then (2) casting one eye upon him, we may cast another upon

ourselves, and endeavour to draw out the great lessons which he teaches

for all time, stripped of the accidental form in which they are enveloped.

(1) In the Gorgias, as in nearly all the other dialogues of Plato, we are

made aware that formal logic has as yet no existence. The old difficulty

of framing a definition recurs. The illusive analogy of the arts and the

virtues also continues. The ambiguity of several words, such as nature,

custom, the honourable, the good, is not cleared up. The Sophists are

still floundering about the distinction of the real and seeming. Figures

of speech are made the basis of arguments. The possibility of conceiving

a universal art or science, which admits of application to a particular

subject-matter, is a difficulty which remains unsolved, and has not

altogether ceased to haunt the world at the present day (cp. Charmides,

166 ff.). The defect of clearness is also apparent in Socrates himself,

unless we suppose him to be practising on the simplicity of his opponent,

or rather perhaps trying an experiment in dialectics. Nothing can be more

fallacious than the contradiction which he pretends to have discovered

in the answers of Gorgias (see Analysis). The advantages which he gains

over Polus are also due to a false antithesis of pleasure and good, and

to an erroneous assertion that an agent and a patient may be described by

similar predicates;—a mistake which Aristotle partly shares and partly

corrects in the Nicomachean Ethics, V. i. 4; xi. 2. Traces of a ‘robust

sophistry’ are likewise discernible in his argument with Callicles (pp.

490, 496, 516).

[Sidenote: _The ideal of suffering virtue._]

(2) Although Socrates professes to be convinced by reason only, yet the

argument is often a sort of dialectical fiction, by which he conducts

himself and others to his own ideal of life and action. And we may

sometimes wish that we could have suggested answers to his antagonists,

or pointed out to them the rocks which lay concealed under the ambiguous

terms good, pleasure, and the like. But it would be as useless to examine

his arguments by the requirements of modern logic, as to criticise this

ideal from a merely utilitarian point of view. If we say that the ideal

is generally regarded as unattainable, and that mankind will by no means

agree in thinking that the criminal is happier when punished than when

unpunished, any more than they would agree to the stoical paradox that a

man may be happy on the rack, Plato has already admitted that the world

is against him. Neither does he mean to say that Archelaus is tormented

by the stings of conscience; or that the sensations of the impaled

criminal are more agreeable than those of the tyrant drowned in luxurious

enjoyment. Neither is he speaking, as in the Protagoras, of virtue as a

calculation of pleasure, an opinion which he afterwards repudiates in

the Phaedo. What then is his meaning? His meaning we shall be able to

illustrate best by parallel notions, which, whether justifiable by logic

or not, have always existed among mankind. We must remind the reader that

Socrates himself implies that he will be understood or appreciated by

very few.

He is speaking not of the consciousness of happiness, but of the idea of

happiness. When a martyr dies in a good cause, when a soldier falls in

battle, we do not suppose that death or wounds are without pain, or that

their physical suffering is always compensated by a mental satisfaction.

Still we regard them as happy, and we would a thousand times rather have

their death than a shameful life. Nor is this only because we believe

that they will obtain an immortality of fame, or that they will have

crowns of glory in another world, when their enemies and persecutors will

be proportionably tormented. Men are found in a few instances to do what

is right, without reference to public opinion or to consequences. And we

regard them as happy on this ground only, much as Socrates’ friends in

the opening of the Phaedo are described as regarding him; or as was said

of another, ‘they looked upon his face as upon the face of an angel.’ We

are not concerned to justify this idealism by the standard of utility or

public opinion, but merely to point out the existence of such a sentiment

in the better part of human nature.

[Sidenote: _Plato’s theory of punishment._]

The idealism of Plato is founded upon this sentiment. He would maintain

that in some sense or other truth and right are alone to be sought,

and that all other goods are only desirable as means towards these. He

is thought to have erred in ‘considering the agent only, and making

no reference to the happiness of others, as affected by him.’ But the

happiness of others or of mankind, if regarded as an end, is really quite

as ideal and almost as paradoxical to the common understanding as Plato’s

conception of happiness. For the greatest happiness of the greatest

number may mean also the greatest pain of the individual which will

procure the greatest pleasure of the greatest number. Ideas of utility,

like those of duty and right, may be pushed to unpleasant consequences.

