The Project Gutenberg eBook of Gorgias, by Plato

Published：2026-07-31 10:11:41 Source: kids ukuleles for 2 year olds Author: Festival Toys

GORGIAS

by Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

Contents

INTRODUCTION

In several of the dialogues of Plato,best miniature figures for 4 year olds doubts have arisen among his interpretersas to which of the various subjects discussed in them is the main thesis. Thespeakers have the freedom of conversation; no severe rules of art restrictthem, and sometimes we are inclined to think, with one of the dramatis personaein the Theaetetus, that the digressions have the greater interest. Yet in themost irregular of the dialogues there is also a certain natural growth orunity; the beginning is not forgotten at the end, and numerous allusions andreferences are interspersed, which form the loose connecting links of thewhole. We must not neglect this unity, but neither must we attempt to confinethe Platonic dialogue on the Procrustean bed of a single idea. (CompareIntroduction 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 theslightest threads; and have thus been led to opposite and contradictoryassertions respecting their order and sequence. The mantle of Schleiermacherhas descended upon his successors, who have applied his method with the mostvarious results. The value and use of the method has been hardly, if at all,examined either by him or them. Secondly, they have extended almostindefinitely the scope of each separate dialogue; in this way they think thatthey have escaped all difficulties, not seeing that what they have gained ingenerality they have lost in truth and distinctness. Metaphysical conceptionseasily pass into one another; and the simpler notions of antiquity, which wecan only realize by an effort, imperceptibly blend with the more familiartheories of modern philosophers. An eye for proportion is needed (his own artof measuring) in the study of Plato, as well as of other great artists. We mayhardly admit that the moral antithesis of good and pleasure, or theintellectual antithesis of knowledge and opinion, being and appearance, arenever 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 equallyin all the dialogues.

There may be some advantage in drawing out a little the main outlines of thebuilding; but the use of this is limited, and may be easily exaggerated. We maygive Plato too much system, and alter the natural form and connection of histhoughts. Under the idea that his dialogues are finished works of art, we mayfind a reason for everything, and lose the highest characteristic of art, whichis simplicity. Most great works receive a new light from a new and originalmind. But whether these new lights are true or only suggestive, will depend ontheir agreement with the spirit of Plato, and the amount of direct evidencewhich 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 tothe indications of the text.

Like the Phaedrus, the Gorgias has puzzled students of Plato by the appearanceof two or more subjects. Under the cover of rhetoric higher themes areintroduced; the argument expands into a general view of the good and evil ofman. After making an ineffectual attempt to obtain a sound definition of hisart from Gorgias, Socrates assumes the existence of a universal art of flatteryor simulation having several branches:—this is the genus of whichrhetoric is only one, and not the highest species. To flattery is opposed thetrue and noble art of life which he who possesses seeks always to impart toothers, 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 ofthe dialogue. The true and the false in individuals and states, in thetreatment of the soul as well as of the body, are conceived under the forms oftrue and false art. In the development of this opposition there arise variousother questions, such as the two famous paradoxes of Socrates (paradoxes asthey 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 doneevil he had better be punished than unpunished; to which may be added (3) athird Socratic paradox or ideal, that bad men do what they think best, but notwhat they desire, for the desire of all is towards the good. That pleasure isto be distinguished from good is proved by the simultaneousness of pleasure andpain, and by the possibility of the bad having in certain cases pleasures asgreat as those of the good, or even greater. Not merely rhetoricians, butpoets, musicians, and other artists, the whole tribe of statesmen, past as wellas present, are included in the class of flatterers. The true and false finallyappear before the judgment-seat of the gods below.

The dialogue naturally falls into three divisions, to which the threecharacters of Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles respectively correspond; and theform and manner change with the stages of the argument. Socrates is deferentialtowards Gorgias, playful and yet cutting in dealing with the youthful Polus,ironical and sarcastic in his encounter with Callicles. In the first divisionthe 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 istransferred to the hands of his disciple Polus, who rushes to the defence ofhis master. The answer has at last to be given by Socrates himself, but beforehe can even explain his meaning to Polus, he must enlighten him upon the greatsubject of shams or flatteries. When Polus finds his favourite art reduced tothe level of cookery, he replies that at any rate rhetoricians, like despots,have great power. Socrates denies that they have any real power, and hencearise 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 followlegitimately from the premises. Thus the second act of the dialogue closes.Then Callicles appears on the scene, at first maintaining that pleasure isgood, and that might is right, and that law is nothing but the combination ofthe many weak against the few strong. When he is confuted he withdraws from theargument, and leaves Socrates to arrive at the conclusion by himself. Theconclusion is that there are two kinds of statesmanship, a higher and alower—that which makes the people better, and that which only flattersthem, and he exhorts Callicles to choose the higher. The dialogue terminateswith a mythus of a final judgment, in which there will be no more flattery ordisguise, and no further use for the teaching of rhetoric.

The characters of the three interlocutors also correspond to the parts whichare assigned to them. Gorgias is the great rhetorician, now advanced in years,who goes from city to city displaying his talents, and is celebrated throughoutGreece. Like all the Sophists in the dialogues of Plato, he is vain andboastful, yet he has also a certain dignity, and is treated by Socrates withconsiderable respect. But he is no match for him in dialectics. Although he hasbeen teaching rhetoric all his life, he is still incapable of defining his ownart. When his ideas begin to clear up, he is unwilling to admit that rhetoriccan be wholly separated from justice and injustice, and this lingeringsentiment of morality, or regard for public opinion, enables Socrates to detecthim in a contradiction. Like Protagoras, he is described as of a generousnature; he expresses his approbation of Socrates’ manner of approaching aquestion; he is quite “one of Socrates’ sort, ready to be refutedas well as to refute,” and very eager that Callicles and Socrates shouldhave the game out. He knows by experience that rhetoric exercises greatinfluence over other men, but he is unable to explain the puzzle how rhetoriccan teach everything and know nothing.

Polus is an impetuous youth, a runaway “colt,” as Socratesdescribes him, who wanted originally to have taken the place of Gorgias underthe pretext that the old man was tired, and now avails himself of the earliestopportunity to enter the lists. He is said to be the author of a work onrhetoric, and is again mentioned in the Phaedrus, as the inventor of balancedor double forms of speech (compare Gorg.; Symp.). At first he is violent andill-mannered, and is angry at seeing his master overthrown. But in thejudicious hands of Socrates he is soon restored to good-humour, and compelledto assent to the required conclusion. Like Gorgias, he is overthrown because hecompromises; he is unwilling to say that to do is fairer or more honourablethan to suffer injustice. Though he is fascinated by the power of rhetoric, anddazzled 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 maintainingthe cause of injustice against the world. He has never heard the other side ofthe question, and he listens to the paradoxes, as they appear to him, ofSocrates with evident astonishment. He can hardly understand the meaning ofArchelaus being miserable, or of rhetoric being only useful in self-accusation.When the argument with him has fairly run out.

Callicles, in whose house they are assembled, is introduced on the stage: he iswith difficulty convinced that Socrates is in earnest; for if these things aretrue, then, as he says with real emotion, the foundations of society are upsidedown. In him another type of character is represented; he is neither sophistnor 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 ofpower 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 ofmorality; 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 maintainsthat might is right. His great motive of action is political ambition; in thishe is characteristically Greek. Like Anytus in the Meno, he is the enemy of theSophists; but favours the new art of rhetoric, which he regards as an excellentweapon of attack and defence. He is a despiser of mankind as he is ofphilosophy, and sees in the laws of the state only a violation of the order ofnature, which intended that the stronger should govern the weaker (compareRepublic). 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 hisprinciples to his practice. Philosophy and poetry alike supply him withdistinctions 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 hemakes of them. He expresses a keen intellectual interest in the argument. LikeAnytus, again, he has a sympathy with other men of the world; the Athenianstatesmen of a former generation, who showed no weakness and made no mistakes,such as Miltiades, Themistocles, Pericles, are his favourites. His ideal ofhuman character is a man of great passions and great powers, which he hasdeveloped to the utmost, and which he uses in his own enjoyment and in thegovernment of others. Had Critias been the name instead of Callicles, aboutwhom we know nothing from other sources, the opinions of the man would haveseemed to reflect the history of his life.

And now the combat deepens. In Callicles, far more than in any sophist orrhetorician, is concentrated the spirit of evil against which Socrates iscontending, the spirit of the world, the spirit of the many contending againstthe 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 thegreat tide of public opinion. Socrates approaches his antagonist warily from adistance, with a sort of irony which touches with a light hand both hispersonal vices (probably in allusion to some scandal of the day) and hisservility to the populace. At the same time, he is in most profound earnest, asChaerephon remarks. Callicles soon loses his temper, but the more he isirritated, the more provoking and matter of fact does Socrates become. Arepartee of his which appears to have been really made to the“omniscient” Hippias, according to the testimony of Xenophon(Mem.), is introduced. He is called by Callicles a popular declaimer, andcertainly shows that he has the power, in the words of Gorgias, of being“as long as he pleases,” or “as short as he pleases”(compare Protag.). Callicles exhibits great ability in defending himself andattacking Socrates, whom he accuses of trifling and word-splitting; he isscandalized that the legitimate consequences of his own argument should bestated in plain terms; after the manner of men of the world, he wishes topreserve the decencies of life. But he cannot consistently maintain the badsense of words; and getting confused between the abstract notions of better,superior, stronger, he is easily turned round by Socrates, and only induced tocontinue the argument by the authority of Gorgias. Once, when Socrates isdescribing the manner in which the ambitious citizen has to identify himselfwith the people, he partially recognizes the truth of his words.

The Socrates of the Gorgias may be compared with the Socrates of the Protagorasand Meno. As in other dialogues, he is the enemy of the Sophists andrhetoricians; and also of the statesmen, whom he regards as another variety ofthe same species. His behaviour is governed by that of his opponents; the leastforwardness or egotism on their part is met by a corresponding irony on thepart of Socrates. He must speak, for philosophy will not allow him to besilent. He is indeed more ironical and provoking than in any other ofPlato’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. Herises higher than even in the Phaedo and Crito: at first enveloping his moralconvictions 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 asidethe veil of irony, he makes a speech, but, true to his character, not until hisadversary has refused to answer any more questions. The presentiment of his ownfate is hanging over him. He is aware that Socrates, the single real teacher ofpolitics, as he ventures to call himself, cannot safely go to war with thewhole world, and that in the courts of earth he will be condemned. But he willbe justified in the world below. Then the position of Socrates and Callicleswill be reversed; all those things “unfit for ears polite” whichCallicles has prophesied as likely to happen to him in this life, the insultinglanguage, the box on the ears, will recoil upon his assailant. (CompareRepublic, and the similar reversal of the position of the lawyer and thephilosopher in the Theaetetus).

There is an interesting allusion to his own behaviour at the trial of thegenerals after the battle of Arginusae, which he ironically attributes to hisignorance of the manner in which a vote of the assembly should be taken. Thisis said to have happened “last year” (B.C. 406), and therefore theassumed date of the dialogue has been fixed at 405 B.C., when Socrates wouldalready have been an old man. The date is clearly marked, but is scarcelyreconcilable with another indication of time, viz. the “recent”usurpation of Archelaus, which occurred in the year 413; and still less withthe “recent” death of Pericles, who really died twenty-four yearspreviously (429 B.C.) and is afterwards reckoned among the statesmen of a pastage; or with the mention of Nicias, who died in 413, and is nevertheless spokenof as a living witness. But we shall hereafter have reason to observe, thatalthough there is a general consistency of times and persons in the Dialoguesof Plato, a precise dramatic date is an invention of his commentators (Prefaceto Republic).

The conclusion of the Dialogue is remarkable, (1) for the truly characteristicdeclaration of Socrates that he is ignorant of the true nature and bearing ofthese things, while he affirms at the same time that no one can maintain anyother view without being ridiculous. The profession of ignorance reminds us ofthe earlier and more exclusively Socratic Dialogues. But neither in them, norin the Apology, nor in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, does Socrates express anydoubt of the fundamental truths of morality. He evidently regards this“among the multitude of questions” which agitate human life“as the principle which alone remains unshaken.” He does not insisthere, any more than in the Phaedo, on the literal truth of the myth, but onlyon the soundness of the doctrine which is contained in it, that doing wrong isworse than suffering, and that a man should be rather than seem; for the nextbest thing to a man’s being just is that he should be corrected andbecome just; also that he should avoid all flattery, whether of himself or ofothers; and that rhetoric should be employed for the maintenance of the rightonly. The revelation of another life is a recapitulation of the argument in afigure.

(2) Socrates makes the singular remark, that he is himself the only truepolitician of his age. In other passages, especially in the Apology, hedisclaims being a politician at all. There he is convinced that he or any othergood man who attempted to resist the popular will would be put to death beforehe had done any good to himself or others. Here he anticipates such a fate forhimself, from the fact that he is “the only man of the present day whoperforms his public duties at all.” The two points of view are not reallyinconsistent, but the difference between them is worth noticing: Socrates isand is not a public man. Not in the ordinary sense, like Alcibiades orPericles, but in a higher one; and this will sooner or later entail the sameconsequences on him. He cannot be a private man if he would; neither can heseparate morals from politics. Nor is he unwilling to be a politician, althoughhe foresees the dangers which await him; but he must first become a better andwiser man, for he as well as Callicles is in a state of perplexity anduncertainty. And yet there is an inconsistency: for should not Socrates toohave taught the citizens better than to put him to death?

And now, as he himself says, we will “resume the argument from thebeginning.”

Socrates, who is attended by his inseparable disciple, Chaerephon, meetsCallicles in the streets of Athens. He is informed that he has just missed anexhibition of Gorgias, which he regrets, because he was desirous, not ofhearing Gorgias display his rhetoric, but of interrogating him concerning thenature of his art. Callicles proposes that they shall go with him to his ownhouse, where Gorgias is staying. There they find the great rhetorician and hisyounger friend and disciple Polus.

SOCRATES: Put the question to him, Chaerephon.

CHAEREPHON: What question?

SOCRATES: Who is he?—such a question as would elicit from a man theanswer, “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 hismaster Socrates. “One of the best of men, and a proficient in the bestand noblest of experimental arts,” etc., replies Polus, in rhetorical andbalanced phrases. Socrates is dissatisfied at the length and unmeaningness ofthe answer; he tells the disconcerted volunteer that he has mistaken thequality for the nature of the art, and remarks to Gorgias, that Polus haslearnt how to make a speech, but not how to answer a question. He wishes thatGorgias would answer him. Gorgias is willing enough, and replies to thequestion asked by Chaerephon,—that he is a rhetorician, and in Homericlanguage, “boasts himself to be a good one.” At the request ofSocrates he promises to be brief; for “he can be as long as he pleases,and as short as he pleases.” Socrates would have him bestow his length onothers, and proceeds to ask him a number of questions, which are answered byhim to his own great satisfaction, and with a brevity which excites theadmiration of Socrates. The result of the discussion may be summed up asfollows:—

Rhetoric treats of discourse; but music and medicine, and other particulararts, are also concerned with discourse; in what way then does rhetoric differfrom them? Gorgias draws a distinction between the arts which deal with words,and the arts which have to do with external actions. Socrates extends thisdistinction further, and divides all productive arts into two classes: (1) artswhich 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 wasthe same as rhetoric. Even in the arts which are concerned with words there aredifferences. What then distinguishes rhetoric from the other arts which have todo with words? “The words which rhetoric uses relate to the best andgreatest of human things.” But tell me, Gorgias, what are the best?“Health first, beauty next, wealth third,” in the words of the oldsong, or how would you rank them? The arts will come to you in a body, eachclaiming precedence and saying that her own good is superior to that of therest—How will you choose between them? “I should say, Socrates,that the art of persuasion, which gives freedom to all men, and to individualspower in the state, is the greatest good.” But what is the exact natureof this persuasion?—is the persevering retort: You could not describeZeuxis as a painter, or even as a painter of figures, if there were otherpainters of figures; neither can you define rhetoric simply as an art ofpersuasion, because there are other arts which persuade, such as arithmetic,which is an art of persuasion about odd and even numbers. Gorgias is made tosee the necessity of a further limitation, and he now defines rhetoric as theart of persuading in the law courts, and in the assembly, about the just andunjust. But still there are two sorts of persuasion: one which gives knowledge,and another which gives belief without knowledge; and knowledge is always true,but belief may be either true or false,—there is therefore a furtherquestion: which of the two sorts of persuasion does rhetoric effect in courtsof law and assemblies? Plainly that which gives belief and not that which givesknowledge; for no one can impart a real knowledge of such matters to a crowd ofpersons in a few minutes. And there is another point to beconsidered:—when the assembly meets to advise about walls or docks ormilitary expeditions, the rhetorician is not taken into counsel, but thearchitect, or the general. How would Gorgias explain this phenomenon? All whointend to become disciples, of whom there are several in the company, and notSocrates only, are eagerly asking:—About what then will rhetoric teach usto persuade or advise the state?

Gorgias illustrates the nature of rhetoric by adducing the example ofThemistocles, who persuaded the Athenians to build their docks and walls, andof Pericles, whom Socrates himself has heard speaking about the middle wall ofthe Piraeus. He adds that he has exercised a similar power over the patients ofhis brother Herodicus. He could be chosen a physician by the assembly if hepleased, for no physician could compete with a rhetorician in popularity andinfluence. He could persuade the multitude of anything by the power of hisrhetoric; not that the rhetorician ought to abuse this power any more than aboxer should abuse the art of self-defence. Rhetoric is a good thing, but, likeall good things, may be unlawfully used. Neither is the teacher of the art tobe deemed unjust because his pupils are unjust and make a bad use of thelessons which they have learned from him.

Socrates would like to know before he replies, whether Gorgias will quarrelwith him if he points out a slight inconsistency into which he has fallen, orwhether he, like himself, is one who loves to be refuted. Gorgias declares thathe is quite one of his sort, but fears that the argument may be tedious to thecompany. The company cheer, and Chaerephon and Callicles exhort them toproceed. Socrates gently points out the supposed inconsistency into whichGorgias appears to have fallen, and which he is inclined to think may arise outof a misapprehension of his own. The rhetorician has been declared by Gorgiasto be more persuasive to the ignorant than the physician, or any other expert.And he is said to be ignorant, and this ignorance of his is regarded by Gorgiasas a happy condition, for he has escaped the trouble of learning. But is he asignorant of just and unjust as he is of medicine or building? Gorgias iscompelled to admit that if he did not know them previously he must learn themfrom his teacher as a part of the art of rhetoric. But he who has learnedcarpentry is a carpenter, and he who has learned music is a musician, and hewho has learned justice is just. The rhetorician then must be a just man, andrhetoric is a just thing. But Gorgias has already admitted the opposite ofthis, viz. that rhetoric may be abused, and that the rhetorician may actunjustly. How is the inconsistency to be explained?

The fallacy of this argument is twofold; for in the first place, a man may knowjustice and not be just—here is the old confusion of the arts and thevirtues;—nor can any teacher be expected to counteract wholly the bent ofnatural character; and secondly, a man may have a degree of justice, but notsufficient to prevent him from ever doing wrong. Polus is naturally exasperatedat the sophism, which he is unable to detect; of course, he says, therhetorician, like every one else, will admit that he knows justice (how can hedo otherwise when pressed by the interrogations of Socrates?), but he thinksthat great want of manners is shown in bringing the argument to such a pass.Socrates ironically replies, that when old men trip, the young set them ontheir legs again; and he is quite willing to retract, if he can be shown to bein error, but upon one condition, which is that Polus studies brevity. Polus isin great indignation at not being allowed to use as many words as he pleases inthe free state of Athens. Socrates retorts, that yet harder will be his owncase, if he is compelled to stay and listen to them. After some altercationthey agree (compare Protag.), that Polus shall ask and Socrates answer.

“What is the art of Rhetoric?” says Polus. Not an art at all,replies Socrates, but a thing which in your book you affirm to have createdart. Polus asks, “What thing?” and Socrates answers, An experienceor routine of making a sort of delight or gratification. “But is notrhetoric a fine thing?” I have not yet told you what rhetoric is. Willyou ask me another question—What is cookery? “What iscookery?” An experience or routine of making a sort of delight orgratification. Then they are the same, or rather fall under the same class, andrhetoric has still to be distinguished from cookery. “What isrhetoric?” asks Polus once more. A part of a not very creditable whole,which may be termed flattery, is the reply. “But what part?” Ashadow of a part of politics. This, as might be expected, is whollyunintelligible, both to Gorgias and Polus; and, in order to explain his meaningto them, Socrates draws a distinction between shadows or appearances andrealities; e.g. there is real health of body or soul, and the appearance ofthem; real arts and sciences, and the simulations of them. Now the soul andbody have two arts waiting upon them, first the art of politics, which attendson the soul, having a legislative part and a judicial part; and another artattending on the body, which has no generic name, but may also be described ashaving two divisions, one of which is medicine and the other gymnastic.Corresponding with these four arts or sciences there are four shams orsimulations of them, mere experiences, as they may be termed, because they giveno reason of their own existence. The art of dressing up is the sham orsimulation of gymnastic, the art of cookery, of medicine; rhetoric is thesimulation of justice, and sophistic of legislation. They may be summed up inan 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 thegratification which they procure, they become jumbled together and return totheir aboriginal chaos. Socrates apologizes for the length of his speech, whichwas necessary to the explanation of the subject, and begs Polus notunnecessarily 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 canthey not do whatever they desire?” They have no power, and they only dowhat they think best, and never what they desire; for they never attain thetrue object of desire, which is the good. “As if you, Socrates, would notenvy the possessor of despotic power, who can imprison, exile, kill any onewhom he pleases.” But Socrates replies that he has no wish to put any oneto death; he who kills another, even justly, is not to be envied, and he whokills him unjustly is to be pitied; it is better to suffer than to doinjustice. He does not consider that going about with a dagger and putting menout of the way, or setting a house on fire, is real power. To this Polusassents, on the ground that such acts would be punished, but he is still ofopinion that evil-doers, if they are unpunished, may be happy enough. Heinstances Archelaus, son of Perdiccas, the usurper of Macedonia. Does notSocrates think him happy?—Socrates would like to know more about him; hecannot pronounce even the great king to be happy, unless he knows his mentaland moral condition. Polus explains that Archelaus was a slave, being the sonof a woman who was the slave of Alcetas, brother of Perdiccas king ofMacedon—and he, by every species of crime, first murdering his uncle andthen his cousin and half-brother, obtained the kingdom. This was very wicked,and yet all the world, including Socrates, would like to have his place.Socrates dismisses the appeal to numbers; Polus, if he will, may summon all therich men of Athens, Nicias and his brothers, Aristocrates, the house ofPericles, or any other great family—this is the kind of evidence which isadduced in courts of justice, where truth depends upon numbers. But Socratesemploys proof of another sort; his appeal is to one witness only,—that isto say, the person with whom he is speaking; him he will convict out of his ownmouth. And he is prepared to show, after his manner, that Archelaus cannot be awicked man and yet happy.

The evil-doer is deemed happy if he escapes, and miserable if he sufferspunishment; but Socrates thinks him less miserable if he suffers than if heescapes. Polus is of opinion that such a paradox as this hardly deservesrefutation, and is at any rate sufficiently refuted by the fact. Socrates hasonly 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 thestate, is crucified or burnt to death. Socrates replies, that if they are bothcriminal they are both miserable, but that the unpunished is the more miserableof the two. At this Polus laughs outright, which leads Socrates to remark thatlaughter is a new species of refutation. Polus replies, that he is alreadyrefuted; for if he will take the votes of the company, he will find that no oneagrees with him. To this Socrates rejoins, that he is not a public man, and(referring to his own conduct at the trial of the generals after the battle ofArginusae) is unable to take the suffrages of any company, as he had shown on arecent occasion; he can only deal with one witness at a time, and that is theperson with whom he is arguing. But he is certain that in the opinion of anyman to do is worse than to suffer evil.

Polus, though he will not admit this, is ready to acknowledge that to do evilis considered the more foul or dishonourable of the two. But what is fair andwhat is foul; whether the terms are applied to bodies, colours, figures, laws,habits, studies, must they not be defined with reference to pleasure andutility? Polus assents to this latter doctrine, and is easily persuaded thatthe fouler of two things must exceed either in pain or in hurt. But the doingcannot 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 morehurtful than suffering.

There remains the other question: Is a guilty man better off when he ispunished or when he is unpunished? Socrates replies, that what is done justlyis suffered justly: if the act is just, the effect is just; if to punish isjust, to be punished is just, and therefore fair, and therefore beneficent; andthe benefit is that the soul is improved. There are three evils from which aman may suffer, and which affect him in estate, body, and soul;—theseare, poverty, disease, injustice; and the foulest of these is injustice, theevil of the soul, because that brings the greatest hurt. And there are threearts which heal these evils—trading, medicine, justice—and thefairest of these is justice. Happy is he who has never committed injustice, andhappy in the second degree he who has been healed by punishment. And thereforethe criminal should himself go to the judge as he would to the physician, andpurge away his crime. Rhetoric will enable him to display his guilt in propercolours, and to sustain himself and others in enduring the necessary penalty.And similarly if a man has an enemy, he will desire not to punish him, but thathe shall go unpunished and become worse and worse, taking care only that hedoes no injury to himself. These are at least conceivable uses of the art, andno others have been discovered by us.

Here Callicles, who has been listening in silent amazement, asks Chaerephonwhether Socrates is in earnest, and on receiving the assurance that he is,proceeds to ask the same question of Socrates himself. For if such doctrinesare true, life must have been turned upside down, and all of us are doing theopposite of what we ought to be doing.

Socrates replies in a style of playful irony, that before men can understandone another they must have some common feeling. And such a community of feelingexists between himself and Callicles, for both of them are lovers, and theyhave both a pair of loves; the beloved of Callicles are the Athenian Demos andDemos the son of Pyrilampes; the beloved of Socrates are Alcibiades andphilosophy. The peculiarity of Callicles is that he can never contradict hisloves; he changes as his Demos changes in all his opinions; he watches thecountenance of both his loves, and repeats their sentiments, and if any one issurprised at his sayings and doings, the explanation of them is, that he is nota free agent, but must always be imitating his two loves. And this is theexplanation of Socrates’ peculiarities also. He is always repeating whathis mistress, Philosophy, is saying to him, who unlike his other love,Alcibiades, is ever the same, ever true. Callicles must refute her, or he willnever be at unity with himself; and discord in life is far worse than thediscord of musical sounds.

Callicles answers, that Gorgias was overthrown because, as Polus said, incompliance with popular prejudice he had admitted that if his pupil did notknow justice the rhetorician must teach him; and Polus has been similarlyentangled, because his modesty led him to admit that to suffer is morehonourable than to do injustice. By custom “yes,” but not bynature, says Callicles. And Socrates is always playing between the two pointsof view, and putting one in the place of the other. In this very argument, whatPolus only meant in a conventional sense has been affirmed by him to be a lawof nature. For convention says that “injustice is dishonourable,”but nature says that “might is right.” And we are always tamingdown the nobler spirits among us to the conventional level. But sometimes agreat man will rise up and reassert his original rights, trampling under footall our formularies, and then the light of natural justice shines forth. Pindarsays, “Law, the king of all, does violence with high hand;” as isindeed proved by the example of Heracles, who drove off the oxen of Geryon andnever paid for them.