Nor can Plato in the Gorgias be deemed purely self-regarding, considering

that Socrates expressly mentions the duty of imparting the truth when

discovered to others. Nor must we forget that the side of ethics which

regards others is by the ancients merged in politics. Both in Plato and

Aristotle, as well as in the Stoics, the social principle, though taking

another form, is really far more prominent than in most modern treatises

on ethics.

The idealizing of suffering is one of the conceptions which have

exercised the greatest influence on mankind. Into the theological import

of this, or into the consideration of the errors to which the idea may

have given rise, we need not now enter. All will agree that the ideal of

the Divine Sufferer, whose words the world would not receive, the man of

sorrows of whom the Hebrew prophets spoke, has sunk deep into the heart

of the human race. It is a similar picture of suffering goodness which

Plato desires to pourtray, not without an allusion to the fate of his

master Socrates. He is convinced that, somehow or other, such an one must

be happy in life or after death. In the Republic, he endeavours to show

that his happiness would be assured here in a well-ordered state. But

in the actual condition of human things the wise and good are weak and

miserable; such an one is like a man fallen among wild beasts, exposed to

every sort of wrong and obloquy.

[Sidenote: _Plato’s theory of punishment._]

Plato, like other philosophers, is thus led on to the conclusion, that

if ‘the ways of God’ to man are to be ‘justified,’ the hopes of another

life must be included. If the question could have been put to him,

whether a man dying in torments was happy still, even if, as he suggests

in the Apology (40 C), ‘death be only a long sleep,’ we can hardly tell

what would have been his answer. There have been a few, who, quite

independently of rewards and punishments or of posthumous reputation, or

any other influence of public opinion, have been willing to sacrifice

their lives for the good of others. It is difficult to say how far in

such cases an unconscious hope of a future life, or a general faith in

the victory of good in the world, may have supported the sufferers. But

this extreme idealism is not in accordance with the spirit of Plato. He

supposes a day of retribution, in which the good are to be rewarded and

the wicked punished (522 E). Though, as he says in the Phaedo, no man of

sense will maintain that the details of the stories about another world

are true, he will insist that something of the kind is true, and will

frame his life with a view to this unknown future. Even in the Republic

he introduces a future life as an afterthought, when the superior

happiness of the just has been established on what is thought to be an

immutable foundation. At the same time he makes a point of determining

his main thesis independently of remoter consequences (x. 612 A).

(3) Plato’s theory of punishment is partly vindictive, partly corrective.

In the Gorgias, as well as in the Phaedo and Republic, a few great

criminals, chiefly tyrants, are reserved as examples. But most men

have never had the opportunity of attaining this pre-eminence of evil.

They are not incurable, and their punishment is intended for their

improvement. They are to suffer because they have sinned; like sick men,

they must go to the physician and be healed. On this representation of

Plato’s the criticism has been made, that the analogy of disease and

injustice is partial only, and that suffering, instead of improving men,

may have just the opposite effect.

Like the general analogy of the arts and the virtues, the analogy

of disease and injustice, or of medicine and justice, is certainly

imperfect. But ideas must be given through something; the nature of the

mind which is unseen can only be represented under figures derived from

visible objects. If these figures are suggestive of some new aspect under

which the mind may be considered, we cannot find fault with them for

not exactly coinciding with the ideas represented. They partake of the

imperfect nature of language, and must not be construed in too strict

a manner. That Plato sometimes reasons from them as if they were not

figures but realities, is due to the defective logical analysis of his

age.

[Sidenote: _Plato’s theory of punishment._]

Nor does he distinguish between the suffering which improves and the

suffering which only punishes and deters. He applies to the sphere of

ethics a conception of punishment which is really derived from criminal

law. He does not see that such punishment is only negative, and supplies

no principle of moral growth or development. He is not far off the

higher notion of an education of man to be begun in this world, and to

be continued in other stages of existence, which is further developed

in the Republic. And Christian thinkers, who have ventured out of the

beaten track in their meditations on the ‘last things,’ have found a

ray of light in his writings. But he has not explained how or in what

way punishment is to contribute to the improvement of mankind. He has

not followed out the principle which he affirms in the Republic (ii.

380), that ‘God is the author of evil only with a view to good,’ and

that ‘they were the better for being punished.’ Still his doctrine of

a future state of rewards and punishments may be compared favourably

with that perversion of Christian doctrine which makes the everlasting

punishment of human beings depend on a brief moment of time, or even on

the accident of an accident. And he has escaped the difficulty which has

often beset divines, respecting the future destiny of the meaner sort of

men (Thersites and the like), who are neither very good nor very bad, by

not counting them worthy of eternal damnation.