This is the truth, Socrates, as you will be convinced, if you leave philosophyand pass on to the real business of life. A little philosophy is an excellentthing; too much is the ruin of a man. He who has not “passed hismetaphysics” before he has grown up to manhood will never know the world.Philosophers are ridiculous when they take to politics, and I dare say thatpoliticians are equally ridiculous when they take to philosophy: “Everyman,” as Euripides says, “is fondest of that in which he isbest.” Philosophy is graceful in youth, like the lisp of infancy, andshould be cultivated as a part of education; but when a grown-up man lisps orstudies philosophy, I should like to beat him. None of those over-refinednatures ever come to any good; they avoid the busy haunts of men, and skulk incorners, whispering to a few admiring youths, and never giving utterance to anynoble sentiments.

For you, Socrates, I have a regard, and therefore I say to you, as Zethus saysto Amphion in the play, that you have “a noble soul disguised in apuerile exterior.” And I would have you consider the danger which you andother philosophers incur. For you would not know how to defend yourself if anyone accused you in a law-court,—there you would stand, with gaping mouthand dizzy brain, and might be murdered, robbed, boxed on the ears withimpunity. Take my advice, then, and get a little common sense; leave to othersthese frivolities; walk in the ways of the wealthy and be wise.

Socrates professes to have found in Callicles the philosopher’stouchstone; and he is certain that any opinion in which they both agree must bethe very truth. Callicles has all the three qualities which are needed in acritic—knowledge, good-will, frankness; Gorgias and Polus, althoughlearned men, were too modest, and their modesty made them contradictthemselves. But Callicles is well-educated; and he is not too modest to speakout (of this he has already given proof), and his good-will is shown both byhis own profession and by his giving the same caution against philosophy toSocrates, which Socrates remembers hearing him give long ago to his own cliqueof friends. He will pledge himself to retract any error into which he may havefallen, and which Callicles may point out. But he would like to know first ofall what he and Pindar mean by natural justice. Do they suppose that the ruleof justice is the rule of the stronger or of the better?” “There isno difference.” Then are not the many superior to the one, and theopinions of the many better? And their opinion is that justice is equality, andthat to do is more dishonourable than to suffer wrong. And as they are thesuperior or stronger, this opinion of theirs must be in accordance with naturalas well as conventional justice. “Why will you continue splitting words?Have I not told you that the superior is the better?” But what do youmean by the better? Tell me that, and please to be a little milder in yourlanguage, if you do not wish to drive me away. “I mean the worthier, thewiser.” You mean to say that one man of sense ought to rule over tenthousand fools? “Yes, that is my meaning.” Ought the physician thento 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 alwayssaying the same things, Socrates.” Yes, and on the same subjects too; butyou are never saying the same things. For, first, you defined the superior tobe the stronger, and then the wiser, and now something else;—what DO youmean? “I mean men of political ability, who ought to govern and to havemore than the governed.” Than themselves? “What do you mean?”I mean to say that every man is his own governor. “I see that you meanthose dolts, the temperate. But my doctrine is, that a man should let hisdesires grow, and take the means of satisfying them. To the many this isimpossible, and therefore they combine to prevent him. But if he is a king, andhas power, how base would he be in submitting to them! To invite the commonherd to be lord over him, when he might have the enjoyment of all things! Forthe truth is, Socrates, that luxury and self-indulgence are virtue andhappiness; all the rest is mere talk.”

Socrates compliments Callicles on his frankness in saying what other men onlythink. According to his view, those who want nothing are not happy.“Why,” says Callicles, “if they were, stones and the deadwould be happy.” Socrates in reply is led into a half-serious, half-comicvein of reflection. “Who knows,” as Euripides says, “whetherlife may not be death, and death life?” Nay, there are philosophers whomaintain that even in life we are dead, and that the body (soma) is the tomb(sema) of the soul. And some ingenious Sicilian has made an allegory, in whichhe represents fools as the uninitiated, who are supposed to be carrying waterto a vessel, which is full of holes, in a similarly holey sieve, and this sieveis their own soul. The idea is fanciful, but nevertheless is a figure of atruth which I want to make you acknowledge, viz. that the life of contentmentis better than the life of indulgence. Are you disposed to admit that?“Far otherwise.” Then hear another parable. The life ofself-contentment and self-indulgence may be represented respectively by twomen, who are filling jars with streams of wine, honey, milk,—the jars ofthe 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 them, and wouldsuffer extreme misery if he desisted. Are you of the same opinion still?“Yes, Socrates, and the figure expresses what I mean. For true pleasureis a perpetual stream, flowing in and flowing out. To be hungry and alwayseating, to be thirsty and always drinking, and to have all the other desiresand to satisfy them, that, as I admit, is my idea of happiness.” And tobe itching and always scratching? “I do not deny that there may behappiness even in that.” And to indulge unnatural desires, if they areabundantly satisfied? Callicles is indignant at the introduction of suchtopics. But he is reminded by Socrates that they are introduced, not by him,but by the maintainer of the identity of pleasure and good. Will Calliclesstill maintain this? “Yes, for the sake of consistency, he will.”The answer does not satisfy Socrates, who fears that he is losing histouchstone. A profession of seriousness on the part of Callicles reassures him,and they proceed with the argument. Pleasure and good are the same, butknowledge and courage are not the same either with pleasure or good, or withone another. Socrates disproves the first of these statements by showing thattwo opposites cannot coexist, but must alternate with one another—to bewell and ill together is impossible. But pleasure and pain are simultaneous,and the cessation of them is simultaneous; e.g. in the case of drinking andthirsting, whereas good and evil are not simultaneous, and do not ceasesimultaneously, and therefore pleasure cannot be the same as good.

Callicles has already lost his temper, and can only be persuaded to go on bythe interposition of Gorgias. Socrates, having already guarded againstobjections by distinguishing courage and knowledge from pleasure and good,proceeds:—The good are good by the presence of good, and the bad are badby the presence of evil. And the brave and wise are good, and the cowardly andfoolish are bad. And he who feels pleasure is good, and he who feels pain isbad, and both feel pleasure and pain in nearly the same degree, and sometimesthe bad man or coward in a greater degree. Therefore the bad man or coward isas good as the brave or may be even better.

Callicles endeavours now to avert the inevitable absurdity by affirming that heand all mankind admitted some pleasures to be good and others bad. The good arethe beneficial, and the bad are the hurtful, and we should choose the one andavoid the other. But this, as Socrates observes, is a return to the olddoctrine of himself and Polus, that all things should be done for the sake ofthe good.

Callicles assents to this, and Socrates, finding that they are agreed indistinguishing pleasure from good, returns to his old division of empiricalhabits, or shams, or flatteries, which study pleasure only, and the arts whichare concerned with the higher interests of soul and body. Does Callicles agreeto this division? Callicles will agree to anything, in order that he may getthrough the argument. Which of the arts then are flatteries? Flute-playing,harp-playing, choral exhibitions, the dithyrambics of Cinesias are all equallycondemned on the ground that they give pleasure only; and Meles theharp-player, who was the father of Cinesias, failed even in that. The statelymuse of Tragedy is bent upon pleasure, and not upon improvement. Poetry ingeneral is only a rhetorical address to a mixed audience of men, women, andchildren. And the orators are very far from speaking with a view to what isbest; 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 realregard for their fellow-citizens. Granted; then there are two species oforatory; 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 thatthere are none remaining, but there were such in the days when Themistocles,Cimon, Miltiades, and the great Pericles were still alive. Socrates repliesthat none of these were true artists, setting before themselves the duty ofbringing order out of disorder. The good man and true orator has a settleddesign, running through his life, to which he conforms all his words andactions; he desires to implant justice and eradicate injustice, to implant allvirtue and eradicate all vice in the minds of his citizens. He is the physicianwho will not allow the sick man to indulge his appetites with a variety ofmeats and drinks, but insists on his exercising self-restraint. And this isgood for the soul, and better than the unrestrained indulgence which Callicleswas recently approving.

Here Callicles, who had been with difficulty brought to this point, turnsrestive, and suggests that Socrates shall answer his own questions.“Then,” says Socrates, “one man must do for two;” andthough he had hoped to have given Callicles an “Amphion” in returnfor his “Zethus,” he is willing to proceed; at the same time, hehopes that Callicles will correct him, if he falls into error. He recapitulatesthe advantages which he has already won:—

The pleasant is not the same as the good—Callicles and I are agreed aboutthat,—but pleasure is to be pursued for the sake of the good, and thegood is that of which the presence makes us good; we and all things good haveacquired some virtue or other. And virtue, whether of body or soul, of thingsor persons, is not attained by accident, but is due to order and harmoniousarrangement. And the soul which has order is better than the soul which iswithout order, and is therefore temperate and is therefore good, and theintemperate 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 theintemperate whom you approve is the opposite of all this and is wretched. Hetherefore who would be happy must pursue temperance and avoid intemperance, andif possible escape the necessity of punishment, but if he have done wrong hemust endure punishment. In this way states and individuals should seek toattain harmony, which, as the wise tell us, is the bond of heaven and earth, ofgods and men. Callicles has never discovered the power of geometricalproportion 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 ofhappiness, then the paradox is true that the only use of rhetoric is inself-accusation, and Polus was right in saying that to do wrong is worse thanto suffer wrong, and Gorgias was right in saying that the rhetorician must be ajust man. And you were wrong in taunting me with my defenceless condition, andin saying that I might be accused or put to death or boxed on the ears withimpunity. For I may repeat once more, that to strike is worse than to bestricken—to do than to suffer. What I said then is now made fast inadamantine bonds. I myself know not the true nature of these things, but I knowthat no one can deny my words and not be ridiculous. To do wrong is thegreatest of evils, and to suffer wrong is the next greatest evil. He who wouldavoid the last must be a ruler, or the friend of a ruler; and to be the friendhe must be the equal of the ruler, and must also resemble him. Under hisprotection he will suffer no evil, but will he also do no evil? Nay, will henot rather do all the evil which he can and escape? And in this way thegreatest of all evils will befall him. “But this imitator of thetyrant,” rejoins Callicles, “will kill any one who does notsimilarly imitate him.” Socrates replies that he is not deaf, and that hehas heard that repeated many times, and can only reply, that a bad man willkill a good one. “Yes, and that is the provoking thing.” Notprovoking to a man of sense who is not studying the arts which will preservehim from danger; and this, as you say, is the use of rhetoric in courts ofjustice. But how many other arts are there which also save men from death, andare yet quite humble in their pretensions—such as the art of swimming, orthe art of the pilot? Does not the pilot do men at least as much service as therhetorician, and yet for the voyage from Aegina to Athens he does not chargemore than two obols, and when he disembarks is quite unassuming in hisdemeanour? The reason is that he is not certain whether he has done hispassengers any good in saving them from death, if one of them is diseased inbody, and still more if he is diseased in mind—who can say? The engineertoo will often save whole cities, and yet you despise him, and would not allowyour son to marry his daughter, or his son to marry yours. But what reason isthere in this? For if virtue only means the saving of life, whether your own oranother’s, you have no right to despise him or any practiser of savingarts. But is not virtue something different from saving and being saved? Iwould have you rather consider whether you ought not to disregard length oflife, and think only how you can live best, leaving all besides to the will ofHeaven. For you must not expect to have influence either with the AthenianDemos or with Demos the son of Pyrilampes, unless you become like them. What doyou say to this?

“There is some truth in what you are saying, but I do not entirelybelieve you.”

That is because you are in love with Demos. But let us have a little moreconversation. You remember the two processes—one which was directed topleasure, the other which was directed to making men as good as possible. Andthose who have the care of the city should make the citizens as good aspossible. But who would undertake a public building, if he had never had ateacher of the art of building, and had never constructed a building before? orwho would undertake the duty of state-physician, if he had never cured eitherhimself or any one else? Should we not examine him before we entrusted him withthe office? And as Callicles is about to enter public life, should we notexamine him? Whom has he made better? For we have already admitted that this isthe statesman’s proper business. And we must ask the same question aboutPericles, and Cimon, and Miltiades, and Themistocles. Whom did they makebetter? 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 todeath. Yet surely he would be a bad tamer of animals who, having received themgentle, taught them to kick and butt, and man is an animal; and Pericles whohad the charge of man only made him wilder, and more savage and unjust, andtherefore he could not have been a good statesman. The same tale might berepeated about Cimon, Themistocles, Miltiades. But the charioteer who keeps hisseat at first is not thrown out when he gains greater experience and skill. Theinference is, that the statesman of a past age were no better than those of ourown. They may have been cleverer constructors of docks and harbours, but theydid 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 betreated in two ways—there is the meaner and the higher art. You seemed tounderstand what I said at the time, but when I ask you who were the really goodstatesmen, you answer—as if I asked you who were the good trainers, andyou answered, Thearion, the baker, Mithoecus, the author of the Siciliancookery-book, Sarambus, the vintner. And you would be affronted if I told youthat these are a parcel of cooks who make men fat only to make them thin. Andthose whom they have fattened applaud them, instead of finding fault with them,and lay the blame of their subsequent disorders on their physicians. In thisrespect, Callicles, you are like them; you applaud the statesmen of old, whopandered to the vices of the citizens, and filled the city with docks andharbours, but neglected virtue and justice. And when the fit of illness comes,the citizens who in like manner applauded Themistocles, Pericles, and others,will lay hold of you and my friend Alcibiades, and you will suffer for themisdeeds of your predecessors. The old story is always beingrepeated—“after all his services, the ungrateful city banished him,or condemned him to death.” As if the statesman should not have taughtthe 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 theycheat him. And the sophist and orator are in the same case; although you admirerhetoric and despise sophistic, whereas sophistic is really the higher of thetwo. The teacher of the arts takes money, but the teacher of virtue or politicstakes no money, because this is the only kind of service which makes thedisciple desirous of requiting his teacher.

Socrates concludes by finally asking, to which of the two modes of serving thestate Callicles invites him:—“to the inferior and ministerialone,” is the ingenuous reply. That is the only way of avoiding death,replies Socrates; and he has heard often enough, and would rather not hearagain, that the bad man will kill the good. But he thinks that such a fate isvery likely reserved for him, because he remarks that he is the only person whoteaches the true art of politics. And very probably, as in the case which hedescribed 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 onecharges him with perplexing them, or with reviling their elders, he will not beable to make them understand that he has only been actuated by a desire fortheir good. And therefore there is no saying what his fate may be. “Anddo you think that a man who is unable to help himself is in a goodcondition?” Yes, Callicles, if he have the true self-help, which is neverto have said or done any wrong to himself or others. If I had not this kind ofself-help, I should be ashamed; but if I die for want of your flatteringrhetoric, I shall die in peace. For death is no evil, but to go to the worldbelow laden with offences is the worst of evils. In proof of which I will tellyou a tale:—

Under the rule of Cronos, men were judged on the day of their death, and whenjudgment had been given upon them they departed—the good to the islandsof 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 wasfavouritism, and Zeus, when he came to the throne, was obliged to alter themode of procedure, and try them after death, having first sent down Prometheusto take away from them the foreknowledge of death. Minos, Rhadamanthus, andAeacus were appointed to be the judges; Rhadamanthus for Asia, Aeacus forEurope, and Minos was to hold the court of appeal. Now death is the separationof soul and body, but after death soul and body alike retain theircharacteristics; the fat man, the dandy, the branded slave, are alldistinguishable. Some prince or potentate, perhaps even the great king himself,appears before Rhadamanthus, and he instantly detects him, though he knows notwho he is; he sees the scars of perjury and iniquity, and sends him away to thehouse of torment.

For there are two classes of souls who undergo punishment—the curable andthe incurable. The curable are those who are benefited by their punishment; theincurable are such as Archelaus, who benefit others by becoming a warning tothem. The latter class are generally kings and potentates; meaner persons,happily for themselves, have not the same power of doing injustice. Sisyphusand Tityus, not Thersites, are supposed by Homer to be undergoing everlastingpunishment. Not that there is anything to prevent a great man from being a goodone, as is shown by the famous example of Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus.But to Rhadamanthus the souls are only known as good or bad; they are strippedof their dignities and preferments; he despatches the bad to Tartarus, labelledeither as curable or incurable, and looks with love and admiration on the soulof some just one, whom he sends to the islands of the blest. Similar is thepractice of Aeacus; and Minos overlooks them, holding a golden sceptre, asOdysseus 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 soulsundefiled to the judge in that day; my desire in life is to be able to meetdeath. And I exhort you, and retort upon you the reproach which you cast uponme,—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 thethree wisest men in Hellas, have nothing better to say, and no one will evershow that to do is better than to suffer evil. A man should study to be, andnot merely to seem. If he is bad, he should become good, and avoid allflattery, whether of the many or of the few.

Follow me, then; and if you are looked down upon, that will do you no harm. Andwhen we have practised virtue, we will betake ourselves to politics, but notuntil we are delivered from the shameful state of ignorance and uncertainty inwhich we are at present. Let us follow in the way of virtue and justice, andnot in the way to which you, Callicles, invite us; for that way is nothingworth.

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 hiswritings, we may compare him with himself, and with other great teachers, andwe may note in passing the objections of his critics. And then (2) casting oneeye upon him, we may cast another upon ourselves, and endeavour to draw out thegreat lessons which he teaches for all time, stripped of the accidental form inwhich they are enveloped.

(1) In the Gorgias, as in nearly all the other dialogues of Plato, we are madeaware that formal logic has as yet no existence. The old difficulty of framinga definition recurs. The illusive analogy of the arts and the virtues alsocontinues. The ambiguity of several words, such as nature, custom, thehonourable, the good, is not cleared up. The Sophists are still flounderingabout the distinction of the real and seeming. Figures of speech are made thebasis of arguments. The possibility of conceiving a universal art or science,which admits of application to a particular subject-matter, is a difficultywhich remains unsolved, and has not altogether ceased to haunt the world at thepresent day (compare Charmides). The defect of clearness is also apparent inSocrates himself, unless we suppose him to be practising on the simplicity ofhis opponent, or rather perhaps trying an experiment in dialectics. Nothing canbe more fallacious than the contradiction which he pretends to have discoveredin the answers of Gorgias (see above). The advantages which he gains over Polusare also due to a false antithesis of pleasure and good, and to an erroneousassertion that an agent and a patient may be described by similarpredicates;—a mistake which Aristotle partly shares and partly correctsin the Nicomachean Ethics. Traces of a “robust sophistry” arelikewise discernible in his argument with Callicles.

(2) Although Socrates professes to be convinced by reason only, yet theargument is often a sort of dialectical fiction, by which he conducts himselfand others to his own ideal of life and action. And we may sometimes wish thatwe could have suggested answers to his antagonists, or pointed out to them therocks which lay concealed under the ambiguous terms good, pleasure, and thelike. But it would be as useless to examine his arguments by the requirementsof modern logic, as to criticise this ideal from a merely utilitarian point ofview. If we say that the ideal is generally regarded as unattainable, and thatmankind will by no means agree in thinking that the criminal is happier whenpunished than when unpunished, any more than they would agree to the stoicalparadox that a man may be happy on the rack, Plato has already admitted thatthe world is against him. Neither does he mean to say that Archelaus istormented by the stings of conscience; or that the sensations of the impaledcriminal are more agreeable than those of the tyrant drowned in luxuriousenjoyment. Neither is he speaking, as in the Protagoras, of virtue as acalculation of pleasure, an opinion which he afterwards repudiates in thePhaedo. What then is his meaning? His meaning we shall be able to illustratebest by parallel notions, which, whether justifiable by logic or not, havealways existed among mankind. We must remind the reader that Socrates himselfimplies that he will be understood or appreciated by very few.

He is speaking not of the consciousness of happiness, but of the idea ofhappiness. 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 physicalsuffering is always compensated by a mental satisfaction. Still we regard themas happy, and we would a thousand times rather have their death than a shamefullife. Nor is this only because we believe that they will obtain an immortalityof fame, or that they will have crowns of glory in another world, when theirenemies and persecutors will be proportionably tormented. Men are found in afew instances to do what is right, without reference to public opinion or toconsequences. And we regard them as happy on this ground only, much asSocrates’ friends in the opening of the Phaedo are described as regardinghim; or as was said of another, “they looked upon his face as upon theface of an angel.” We are not concerned to justify this idealism by thestandard of utility or public opinion, but merely to point out the existence ofsuch a sentiment in the better part of human nature.

The idealism of Plato is founded upon this sentiment. He would maintain that insome sense or other truth and right are alone to be sought, and that all othergoods 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 ofothers, 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 tothe common understanding as Plato’s conception of happiness. For thegreatest happiness of the greatest number may mean also the greatest pain ofthe individual which will procure the greatest pleasure of the greatest number.Ideas of utility, like those of duty and right, may be pushed to unpleasantconsequences. Nor can Plato in the Gorgias be deemed purely self-regarding,considering that Socrates expressly mentions the duty of imparting the truthwhen discovered to others. Nor must we forget that the side of ethics whichregards others is by the ancients merged in politics. Both in Plato andAristotle, as well as in the Stoics, the social principle, though takinganother form, is really far more prominent than in most modern treatises onethics.

The idealizing of suffering is one of the conceptions which have exercised thegreatest influence on mankind. Into the theological import of this, or into theconsideration of the errors to which the idea may have given rise, we need notnow enter. All will agree that the ideal of the Divine Sufferer, whose wordsthe world would not receive, the man of sorrows of whom the Hebrew prophetsspoke, has sunk deep into the heart of the human race. It is a similar pictureof suffering goodness which Plato desires to pourtray, not without an allusionto 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, heendeavours to show that his happiness would be assured here in a well-orderedstate. But in the actual condition of human things the wise and good are weakand miserable; such an one is like a man fallen among wild beasts, exposed toevery sort of wrong and obloquy.

Plato, like other philosophers, is thus led on to the conclusion, that if“the ways of God” to man are to be “justified,” thehopes of another life must be included. If the question could have been put tohim, whether a man dying in torments was happy still, even if, as he suggestsin the Apology, “death be only a long sleep,” we can hardly tellwhat would have been his answer. There have been a few, who, quiteindependently of rewards and punishments or of posthumous reputation, or anyother influence of public opinion, have been willing to sacrifice their livesfor the good of others. It is difficult to say how far in such cases anunconscious hope of a future life, or a general faith in the victory of good inthe world, may have supported the sufferers. But this extreme idealism is notin accordance with the spirit of Plato. He supposes a day of retribution, inwhich the good are to be rewarded and the wicked punished. Though, as he saysin the Phaedo, no man of sense will maintain that the details of the storiesabout another world are true, he will insist that something of the kind istrue, and will frame his life with a view to this unknown future. Even in theRepublic he introduces a future life as an afterthought, when the superiorhappiness of the just has been established on what is thought to be animmutable foundation. At the same time he makes a point of determining his mainthesis independently of remoter consequences.

(3) Plato’s theory of punishment is partly vindictive, partly corrective.In the Gorgias, as well as in the Phaedo and Republic, a few great criminals,chiefly tyrants, are reserved as examples. But most men have never had theopportunity of attaining this pre-eminence of evil. They are not incurable, andtheir punishment is intended for their improvement. They are to suffer becausethey 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 theanalogy of disease and injustice is partial only, and that suffering, insteadof improving men, may have just the opposite effect.

Like the general analogy of the arts and the virtues, the analogy of diseaseand injustice, or of medicine and justice, is certainly imperfect. But ideasmust be given through something; the nature of the mind which is unseen canonly be represented under figures derived from visible objects. If thesefigures are suggestive of some new aspect under which the mind may beconsidered, we cannot find fault with them for not exactly coinciding with theideas represented. They partake of the imperfect nature of language, and mustnot be construed in too strict a manner. That Plato sometimes reasons from themas if they were not figures but realities, is due to the defective logicalanalysis of his age.

Nor does he distinguish between the suffering which improves and the sufferingwhich only punishes and deters. He applies to the sphere of ethics a conceptionof punishment which is really derived from criminal law. He does not see thatsuch punishment is only negative, and supplies no principle of moral growth ordevelopment. He is not far off the higher notion of an education of man to bebegun in this world, and to be continued in other stages of existence, which isfurther developed in the Republic. And Christian thinkers, who have venturedout 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 inwhat way punishment is to contribute to the improvement of mankind. He has notfollowed out the principle which he affirms in the Republic, that “God isthe author of evil only with a view to good,” and that “they werethe better for being punished.” Still his doctrine of a future state ofrewards and punishments may be compared favourably with that perversion ofChristian doctrine which makes the everlasting punishment of human beingsdepend on a brief moment of time, or even on the accident of an accident. Andhe has escaped the difficulty which has often beset divines, respecting thefuture destiny of the meaner sort of men (Thersites and the like), who areneither very good nor very bad, by not counting them worthy of eternaldamnation.

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 hisvision, or did not come within the scope of his design. The main purpose of theGorgias is not to answer questions about a future world, but to place inantagonism the true and false life, and to contrast the judgments and opinionsof men with judgment according to the truth. Plato may be accused ofrepresenting a superhuman or transcendental virtue in the description of thejust man in the Gorgias, or in the companion portrait of the philosopher in theTheaetetus; and at the same time may be thought to be condemning a state of theworld which always has existed and always will exist among men. But such idealsact powerfully on the imagination of mankind. And such condemnations are notmere paradoxes of philosophers, but the natural rebellion of the higher senseof right in man against the ordinary conditions of human life. The greateststatesmen have fallen very far short of the political ideal, and are thereforejustly involved in the general condemnation.

Subordinate to the main purpose of the dialogue are some other questions, whichmay be briefly considered:—

a. The antithesis of good and pleasure, which as in other dialogues is supposedto consist in the permanent nature of the one compared with the transient andrelative nature of the other. Good and pleasure, knowledge and sense, truth andopinion, essence and generation, virtue and pleasure, the real and theapparent, the infinite and finite, harmony or beauty and discord, dialectic andrhetoric or poetry, are so many pairs of opposites, which in Plato easily passinto one another, and are seldom kept perfectly distinct. And we must notforget that Plato’s conception of pleasure is the Heracleitean fluxtransferred to the sphere of human conduct. There is some degree of unfairnessin opposing the principle of good, which is objective, to the principle ofpleasure, which is subjective. For the assertion of the permanence of good isonly based on the assumption of its objective character. Had Plato fixed hismind, not on the ideal nature of good, but on the subjective consciousness ofhappiness, that would have been found to be as transient and precarious aspleasure.

b. The arts or sciences, when pursued without any view to truth, or theimprovement of human life, are called flatteries. They are all alike dependentupon the opinion of mankind, from which they are derived. To Plato the wholeworld appears to be sunk in error, based on self-interest. To this is opposedthe one wise man hardly professing to have found truth, yet strong in theconviction that a virtuous life is the only good, whether regarded withreference 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 callscience is merely the result of that study of the tempers of the Great Beast,which he describes in the Republic.

c. Various other points of contact naturally suggest themselves between theGorgias and other dialogues, especially the Republic, the Philebus, and theProtagoras. There are closer resemblances both of spirit and language in theRepublic than in any other dialogue, the verbal similarity tending to show thatthey were written at the same period of Plato’s life. For the Republicsupplies that education and training of which the Gorgias suggests thenecessity. The theory of the many weak combining against the few strong in theformation of society (which is indeed a partial truth), is similar in both ofthem, and is expressed in nearly the same language. The sufferings and fate ofthe just man, the powerlessness of evil, and the reversal of the situation inanother life, are also points of similarity. The poets, like the rhetoricians,are condemned because they aim at pleasure only, as in the Republic they areexpelled by the State, because they are imitators, and minister to the weakerside of human nature. That poetry is akin to rhetoric may be compared with theanalogous notion, which occurs in the Protagoras, that the ancient poets werethe Sophists of their day. In some other respects the Protagoras rather offersa contrast than a parallel. The character of Protagoras may be compared withthat of Gorgias, but the conception of happiness is different in the twodialogues; 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 thePhilebus. 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. Forinnocent pleasures, and such as have no antecedent pains, are allowed to rankin the class of goods. The allusion to Gorgias’ definition of rhetoric(Philebus; compare Gorg.), as the art of persuasion, of all arts the best, forto it all things submit, not by compulsion, but of their own freewill—marks a close and perhaps designed connection between the twodialogues. In both the ideas of measure, order, harmony, are the connectinglinks between the beautiful and the good.