We do Plato violence in pressing his figures of speech or chains of

argument; and not less so in asking questions which were beyond the

horizon of his vision, or did not come within the scope of his design.

The main purpose of the Gorgias is not to answer questions about a

future world, but to place in antagonism the true and false life, and

to contrast the judgments and opinions of men with judgment according

to the truth. Plato may be accused of representing a superhuman or

transcendental virtue in the description of the just man in the Gorgias,

or in the companion portrait of the philosopher in the Theaetetus; and at

the same time may be thought to be condemning a state of the world which

always has existed and always will exist among men. But such ideals act

powerfully on the imagination of mankind. And such condemnations are not

mere paradoxes of philosophers, but the natural rebellion of the higher

sense of right in man against the ordinary conditions of human life. The

greatest statesmen have fallen very far short of the political ideal, and

are therefore justly involved in the general condemnation.

[Sidenote: _Good and pleasure._]

Subordinate to the main purpose of the dialogue are some other questions,

which may be briefly considered:—

_a._ The antithesis of good and pleasure, which as in other dialogues is

supposed to consist in the permanent nature of the one compared with the

transient and relative nature of the other. Good and pleasure, knowledge

and sense, truth and opinion, essence and generation, virtue and

pleasure, the real and the apparent, the infinite and finite, harmony or

beauty and discord, dialectic and rhetoric or poetry, are so many pairs

of opposites, which in Plato easily pass into one another, and are seldom

kept perfectly distinct. And we must not forget that Plato’s conception

of pleasure is the Heracleitean flux transferred to the sphere of human

conduct. There is some degree of unfairness in opposing the principle

of good, which is objective, to the principle of pleasure, which is

subjective. For the assertion of the permanence of good is only based

on the assumption of its objective character. Had Plato fixed his mind,

not on the ideal nature of good, but on the subjective consciousness of

happiness, that would have been found to be as transient and precarious

as pleasure.

_b._ The arts or sciences, when pursued without any view to truth,

or the improvement of human life, are called flatteries. They are

all alike dependent upon the opinion of mankind, from which they are

derived. To Plato the whole world appears to be sunk in error, based on

self-interest. To this is opposed the one wise man hardly professing

to have found truth, yet strong in the conviction that a virtuous life

is the only good, whether regarded with reference to this world or to

another. Statesmen, Sophists, rhetoricians, poets, are alike brought up

for judgment. They are the parodies of wise men, and their arts are the

parodies of true arts and sciences. All that they call science is merely

the result of that study of the tempers of the Great Beast, which he

describes in the Republic.

[Sidenote: _Relation of the Gorgias to the other Dialogues._]

_c._ Various other points of contact naturally suggest themselves between

the Gorgias and other dialogues, especially the Republic, the Philebus,

and the Protagoras. There are closer resemblances both of spirit

and language in the Republic than in any other dialogue, the verbal

similarity tending to show that they were written at the same period of

Plato’s life. For the Republic supplies that education and training of

which the Gorgias suggests the necessity. The theory of the many weak

combining against the few strong in the formation of society (which is

indeed a partial truth), is similar in both of them, and is expressed

in nearly the same language. The sufferings and fate of the just man,

the powerlessness of evil, and the reversal of the situation in another

life, are also points of similarity. The poets, like the rhetoricians,

are condemned because they aim at pleasure only, as in the Republic they

are expelled the State, because they are imitators, and minister to the

weaker side of human nature. That poetry is akin to rhetoric may be

compared with the analogous notion, which occurs in the Protagoras, that

the ancient poets were the Sophists of their day. In some other respects

the Protagoras rather offers a contrast than a parallel. The character

of Protagoras may be compared with that of Gorgias, but the conception

of happiness is different in the two dialogues; being described in the

former, according to the old Socratic notion, as deferred or accumulated

pleasure, while in the Gorgias, and in the Phaedo, pleasure and good are

distinctly opposed.

This opposition is carried out from a speculative point of view in the

Philebus. There neither pleasure nor wisdom are allowed to be the chief

good, but pleasure and good are not so completely opposed as in the

Gorgias. For innocent pleasures, and such as have no antecedent pains,

are allowed to rank in the class of goods. The allusion to Gorgias’

definition of rhetoric (Philebus, 58 A, B; cp. Gorg. 452 D, E), as the

art of persuasion, of all arts the best, for to it all things submit,

not by compulsion, but of their own free will—marks a close and perhaps

designed connection between the two dialogues. In both the ideas of

measure, order, harmony, are the connecting links between the beautiful

and the good.