In general spirit and character, that is, in irony and antagonism to publicopinion, the Gorgias most nearly resembles the Apology, Crito, and portions ofthe Republic, and like the Philebus, though from another point of view, may bethought to stand in the same relation to Plato’s theory of morals whichthe Theaetetus bears to his theory of knowledge.

d. A few minor points still remain to be summed up: (1) The extravagant ironyin the reason which is assigned for the pilot’s modest charge; and in theproposed use of rhetoric as an instrument of self-condemnation; and in themighty power of geometrical equality in both worlds. (2) The reference of themythus to the previous discussion should not be overlooked: the fate reservedfor incurable criminals such as Archelaus; the retaliation of the box on theears; the nakedness of the souls and of the judges who are stript of theclothes or disguises which rhetoric and public opinion have hitherto providedfor them (compare Swift’s notion that the universe is a suit of clothes,Tale of a Tub). The fiction seems to have involved Plato in the necessity ofsupposing that the soul retained a sort of corporeal likeness after death. (3)The appeal of the authority of Homer, who says that Odysseus saw Minos in hiscourt “holding a golden sceptre,” which gives verisimilitude to thetale.

It is scarcely necessary to repeat that Plato is playing “both sides ofthe game,” and that in criticising the characters of Gorgias and Polus,we are not passing any judgment on historical individuals, but only attemptingto analyze the “dramatis personae’ as they were conceived by him.Neither is it necessary to enlarge upon the obvious fact that Plato is adramatic writer, whose real opinions cannot always be assumed to be those whichhe puts into the mouth of Socrates, or any other speaker who appears to havethe best of the argument; or to repeat the observation that he is a poet aswell as a philosopher; or to remark that he is not to be tried by a modernstandard, but interpreted with reference to his place in the history of thoughtand the opinion of his time.

It has been said that the most characteristic feature of the Gorgias is theassertion of the right of dissent, or private judgment. But this mode ofstating the question is really opposed both to the spirit of Plato and ofancient philosophy generally. For Plato is not asserting any abstract right orduty of toleration, or advantage to be derived from freedom of thought; indeed,in some other parts of his writings (e.g. Laws), he has fairly laid himselfopen to the charge of intolerance. No speculations had as yet arisen respectingthe “liberty of prophesying;’ and Plato is not affirming anyabstract right of this nature: but he is asserting the duty and right of theone wise and true man to dissent from the folly and falsehood of the many. Atthe same time he acknowledges the natural result, which he hardly seeks toavert, 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 hesoars. When declaring truths which the many will not receive, he puts on anarmour which cannot be pierced by them. The weapons of ridicule are taken outof their hands and the laugh is turned against themselves. The disguises whichSocrates assumes are like the parables of the New Testament, or the oracles ofthe Delphian God; they half conceal, half reveal, his meaning. The more he isin earnest, the more ironical he becomes; and he is never more in earnest ormore ironical than in the Gorgias. He hardly troubles himself to answerseriously the objections of Gorgias and Polus, and therefore he sometimesappears to be careless of the ordinary requirements of logic. Yet in thehighest sense he is always logical and consistent with himself. The form of theargument 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 wordsof philosophers, when they are first uttered, have found the world unpreparedfor 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 jestingwhen he is profoundly serious. At length he makes even Polus in earnest.Finally, he drops the argument, and heedless any longer of the forms ofdialectic, he loses himself in a sort of triumph, while at the same time heretaliates upon his adversaries. From this confusion of jest and earnest, wemay now return to the ideal truth, and draw out in a simple form the maintheses of the dialogue.

First Thesis:—

It is a greater evil to do than to suffer injustice.

Compare the New Testament—

“It is better to suffer for well doing than for evildoing.”—1 Pet.

And the Sermon on the Mount—

“Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness’sake.”—Matt.

The words of Socrates are more abstract than the words of Christ, but theyequally imply that the only real evil is moral evil. The righteous may sufferor die, but they have their reward; and even if they had no reward, would behappier than the wicked. The world, represented by Polus, is ready, when theyare asked, to acknowledge that injustice is dishonourable, and for their ownsakes men are willing to punish the offender (compare Republic). But they arenot equally willing to acknowledge that injustice, even if successful, isessentially evil, and has the nature of disease and death. Especially whencrimes are committed on the great scale—the crimes of tyrants, ancient ormodern—after a while, seeing that they cannot be undone, and have becomea part of history, mankind are disposed to forgive them, not from anymagnanimity or charity, but because their feelings are blunted by time, and“to forgive is convenient to them.” The tangle of good and evil canno longer be unravelled; and although they know that the end cannot justify themeans, they feel also that good has often come out of evil. But Socrates wouldhave us pass the same judgment on the tyrant now and always; though he issurrounded by his satellites, and has the applauses of Europe and Asia ringingin his ears; though he is the civilizer or liberator of half a continent, heis, and always will be, the most miserable of men. The greatest consequencesfor good or for evil cannot alter a hair’s breadth the morality ofactions which are right or wrong in themselves. This is the standard whichSocrates holds up to us. Because politics, and perhaps human life generally,are of a mixed nature we must not allow our principles to sink to the level ofour practice.

And so of private individuals—to them, too, the world occasionally speaksof the consequences of their actions:—if they are lovers of pleasure,they will ruin their health; if they are false or dishonest, they will losetheir character. But Socrates would speak to them, not of what will be, but ofwhat is—of the present consequence of lowering and degrading the soul.And all higher natures, or perhaps all men everywhere, if they were not temptedby interest or passion, would agree with him—they would rather be thevictims than the perpetrators of an act of treachery or of tyranny. Reasontells them that death comes sooner or later to all, and is not so great an evilas an unworthy life, or rather, if rightly regarded, not an evil at all, but toa good man the greatest good. For in all of us there are slumbering ideals oftruth and right, which may at any time awaken and develop a new life in us.

Second Thesis:—

It is better to suffer for wrong doing than not to suffer.

There might have been a condition of human life in which the penalty followedat once, and was proportioned to the offence. Moral evil would then be scarcelydistinguishable from physical; mankind would avoid vice as they avoid pain ordeath. But nature, with a view of deepening and enlarging our characters, hasfor the most part hidden from us the consequences of our actions, and we canonly foresee them by an effort of reflection. To awaken in us this habit ofreflection is the business of early education, which is continued in matureryears by observation and experience. The spoilt child is in later life said tobe unfortunate—he had better have suffered when he was young, and beensaved from suffering afterwards. But is not the sovereign equally unfortunatewhose education and manner of life are always concealing from him theconsequences of his own actions, until at length they are revealed to him insome terrible downfall, which may, perhaps, have been caused not by his ownfault? Another illustration is afforded by the pauper and criminal classes, whoscarcely reflect at all, except on the means by which they can compass theirimmediate ends. We pity them, and make allowances for them; but we do notconsider that the same principle applies to human actions generally. Not tohave been found out in some dishonesty or folly, regarded from a moral orreligious point of view, is the greatest of misfortunes. The success of ourevil doings is a proof that the gods have ceased to strive with us, and havegiven us over to ourselves. There is nothing to remind us of our sins, andtherefore nothing to correct them. Like our sorrows, they are healed by time;

“While rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen.”

The “accustomed irony” of Socrates adds a corollary to theargument:—“Would you punish your enemy, you should allow him toescape unpunished”—this is the true retaliation. (Compare theobscure verse of Proverbs, “Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feedhim,” etc., quoted in Romans.)

Men are not in the habit of dwelling upon the dark side of their own lives:they do not easily see themselves as others see them. They are very kind andvery blind to their own faults; the rhetoric of self-love is always pleadingwith them on their own behalf. Adopting a similar figure of speech, Socrateswould have them use rhetoric, not in defence but in accusation of themselves.As they are guided by feeling rather than by reason, to their feelings theappeal must be made. They must speak to themselves; they must argue withthemselves; they must paint in eloquent words the character of their own evildeeds. To any suffering which they have deserved, they must persuade themselvesto submit. Under the figure there lurks a real thought, which, expressed inanother form, admits of an easy application to ourselves. For do not we tooaccuse as well as excuse ourselves? And we call to our aid the rhetoric ofprayer and preaching, which the mind silently employs while the strugglebetween the better and the worse is going on within us. And sometimes we aretoo hard upon ourselves, because we want to restore the balance which self-lovehas overthrown or disturbed; and then again we may hear a voice as of a parentconsoling us. In religious diaries a sort of drama is often enacted by theconsciences of men “accusing or else excusing them.” For all ourlife long we are talking with ourselves:—What is thought but speech? Whatis feeling but rhetoric? And if rhetoric is used on one side only we shall bealways in danger of being deceived. And so the words of Socrates, which atfirst sounded paradoxical, come home to the experience of all of us.

Third Thesis:—

We do not what we will, but what we wish.

Socrates would teach us a lesson which we are slow to learn—that goodintentions, and even benevolent actions, when they are not prompted by wisdom,are of no value. We believe something to be for our good which we afterwardsfind out not to be for our good. The consequences may be inevitable, for theymay follow an invariable law, yet they may often be the very opposite of whatis expected by us. When we increase pauperism by almsgiving; when we tie upproperty without regard to changes of circumstances; when we say hastily whatwe deliberately disapprove; when we do in a moment of passion what uponreflection we regret; when from any want of self-control we give another anadvantage over us—we are doing not what we will, but what we wish. Allactions of which the consequences are not weighed and foreseen, are of thisimpotent and paralytic sort; and the author of them has “the leastpossible power” while seeming to have the greatest. For he is actuallybringing about the reverse of what he intended. And yet the book of nature isopen to him, in which he who runs may read if he will exercise ordinaryattention; every day offers him experiences of his own and of other men’scharacters, and he passes them unheeded by. The contemplation of theconsequences of actions, and the ignorance of men in regard to them, seems tohave led Socrates to his famous thesis:—“Virtue isknowledge;” which is not so much an error or paradox as a half truth,seen first in the twilight of ethical philosophy, but also the half of thetruth which is especially needed in the present age. For as the world has grownolder men have been too apt to imagine a right and wrong apart fromconsequences; while a few, on the other hand, have sought to resolve themwholly into their consequences. But Socrates, or Plato for him, neither dividesnor identifies them; though the time has not yet arrived either for utilitarianor transcendental systems of moral philosophy, he recognizes the two elementswhich seem to lie at the basis of morality. (Compare the following: “Now,and for us, it is a time to Hellenize and to praise knowing; for we haveHebraized too much and have overvalued doing. But the habits and disciplinereceived from Hebraism remain for our race an eternal possession. And ashumanity is constituted, one must never assign the second rank to-day withoutbeing ready to restore them to the first to-morrow.” Sir William W.Hunter, Preface to Orissa.)

Fourth Thesis:—

To be and not to seem is the end of life.

The Greek in the age of Plato admitted praise to be one of the chief incentivesto moral virtue, and to most men the opinion of their fellows is a leadingprinciple of action. Hence a certain element of seeming enters into all things;all or almost all desire to appear better than they are, that they may win theesteem or admiration of others. A man of ability can easily feign the languageof piety or virtue; and there is an unconscious as well as a conscioushypocrisy which, according to Socrates, is the worst of the two. Again, thereis the sophistry of classes and professions. There are the different opinionsabout themselves and one another which prevail in different ranks of society.There is the bias given to the mind by the study of one department of humanknowledge to the exclusion of the rest; and stronger far the prejudiceengendered by a pecuniary or party interest in certain tenets. There is thesophistry of law, the sophistry of medicine, the sophistry of politics, thesophistry of theology. All of these disguises wear the appearance of the truth;some of them are very ancient, and we do not easily disengage ourselves fromthem; for we have inherited them, and they have become a part of us. Thesophistry of an ancient Greek sophist is nothing compared with the sophistry ofa religious order, or of a church in which during many ages falsehood has beenaccumulating, and everything has been said on one side, and nothing on theother. The conventions and customs which we observe in conversation, and theopposition of our interests when we have dealings with one another (“thebuyer saith, it is nought—it is nought,” etc.), are alwaysobscuring our sense of truth and right. The sophistry of human nature is farmore subtle than the deceit of any one man. Few persons speak freely from theirown natures, and scarcely any one dares to think for himself: most of usimperceptibly fall into the opinions of those around us, which we partly helpto make. A man who would shake himself loose from them, requires great force ofmind; he hardly knows where to begin in the search after truth. On every sidehe is met by the world, which is not an abstraction of theologians, but themost real of all things, being another name for ourselves when regardedcollectively and subjected to the influences of society.

Then comes Socrates, impressed as no other man ever was, with the unreality anduntruthfulness of popular opinion, and tells mankind that they must be and notseem. How are they to be? At any rate they must have the spirit and desire tobe. If they are ignorant, they must acknowledge their ignorance to themselves;if they are conscious of doing evil, they must learn to do well; if they areweak, and have nothing in them which they can call themselves, they mustacquire firmness and consistency; if they are indifferent, they must begin totake an interest in the great questions which surround them. They must try tobe what they would fain appear in the eyes of their fellow-men. A singleindividual cannot easily change public opinion; but he can be true andinnocent, simple and independent; he can know what he does, and what he doesnot know; and though not without an effort, he can form a judgment of his own,at least in common matters. In his most secret actions he can show the samehigh principle (compare Republic) which he shows when supported and watched bypublic opinion. And on some fitting occasion, on some question of humanity ortruth or right, even an ordinary man, from the natural rectitude of hisdisposition, may be found to take up arms against a whole tribe of politiciansand lawyers, and be too much for them.

Who is the true and who the false statesman?—

The true statesman is he who brings order out of disorder; who first organizesand then administers the government of his own country; and having made anation, seeks to reconcile the national interests with those of Europe and ofmankind. He is not a mere theorist, nor yet a dealer in expedients; the wholeand the parts grow together in his mind; while the head is conceiving, the handis executing. Although obliged to descend to the world, he is not of the world.His thoughts are fixed not on power or riches or extension of territory, but onan ideal state, in which all the citizens have an equal chance of health andlife, and the highest education is within the reach of all, and the moral andintellectual qualities of every individual are freely developed, and “theidea of good” is the animating principle of the whole. Not the attainmentof freedom alone, or of order alone, but how to unite freedom with order is theproblem which he has to solve.

The statesman who places before himself these lofty aims has undertaken a taskwhich will call forth all his powers. He must control himself before he cancontrol others; he must know mankind before he can manage them. He has noprivate likes or dislikes; he does not conceal personal enmity under thedisguise of moral or political principle: such meannesses, into which men toooften fall unintentionally, are absorbed in the consciousness of his mission,and in his love for his country and for mankind. He will sometimes ask himselfwhat the next generation will say of him; not because he is careful ofposthumous fame, but because he knows that the result of his life as a wholewill then be more fairly judged. He will take time for the execution of hisplans; not hurrying them on when the mind of a nation is unprepared for them;but like the Ruler of the Universe Himself, working in the appointed time, forhe knows that human life, “if not long in comparison with eternity”(Republic), is sufficient for the fulfilment of many great purposes. He knows,too, that the work will be still going on when he is no longer here; and hewill sometimes, especially when his powers are failing, think of that other“city of which the pattern is in heaven” (Republic).

The false politician is the serving-man of the state. In order to govern men hebecomes like them; their “minds are married in conjunction;” they“bear themselves” like vulgar and tyrannical masters, and he istheir obedient servant. The true politician, if he would rule men, must makethem like himself; he must “educate his party” until they cease tobe a party; he must breathe into them the spirit which will hereafter give formto their institutions. Politics with him are not a mechanism for seeming whathe is not, or for carrying out the will of the majority. Himself arepresentative man, he is the representative not of the lower but of the higherelements of the nation. There is a better (as well as a worse) public opinionof which he seeks to lay hold; as there is also a deeper current of humanaffairs in which he is borne up when the waves nearer the shore are threateninghim. He acknowledges that he cannot take the world by force—two or threemoves on the political chess board are all that he can fore see—two orthree weeks moves on the political chessboard are all that he canforesee—two or three weeks or months are granted to him in which he canprovide against a coming struggle. But he knows also that there are permanentprinciples of politics which are always tending to the well-being ofstates—better administration, better education, the reconciliation ofconflicting elements, increased security against external enemies. These arenot “of to-day or yesterday,” but are the same in all times, andunder all forms of government. Then when the storm descends and the winds blow,though he knows not beforehand the hour of danger, the pilot, not likePlato’s captain in the Republic, half-blind and deaf, but withpenetrating eye and quick ear, is ready to take command of the ship and guideher into port.

The false politician asks not what is true, but what is the opinion of theworld—not what is right, but what is expedient. The only measures ofwhich he approves are the measures which will pass. He has no intention offighting an uphill battle; he keeps the roadway of politics. He is unwilling toincur the persecution and enmity which political convictions would entail uponhim. He begins with popularity, and in fair weather sails gallantly along. Butunpopularity soon follows him. For men expect their leaders to be better andwiser than themselves: to be their guides in danger, their saviours inextremity; they do not really desire them to obey all the ignorant impulses ofthe popular mind; and if they fail them in a crisis they are disappointed.Then, as Socrates says, the cry of ingratitude is heard, which is mostunreasonable; for the people, who have been taught no better, have done whatmight be expected of them, and their statesmen have received justice at theirhands.

The true statesman is aware that he must adapt himself to times andcircumstances. He must have allies if he is to fight against the world; he mustenlighten public opinion; he must accustom his followers to act together.Although he is not the mere executor of the will of the majority, he must winover the majority to himself. He is their leader and not their follower, but inorder to lead he must also follow. He will neither exaggerate nor undervaluethe power of a statesman, neither adopting the “laissez faire” northe “paternal government” principle; but he will, whether he isdealing with children in politics, or with full-grown men, seek to do for thepeople what the government can do for them, and what, from imperfect educationor deficient powers of combination, they cannot do for themselves. He knowsthat if he does too much for them they will do nothing; and that if he doesnothing for them they will in some states of society be utterly helpless. Forthe many cannot exist without the few, if the material force of a country isfrom below, wisdom and experience are from above. It is not a small part ofhuman evils which kings and governments make or cure. The statesman is wellaware that a great purpose carried out consistently during many years will atlast be executed. He is playing for a stake which may be partly determined bysome accident, and therefore he will allow largely for the unknown element ofpolitics. But the game being one in which chance and skill are combined, if heplays long enough he is certain of victory. He will not be always consistent,for the world is changing; and though he depends upon the support of a party,he will remember that he is the minister of the whole. He lives not for thepresent, but for the future, and he is not at all sure that he will beappreciated either now or then. For he may have the existing order of societyagainst him, and may not be remembered by a distant posterity.

There are always discontented idealists in politics who, like Socrates in theGorgias, find fault with all statesmen past as well as present, not exceptingthe greatest names of history. Mankind have an uneasy feeling that they oughtto be better governed than they are. Just as the actual philosopher falls shortof the one wise man, so does the actual statesman fall short of the ideal. Andso partly from vanity and egotism, but partly also from a true sense of thefaults of eminent men, a temper of dissatisfaction and criticism springs upamong those who are ready enough to acknowledge the inferiority of their ownpowers. No matter whether a statesman makes high professions or none atall—they are reduced sooner or later to the same level. And sometimes themore unscrupulous man is better esteemed than the more conscientious, becausehe has not equally deceived expectations. Such sentiments may be unjust, butthey are widely spread; we constantly find them recurring in reviews andnewspapers, and still oftener in private conversation.

We may further observe that the art of government, while in some respectstending to improve, has in others a tendency to degenerate, as institutionsbecome more popular. Governing for the people cannot easily be combined withgoverning by the people: the interests of classes are too strong for the ideasof the statesman who takes a comprehensive view of the whole. According toSocrates the true governor will find ruin or death staring him in the face, andwill only be induced to govern from the fear of being governed by a worse manthan himself (Republic). And in modern times, though the world has grownmilder, and the terrible consequences which Plato foretells no longer await anEnglish statesman, any one who is not actuated by a blind ambition will onlyundertake from a sense of duty a work in which he is most likely to fail; andeven if he succeed, will rarely be rewarded by the gratitude of his owngeneration.

Socrates, who is not a politician at all, tells us that he is the only realpolitician of his time. Let us illustrate the meaning of his words by applyingthem to the history of our own country. He would have said that not Pitt orFox, or Canning or Sir R. Peel, are the real politicians of their time, butLocke, Hume, Adam Smith, Bentham, Ricardo. These during the greater part oftheir lives occupied an inconsiderable space in the eyes of the public. Theywere private persons; nevertheless they sowed in the minds of men seeds whichin the next generation have become an irresistible power. “Herein is thatsaying true, One soweth and another reapeth.” We may imagine with Platoan ideal statesman in whom practice and speculation are perfectly harmonized;for there is no necessary opposition between them. But experience shows thatthey are commonly divorced—the ordinary politician is the interpreter orexecutor of the thoughts of others, and hardly ever brings to the birth a newpolitical conception. One or two only in modern times, like the Italianstatesman Cavour, have created the world in which they moved. The philosopheris naturally unfitted for political life; his great ideas are not understood bythe many; he is a thousand miles away from the questions of the day. Yetperhaps the lives of thinkers, as they are stiller and deeper, are also happierthan the lives of those who are more in the public eye. They have the promiseof the future, though they are regarded as dreamers and visionaries by theirown contemporaries. And when they are no longer here, those who would have beenashamed of them during their lives claim kindred with them, and are proud to becalled by their names. (Compare Thucyd.)

Who is the true poet?

Plato expels the poets from his Republic because they are allied to sense;because they stimulate the emotions; because they are thrice removed from theideal truth. And in a similar spirit he declares in the Gorgias that thestately muse of tragedy is a votary of pleasure and not of truth. In moderntimes we almost ridicule the idea of poetry admitting of a moral. The poet andthe prophet, or preacher, in primitive antiquity are one and the same; but inlater ages they seem to fall apart. The great art of novel writing, thatpeculiar creation of our own and the last century, which, together with thesister art of review writing, threatens to absorb all literature, has even lessof seriousness in her composition. Do we not often hear the novel writercensured for attempting to convey a lesson to the minds of his readers?

Yet the true office of a poet or writer of fiction is not merely to giveamusement, or to be the expression of the feelings of mankind, good or bad, oreven to increase our knowledge of human nature. There have been poets in moderntimes, such as Goethe or Wordsworth, who have not forgotten their high vocationof teachers; and the two greatest of the Greek dramatists owe their sublimityto their ethical character. The noblest truths, sung of in the purest andsweetest language, are still the proper material of poetry. The poet clothesthem with beauty, and has a power of making them enter into the hearts andmemories of men. He has not only to speak of themes above the level of ordinarylife, but to speak of them in a deeper and tenderer way than they areordinarily felt, so as to awaken the feeling of them in others. The old hemakes young again; the familiar principle he invests with a new dignity; hefinds a noble expression for the common-places of morality and politics. Heuses the things of sense so as to indicate what is beyond; he raises us throughearth to heaven. He expresses what the better part of us would fain say, andthe half-conscious feeling is strengthened by the expression. He is his owncritic, for the spirit of poetry and of criticism are not divided in him. Hismission is not to disguise men from themselves, but to reveal to them their ownnature, and make them better acquainted with the world around them. True poetryis the remembrance of youth, of love, the embodiment in words of the happiestand holiest moments of life, of the noblest thoughts of man, of the greatestdeeds of the past. The poet of the future may return to his greater calling ofthe prophet or teacher; indeed, we hardly know what may not be effected for thehuman race by a better use of the poetical and imaginative faculty. Thereconciliation of poetry, as of religion, with truth, may still be possible.Neither is the element of pleasure to be excluded. For when we substitute ahigher pleasure for a lower we raise men in the scale of existence. Might notthe novelist, too, make an ideal, or rather many ideals of social life, betterthan a thousand sermons? Plato, like the Puritans, is too much afraid of poeticand artistic influences. But he is not without a true sense of the noblepurposes to which art may be applied (Republic).

Modern poetry is often a sort of plaything, or, in Plato’s language, aflattery, a sophistry, or sham, in which, without any serious purpose, the poetlends wings to his fancy and exhibits his gifts of language and metre. Such anone seeks to gratify the taste of his readers; he has the “savoirfaire,” or trick of writing, but he has not the higher spirit of poetry.He has no conception that true art should bring order out of disorder; that itshould make provision for the soul’s highest interest; that it should bepursued only with a view to “the improvement of the citizens.” Heministers to the weaker side of human nature (Republic); he idealizes thesensual; he sings the strain of love in the latest fashion; instead of raisingmen above themselves he brings them back to the “tyranny of the manymasters,” from which all his life long a good man has been praying to bedelivered. And often, forgetful of measure and order, he will express not thatwhich is truest, but that which is strongest. Instead of a great andnobly-executed subject, perfect in every part, some fancy of a heated brain isworked out with the strangest incongruity. He is not the master of his words,but his words—perhaps borrowed from another—the faded reflection ofsome French or German or Italian writer, have the better of him. Though we arenot going to banish the poets, how can we suppose that such utterances have anyhealing or life-giving influence on the minds of men?

“Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:” Art then must betrue, and politics must be true, and the life of man must be true and not aseeming or sham. In all of them order has to be brought out of disorder, truthout of error and falsehood. This is what we mean by the greatest improvement ofman. And so, having considered in what way “we can best spend theappointed time, we leave the result with God.” Plato does not say thatGod will order all things for the best (compare Phaedo), but he indirectlyimplies that the evils of this life will be corrected in another. And as we arevery far from the best imaginable world at present, Plato here, as in thePhaedo and Republic, supposes a purgatory or place of education for mankind ingeneral, and for a very few a Tartarus or hell. The myth which terminates thedialogue is not the revelation, but rather, like all similar descriptions,whether in the Bible or Plato, the veil of another life. For no visible thingcan reveal the invisible. Of this Plato, unlike some commentators on Scripture,is fully aware. Neither will he dogmatize about the manner in which we are“born again” (Republic). Only he is prepared to maintain theultimate triumph of truth and right, and declares that no one, not even thewisest of the Greeks, can affirm any other doctrine without being ridiculous.