[Sidenote: _Some minor points._]

In general spirit and character, that is, in irony and antagonism to

public opinion, the Gorgias most nearly resembles the Apology, Crito,

and portions of the Republic, and like the Philebus, though from another

point of view, may be thought to stand in the same relation to Plato’s

theory of morals which the Theaetetus bears to his theory of knowledge.

_d._ A few minor points still remain to be summed up: (1) The extravagant

irony in the reason which is assigned for the pilot’s modest charge

(p. 512); and in the proposed use of rhetoric as an instrument of

self-condemnation (p. 480); and in the mighty power of geometrical

equality in both worlds (p. 508). (2) The reference of the mythus to

the previous discussion should not be overlooked: the fate reserved for

incurable criminals such as Archelaus (p. 525); the retaliation of the

box on the ears (p. 527); the nakedness of the souls and of the judges

who are stript of the clothes or disguises which rhetoric and public

opinion have hitherto provided for them (p. 523; cp. Swift’s notion that

the universe is a suit of clothes, Tale of a Tub, section 2). The fiction

seems to have involved Plato in the necessity of supposing that the soul

retained a sort of corporeal likeness after death (p. 524). (3) The

appeal to the authority of Homer, who says that Odysseus saw Minos in his

court ‘holding a golden sceptre,’ which gives verisimilitude to the tale

(p. 526).

It is scarcely necessary to repeat that Plato is playing ‘both sides of

the game,’ and that in criticising the characters of Gorgias and Polus,

we are not passing any judgment on historical individuals, but only

attempting to analyze the ‘dramatis personae’ as they were conceived by

him. Neither is it necessary to enlarge upon the obvious fact that Plato

is a dramatic writer, whose real opinions cannot always be assumed to be

those which he puts into the mouth of Socrates, or any other speaker who

appears to have the best of the argument; or to repeat the observation

that he is a poet as well as a philosopher; or to remark that he is not

to be tried by a modern standard, but interpreted with reference to his

place in the history of thought and the opinion of his time.

[Sidenote: _The irony of Socrates._]

It has been said that the most characteristic feature of the Gorgias is

the assertion of the right of dissent, or private judgment. But this mode

of stating the question is really opposed both to the spirit of Plato and

of ancient philosophy generally. For Plato is not asserting any abstract

right or duty of toleration, or advantage to be derived from freedom

of thought; indeed, in some other parts of his writings (e. g. Laws,

x), he has fairly laid himself open to the charge of intolerance. No

speculations had as yet arisen respecting the ‘liberty of prophesying;’

and Plato is not affirming any abstract right of this nature: but he is

asserting the duty and right of the one wise and true man to dissent from

the folly and falsehood of the many. At the same time he acknowledges the

natural result, which he hardly seeks to avert, that he who speaks the

truth to a multitude, regardless of consequences, will probably share the

fate of Socrates.

* * * * *

The irony of Plato sometimes veils from us the height of idealism to

which he soars. When declaring truths which the many will not receive,

he puts on an armour which cannot be pierced by them. The weapons of

ridicule are taken out of their hands and the laugh is turned against

themselves. The disguises which Socrates assumes are like the parables

of the New Testament, or the oracles of the Delphian God; they half

conceal, half reveal, his meaning. The more he is in earnest, the more

ironical he becomes; and he is never more in earnest or more ironical

than in the Gorgias. He hardly troubles himself to answer seriously the

objections of Gorgias and Polus, and therefore he sometimes appears to

be careless of the ordinary requirements of logic. Yet in the highest

sense he is always logical and consistent with himself. The form of the

argument may be paradoxical; the substance is an appeal to the higher

reason. He is uttering truths before they can be understood, as in all

ages the words of philosophers, when they are first uttered, have found

the world unprepared for them. A further misunderstanding arises out of

the wildness of his humour; he is supposed not only by Callicles, but

by the rest of mankind, to be jesting when he is profoundly serious. At

length he makes even Polus (p. 468) in earnest. Finally, he drops the

argument, and heedless any longer of the forms of dialectic, he loses

himself in a sort of triumph, while at the same time he retaliates upon

his adversaries. From this confusion of jest and earnest, we may now

return to the ideal truth, and draw out in a simple form the main theses

of the dialogue.

[Sidenote: _Worse to do than to suffer injustice._]