There is a further paradox of ethics, in which pleasure and pain are held to beindifferent, and virtue at the time of action and without regard toconsequences is happiness. From this elevation or exaggeration of feeling Platoseems to shrink: he leaves it to the Stoics in a later generation to maintainthat when impaled or on the rack the philosopher may be happy (compareRepublic). It is observable that in the Republic he raises this question, butit is not really discussed; the veil of the ideal state, the shadow of anotherlife, are allowed to descend upon it and it passes out of sight. The martyr orsufferer in the cause of right or truth is often supposed to die in raptures,having his eye fixed on a city which is in heaven. But if there were no future,might he not still be happy in the performance of an action which was attendedonly by a painful death? He himself may be ready to thank God that he wasthought worthy to do Him the least service, without looking for a reward; thejoys of another life may not have been present to his mind at all. Do wesuppose that the mediaeval saint, St. Bernard, St. Francis, St. Catharine ofSienna, or the Catholic priest who lately devoted himself to death by alingering disease that he might solace and help others, was thinking of the“sweets” of heaven? No; the work was already heaven to him andenough. Much less will the dying patriot be dreaming of the praises of man orof an immortality of fame: the sense of duty, of right, and trust in God willbe sufficient, and as far as the mind can reach, in that hour. If he werecertain that there were no life to come, he would not have wished to speak oract otherwise than he did in the cause of truth or of humanity. Neither, on theother hand, will he suppose that God has forsaken him or that the future is tobe a mere blank to him. The greatest act of faith, the only faith which cannotpass away, is his who has not known, but yet has believed. A very few among thesons of men have made themselves independent of circumstances, past, present,or to come. He who has attained to such a temper of mind has already presentwith him eternal life; he needs no arguments to convince him of immortality; hehas in him already a principle stronger than death. He who serves man withoutthe thought of reward is deemed to be a more faithful servant than he who worksfor hire. May not the service of God, which is the more disinterested, be inlike manner the higher? And although only a very few in the course of theworld’s history—Christ himself being one of them—haveattained to such a noble conception of God and of the human soul, yet the idealof them may be present to us, and the remembrance of them be an example to us,and their lives may shed a light on many dark places both of philosophy andtheology.

THE MYTHS OF PLATO.

The myths of Plato are a phenomenon unique in literature. There are four longerones: these occur in the Phaedrus, Phaedo, Gorgias, and Republic. That in theRepublic is the most elaborate and finished of them. Three of these greatermyths, namely those contained in the Phaedo, the Gorgias and the Republic,relate to the destiny of human souls in a future life. The magnificent myth inthe Phaedrus treats of the immortality, or rather the eternity of the soul, inwhich is included a former as well as a future state of existence. To these maybe added, (1) the myth, or rather fable, occurring in the Statesman, in whichthe life of innocence is contrasted with the ordinary life of man and theconsciousness of evil: (2) the legend of the Island of Atlantis, an imaginaryhistory, which is a fragment only, commenced in the Timaeus and continued inthe Critias: (3) the much less artistic fiction of the foundation of the Cretancolony which is introduced in the preface to the Laws, but soon falls into thebackground: (4) the beautiful but rather artificial tale of Prometheus andEpimetheus narrated in his rhetorical manner by Protagoras in the dialoguecalled after him: (5) the speech at the beginning of the Phaedrus, which is aparody of the orator Lysias; the rival speech of Socrates and the recantationof it. To these may be added (6) the tale of the grasshoppers, and (7) the taleof Thamus and of Theuth, both in the Phaedrus: (8) the parable of the Cave(Republic), in which the previous argument is recapitulated, and the nature anddegrees of knowledge having been previously set forth in the abstract arerepresented in a picture: (9) the fiction of the earth-born men (Republic;compare Laws), in which by the adaptation of an old tradition Plato makes a newbeginning for his society: (10) the myth of Aristophanes respecting thedivision of the sexes, Sym.: (11) the parable of the noble captain, the pilot,and the mutinous sailors (Republic), in which is represented the relation ofthe better part of the world, and of the philosopher, to the mob ofpoliticians: (12) the ironical tale of the pilot who plies between Athens andAegina charging only a small payment for saving men from death, the reasonbeing that he is uncertain whether to live or die is better for them (Gor.):(13) the treatment of freemen and citizens by physicians and of slaves by theirapprentices,—a somewhat laboured figure of speech intended to illustratethe two different ways in which the laws speak to men (Laws). There also occurin Plato continuous images; some of them extend over several pages, appearingand reappearing at intervals: such as the bees stinging and stingless (paupersand thieves) in the Eighth Book of the Republic, who are generated in thetransition from timocracy to oligarchy: the sun, which is to the visible worldwhat the idea of good is to the intellectual, in the Sixth Book of theRepublic: the composite animal, having the form of a man, but containing undera human skin a lion and a many-headed monster (Republic): the great beast, i.e.the populace: and the wild beast within us, meaning the passions which arealways liable to break out: the animated comparisons of the degradation ofphilosophy by the arts to the dishonoured maiden, and of the tyrant to theparricide, who “beats his father, having first taken away hisarms”: the dog, who is your only philosopher: the grotesque and ratherpaltry image of the argument wandering about without a head (Laws), which isrepeated, not improved, from the Gorgias: the argument personified as veilingher face (Republic), as engaged in a chase, as breaking upon us in a first,second and third wave:—on these figures of speech the changes are rungmany times over. It is observable that nearly all these parables or continuousimages are found in the Republic; that which occurs in the Theaetetus, of themidwifery of Socrates, is perhaps the only exception. To make the listcomplete, the mathematical figure of the number of the state (Republic), or thenumerical interval which separates king from tyrant, should not be forgotten.

The myth in the Gorgias is one of those descriptions of another life which,like the Sixth Aeneid of Virgil, appear to contain reminiscences of themysteries. It is a vision of the rewards and punishments which await good andbad men after death. It supposes the body to continue and to be in anotherworld what it has become in this. It includes a Paradiso, Purgatorio, andInferno, like the sister myths of the Phaedo and the Republic. The Inferno isreserved for great criminals only. The argument of the dialogue is frequentlyreferred to, and the meaning breaks through so as rather to destroy theliveliness and consistency of the picture. The structure of the fiction is veryslight, the chief point or moral being that in the judgments of another worldthere is no possibility of concealment: Zeus has taken from men the power offoreseeing death, and brings together the souls both of them and their judgesnaked and undisguised at the judgment-seat. Both are exposed to view, strippedof the veils and clothes which might prevent them from seeing into or beingseen by one another.

The myth of the Phaedo is of the same type, but it is more cosmological, andalso more poetical. The beautiful and ingenious fancy occurs to Plato that theupper atmosphere is an earth and heaven in one, a glorified earth, fairer andpurer than that in which we dwell. As the fishes live in the ocean, mankind areliving in a lower sphere, out of which they put their heads for a moment or twoand behold a world beyond. The earth which we inhabit is a sediment of thecoarser particles which drop from the world above, and is to that heavenlyearth what the desert and the shores of the ocean are to us. A part of the mythconsists of description of the interior of the earth, which gives theopportunity of introducing several mythological names and of providing placesof torment for the wicked. There is no clear distinction of soul and body; thespirits beneath the earth are spoken of as souls only, yet they retain a sortof shadowy form when they cry for mercy on the shores of the lake; and thephilosopher alone is said to have got rid of the body. All the three myths inPlato which relate to the world below have a place for repentant sinners, aswell as other homes or places for the very good and very bad. It is a naturalreflection which is made by Plato elsewhere, that the two extremes of humancharacter are rarely met with, and that the generality of mankind are betweenthem. Hence a place must be found for them. In the myth of the Phaedo they arecarried down the river Acheron to the Acherusian lake, where they dwell, andare purified of their evil deeds, and receive the rewards of their good. Thereare also incurable sinners, who are cast into Tartarus, there to remain as thepenalty of atrocious crimes; these suffer everlastingly. And there is anotherclass of hardly-curable sinners who are allowed from time to time to approachthe shores of the Acherusian lake, where they cry to their victims for mercy;which if they obtain they come out into the lake and cease from their torments.

Neither this, nor any of the three greater myths of Plato, nor perhaps anyallegory or parable relating to the unseen world, is consistent with itself.The language of philosophy mingles with that of mythology; abstract ideas aretransformed into persons, figures of speech into realities. These myths may becompared with the Pilgrim’s Progress of Bunyan, in which discussions oftheology are mixed up with the incidents of travel, and mythological personagesare associated with human beings: they are also garnished with names andphrases taken out of Homer, and with other fragments of Greek tradition.

The myth of the Republic is more subtle and also more consistent than either ofthe two others. It has a greater verisimilitude than they have, and is full oftouches which recall the experiences of human life. It will be noticed by anattentive reader that the twelve days during which Er lay in a trance after hewas slain coincide with the time passed by the spirits in their pilgrimage. Itis a curious observation, not often made, that good men who have lived in awell-governed city (shall we say in a religious and respectable society?) aremore likely to make mistakes in their choice of life than those who have hadmore experience of the world and of evil. It is a more familiar remark that weconstantly blame others when we have only ourselves to blame; and thephilosopher must acknowledge, however reluctantly, that there is an element ofchance in human life with which it is sometimes impossible for man to cope.That men drink more of the waters of forgetfulness than is good for them is apoetical description of a familiar truth. We have many of us known men who,like Odysseus, have wearied of ambition and have only desired rest. We shouldlike to know what became of the infants “dying almost as soon as theywere born,” but Plato only raises, without satisfying, our curiosity. Thetwo companies of souls, ascending and descending at either chasm of heaven andearth, and conversing when they come out into the meadow, the majestic figuresof the judges sitting in heaven, the voice heard by Ardiaeus, are features ofthe great allegory which have an indescribable grandeur and power. The remarkalready made respecting the inconsistency of the two other myths must beextended also to this: it is at once an orrery, or model of the heavens, and apicture of the Day of Judgment.

The three myths are unlike anything else in Plato. There is an Oriental, orrather an Egyptian element in them, and they have an affinity to the mysteriesand to the Orphic modes of worship. To a certain extent they are un-Greek; atany rate there is hardly anything like them in other Greek writings which havea serious purpose; in spirit they are mediaeval. They are akin to what may betermed the underground religion in all ages and countries. They are presentedin the most lively and graphic manner, but they are never insisted on as true;it is only affirmed that nothing better can be said about a future life. Platoseems to make use of them when he has reached the limits of human knowledge;or, to borrow an expression of his own, when he is standing on the outside ofthe intellectual world. They are very simple in style; a few touches bring thepicture home to the mind, and make it present to us. They have also a kind ofauthority gained by the employment of sacred and familiar names, just as merefragments of the words of Scripture, put together in any form and applied toany subject, have a power of their own. They are a substitute for poetry andmythology; and they are also a reform of mythology. The moral of them may besummed up in a word or two: After death the Judgment; and “there is somebetter thing remaining for the good than for the evil.”

All literature gathers into itself many elements of the past: for example, thetale of the earth-born men in the Republic appears at first sight to be anextravagant fancy, but it is restored to propriety when we remember that it isbased on a legendary belief. The art of making stories of ghosts andapparitions credible is said to consist in the manner of telling them. Theeffect is gained by many literary and conversational devices, such as theprevious raising of curiosity, the mention of little circumstances, simplicity,picturesqueness, the naturalness of the occasion, and the like. This art ispossessed by Plato in a degree which has never been equalled.

The myth in the Phaedrus is even greater than the myths which have been alreadydescribed, but is of a different character. It treats of a former rather thanof a future life. It represents the conflict of reason aided by passion orrighteous indignation on the one hand, and of the animal lusts and instincts onthe other. The soul of man has followed the company of some god, and seen truthin the form of the universal before it was born in this world. Our present lifeis the result of the struggle which was then carried on. This world is relativeto a former world, as it is often projected into a future. We ask the question,Where were men before birth? As we likewise enquire, What will become of themafter death? The first question is unfamiliar to us, and therefore seems to beunnatural; but if we survey the whole human race, it has been as influentialand as widely spread as the other. In the Phaedrus it is really a figure ofspeech in which the “spiritual combat” of this life is represented.The majesty and power of the whole passage—especially of what may becalled the theme or proem (beginning “The mind through all her being isimmortal”)—can only be rendered very inadequately in anotherlanguage.

The myth in the Statesman relates to a former cycle of existence, in which menwere born of the earth, and by the reversal of the earth’s motion hadtheir lives reversed and were restored to youth and beauty: the dead came tolife, the old grew middle-aged, and the middle-aged young; the youth became achild, the child an infant, the infant vanished into the earth. The connectionbetween the reversal of the earth’s motion and the reversal of human lifeis of course verbal only, yet Plato, like theologians in other ages, arguesfrom the consistency of the tale to its truth. The new order of the world wasimmediately under the government of God; it was a state of innocence in whichmen had neither wants nor cares, in which the earth brought forth all thingsspontaneously, and God was to man what man now is to the animals. There were nogreat estates, or families, or private possessions, nor any traditions of thepast, because men were all born out of the earth. This is what Plato calls the“reign of Cronos;” and in like manner he connects the reversal ofthe earth’s motion with some legend of which he himself was probably theinventor.

The question is then asked, under which of these two cycles of existence wasman the happier,—under that of Cronos, which was a state of innocence, orthat of Zeus, which is our ordinary life? For a while Plato balances the twosides of the serious controversy, which he has suggested in a figure. Theanswer depends on another question: What use did the children of Cronos make oftheir time? They had boundless leisure and the faculty of discoursing, not onlywith one another, but with the animals. Did they employ these advantages with aview to philosophy, gathering from every nature some addition to their store ofknowledge? or, Did they pass their time in eating and drinking and tellingstories to one another and to the beasts?—in either case there would beno difficulty in answering. But then, as Plato rather mischievously adds,“Nobody knows what they did,” and therefore the doubt must remainundetermined.

To the first there succeeds a second epoch. After another natural convulsion,in which the order of the world and of human life is once more reversed, Godwithdraws his guiding hand, and man is left to the government of himself. Theworld begins again, and arts and laws are slowly and painfully invented. Asecular age succeeds to a theocratical. In this fanciful tale Plato hasdropped, or almost dropped, the garb of mythology. He suggests several curiousand important thoughts, such as the possibility of a state of innocence, theexistence of a world without traditions, and the difference between human anddivine government. He has also carried a step further his speculationsconcerning the abolition of the family and of property, which he supposes tohave no place among the children of Cronos any more than in the ideal state.

It is characteristic of Plato and of his age to pass from the abstract to theconcrete, from poetry to reality. Language is the expression of the seen, andalso of the unseen, and moves in a region between them. A great writer knowshow to strike both these chords, sometimes remaining within the sphere of thevisible, and then again comprehending a wider range and soaring to the abstractand universal. Even in the same sentence he may employ both modes of speech notimproperly or inharmoniously. It is useless to criticise the broken metaphorsof Plato, if the effect of the whole is to create a picture not such as can bepainted on canvas, but which is full of life and meaning to the reader. A poemmay be contained in a word or two, which may call up not one but many latentimages; or half reveal to us by a sudden flash the thoughts of many hearts.Often the rapid transition from one image to another is pleasing to us: on theother hand, any single figure of speech if too often repeated, or worked outtoo much at length, becomes prosy and monotonous. In theology and philosophy wenecessarily include both “the moral law within and the starry heavenabove,” and pass from one to the other (compare for examples Psalmsxviii. and xix.). Whether such a use of language is puerile or noble dependsupon the genius of the writer or speaker, and the familiarity of theassociations employed.

In the myths and parables of Plato the ease and grace of conversation is notforgotten: they are spoken, not written words, stories which are told to aliving audience, and so well told that we are more than half-inclined tobelieve them (compare Phaedrus). As in conversation too, the striking image orfigure of speech is not forgotten, but is quickly caught up, and alluded toagain and again; as it would still be in our own day in a genial andsympathetic society. The descriptions of Plato have a greater life and realitythan is to be found in any modern writing. This is due to their homeliness andsimplicity. Plato can do with words just as he pleases; to him they are indeed“more plastic than wax” (Republic). We are in the habit of opposingspeech and writing, poetry and prose. But he has discovered a use of languagein which they are united; which gives a fitting expression to the highesttruths; and in which the trifles of courtesy and the familiarities of dailylife are not overlooked.

GORGIAS

By Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Callicles, Socrates, Chaerephon, Gorgias, Polus.

SCENE: The house of Callicles.

CALLICLES: The wise man, as the proverb says, is late for a fray, but not for afeast.

SOCRATES: And are we late for a feast?

CALLICLES: Yes, and a delightful feast; for Gorgias has just been exhibiting tous many fine things.

SOCRATES: It is not my fault, Callicles; our friend Chaerephon is to blame; forhe would keep us loitering in the Agora.

CHAEREPHON: Never mind, Socrates; the misfortune of which I have been the causeI will also repair; for Gorgias is a friend of mine, and I will make him givethe exhibition again either now, or, if you prefer, at some other time.

CALLICLES: What is the matter, Chaerephon—does Socrates want to hearGorgias?

CHAEREPHON: Yes, that was our intention in coming.

CALLICLES: Come into my house, then; for Gorgias is staying with me, and heshall exhibit to you.

SOCRATES: Very good, Callicles; but will he answer our questions? for I want tohear from him what is the nature of his art, and what it is which he professesand teaches; he may, as you (Chaerephon) suggest, defer the exhibition to someother time.

CALLICLES: There is nothing like asking him, Socrates; and indeed to answerquestions is a part of his exhibition, for he was saying only just now, thatany one in my house might put any question to him, and that he would answer.

SOCRATES: How fortunate! will you ask him, Chaerephon—?

CHAEREPHON: What shall I ask him?

SOCRATES: Ask him who he is.

CHAEREPHON: What do you mean?

SOCRATES: I mean such a question as would elicit from him, if he had been amaker of shoes, the answer that he is a cobbler. Do you understand?

CHAEREPHON: I understand, and will ask him: Tell me, Gorgias, is our friendCallicles right in saying that you undertake to answer any questions which youare asked?

GORGIAS: Quite right, Chaerephon: I was saying as much only just now; and I mayadd, that many years have elapsed since any one has asked me a new one.

CHAEREPHON: Then you must be very ready, Gorgias.

GORGIAS: Of that, Chaerephon, you can make trial.

POLUS: Yes, indeed, and if you like, Chaerephon, you may make trial of me too,for I think that Gorgias, who has been talking a long time, is tired.

CHAEREPHON: And do you, Polus, think that you can answer better than Gorgias?

POLUS: What does that matter if I answer well enough for you?

CHAEREPHON: Not at all:—and you shall answer if you like.

POLUS: Ask:—

CHAEREPHON: My question is this: If Gorgias had the skill of his brotherHerodicus, what ought we to call him? Ought he not to have the name which isgiven 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 ofhis 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 isskilled.

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 toproceed according to art, and inexperience according to chance, and differentpersons in different ways are proficient in different arts, and the bestpersons in the best arts. And our friend Gorgias is one of the best, and theart in which he is a proficient is the noblest.

SOCRATES: Polus has been taught how to make a capital speech, Gorgias; but heis 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 wasasked.

GORGIAS: Then why not ask him yourself?

SOCRATES: But I would much rather ask you, if you are disposed to answer: for Isee, from the few words which Polus has uttered, that he has attended more tothe 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 whichGorgias knows, you praised it as if you were answering some one who found faultwith 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 askedwhat was the quality, but what was the nature, of the art, and by what name wewere to describe Gorgias. And I would still beg you briefly and clearly, as youanswered Chaerephon when he asked you at first, to say what this art is, andwhat we ought to call Gorgias: Or rather, Gorgias, let me turn to you, and askthe same question,—what are we to call you, and what is the art which youprofess?

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, inHomeric 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 areat present doing, and reserve for another occasion the longer mode of speechwhich Polus was attempting? Will you keep your promise, and answer shortly thequestions which are asked of you?

GORGIAS: Some answers, Socrates, are of necessity longer; but I will do my bestto make them as short as possible; for a part of my profession is that I can beas short as any one.

SOCRATES: That is what is wanted, Gorgias; exhibit the shorter method now, andthe longer one at some other time.

GORGIAS: Well, I will; and you will certainly say, that you never heard a manuse fewer words.

SOCRATES: Very good then; as you profess to be a rhetorician, and a maker ofrhetoricians, let me ask you, with what is rhetoric concerned: I might ask withwhat is weaving concerned, and you would reply (would you not?), with themaking 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: withwhat is rhetoric concerned?

GORGIAS: With discourse.

SOCRATES: What sort of discourse, Gorgias?—such discourse as would teachthe 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 orevil condition of the body?

GORGIAS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And the same, Gorgias, is true of the other arts:—all of themtreat of discourse concerning the subjects with which they severally have todo.

GORGIAS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: Then why, if you call rhetoric the art which treats of discourse, andall 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 withsome sort of external action, as of the hand; but there is no such action ofthe hand in rhetoric which works and takes effect only through the medium ofdiscourse. And therefore I am justified in saying that rhetoric treats ofdiscourse.

SOCRATES: I am not sure whether I entirely understand you, but I dare say Ishall soon know better; please to answer me a question:—you would allowthat there are arts?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: As to the arts generally, they are for the most part concerned withdoing, and require little or no speaking; in painting, and statuary, and manyother arts, the work may proceed in silence; and of such arts I suppose youwould 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 oflanguage, and require either no action or very little, as, for example, thearts of arithmetic, of calculation, of geometry, and of playing draughts; insome of these speech is pretty nearly co-extensive with action, but in most ofthem the verbal element is greater—they depend wholly on words for theirefficacy and power: and I take your meaning to be that rhetoric is an art ofthis latter sort?

GORGIAS: Exactly.

SOCRATES: And yet I do not believe that you really mean to call any of thesearts rhetoric; although the precise expression which you used was, thatrhetoric is an art which works and takes effect only through the medium ofdiscourse; and an adversary who wished to be captious might say, “And so,Gorgias, you call arithmetic rhetoric.” But I do not think that youreally call arithmetic rhetoric any more than geometry would be so called byyou.

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 thatrhetoric is one of those arts which works mainly by the use of words, and thereare other arts which also use words, tell me what is that quality in words withwhich rhetoric is concerned:—Suppose that a person asks me about some ofthe arts which I was mentioning just now; he might say, “Socrates, whatis arithmetic?” and I should reply to him, as you replied to me, thatarithmetic is one of those arts which take effect through words. And then hewould proceed to ask: “Words about what?” and I should reply, Wordsabout odd and even numbers, and how many there are of each. And if he askedagain: “What is the art of calculation?” I should say, That also isone of the arts which is concerned wholly with words. And if he further said,“Concerned with what?” I should say, like the clerks in theassembly, “as aforesaid” of arithmetic, but with a difference, thedifference being that the art of calculation considers not only the quantitiesof odd and even numbers, but also their numerical relations to themselves andto one another. And suppose, again, I were to say that astronomy is onlywords—he would ask, “Words about what, Socrates?” and Ishould answer, that astronomy tells us about the motions of the stars and sunand 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 alwaysand 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 thewords 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 whichare the greatest and best of human things? I dare say that you have heard mensinging at feasts the old drinking song, in which the singers enumerate thegoods of life, first health, beauty next, thirdly, as the writer of the songsays, 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 ofthe 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 menand not his.” And when I ask, Who are you? he will reply, “I am aphysician.” What do you mean? I shall say. Do you mean that your artproduces the greatest good? “Certainly,” he will answer, “foris 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 artthan I can show of mine.” To him again I shall say, Who are you, honestfriend, and what is your business? “I am a trainer,” he will reply,“and my business is to make men beautiful and strong in body.” WhenI have done with the trainer, there arrives the money-maker, and he, as Iexpect, will utterly despise them all. “Consider Socrates,” he willsay, “whether Gorgias or any one else can produce any greater good thanwealth.” 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? “Ofcourse,” will be his reply. And we shall rejoin: Yes; but our friendGorgias contends that his art produces a greater good than yours. And then hewill be sure to go on and ask, “What good? Let Gorgias answer.” NowI want you, Gorgias, to imagine that this question is asked of you by them andby me; What is that which, as you say, is the greatest good of man, and ofwhich you are the creator? Answer us.

GORGIAS: That good, Socrates, which is truly the greatest, being that whichgives to men freedom in their own persons, and to individuals the power ofruling 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 thecourts, or the senators in the council, or the citizens in the assembly, or atany 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 themoney-maker of whom you talk will be found to gather treasures, not forhimself, but for you who are able to speak and to persuade the multitude.

SOCRATES: Now I think, Gorgias, that you have very accurately explained whatyou conceive to be the art of rhetoric; and you mean to say, if I am notmistaken, that rhetoric is the artificer of persuasion, having this and noother business, and that this is her crown and end. Do you know any othereffect of rhetoric over and above that of producing persuasion?

GORGIAS: No: the definition seems to me very fair, Socrates; for persuasion isthe chief end of rhetoric.

SOCRATES: Then hear me, Gorgias, for I am quite sure that if there ever was aman who entered on the discussion of a matter from a pure love of knowing thetruth, 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 thatpersuasion of which you speak, and which is given by rhetoric; although I havea suspicion about both the one and the other. And I am going to ask—whatis this power of persuasion which is given by rhetoric, and about what? Butwhy, 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 likelyto set forth the truth. And I would have you observe, that I am right in askingthis further question: If I asked, “What sort of a painter isZeuxis?” and you said, “The painter of figures,” should I notbe right in asking, “What kind of figures, and where do you findthem?”

GORGIAS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And the reason for asking this second question would be, that thereare other painters besides, who paint many other figures?

GORGIAS: True.

SOCRATES: But if there had been no one but Zeuxis who painted them, then youwould have answered very well?

GORGIAS: Quite so.

SOCRATES: Now I want to know about rhetoric in the same way;—is rhetoricthe only art which brings persuasion, or do other arts have the same effect? Imean to say—Does he who teaches anything persuade men of that which heteaches 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 nowspeaking:—do not arithmetic and the arithmeticians teach us theproperties 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 aboutwhat,—we shall answer, persuasion which teaches the quantity of odd andeven; and we shall be able to show that all the other arts of which we werejust now speaking are artificers of persuasion, and of what sort, and aboutwhat.

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 thatother arts do the same, as in the case of the painter, a question has arisenwhich is a very fair one: Of what persuasion is rhetoric the artificer, andabout 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 courtsof law and other assemblies, as I was just now saying, and about the just andunjust.

SOCRATES: And that, Gorgias, was what I was suspecting to be your notion; yet Iwould not have you wonder if by-and-by I am found repeating a seemingly plainquestion; for I ask not in order to confute you, but as I was saying that theargument may proceed consecutively, and that we may not get the habit ofanticipating and suspecting the meaning of one another’s words; I wouldhave you develope your own views in your own way, whatever may be yourhypothesis.

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 “havingbelieved,” 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 thisway:—If a person were to say to you, “Is there, Gorgias, a falsebelief 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 arepersuaded?

GORGIAS: Just so.

SOCRATES: Shall we then assume two sorts of persuasion,—one which is thesource 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 lawand other assemblies about the just and unjust, the sort of persuasion whichgives 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 persuasionwhich creates belief about the just and unjust, but gives no instruction aboutthem?

GORGIAS: True.

SOCRATES: And the rhetorician does not instruct the courts of law or otherassemblies about things just and unjust, but he creates belief about them; forno one can be supposed to instruct such a vast multitude about such highmatters in a short time?

GORGIAS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: Come, then, and let us see what we really mean about rhetoric; for Ido not know what my own meaning is as yet. When the assembly meets to elect aphysician or a shipwright or any other craftsman, will the rhetorician be takeninto counsel? Surely not. For at every election he ought to be chosen who ismost skilled; and, again, when walls have to be built or harbours or docks tobe constructed, not the rhetorician but the master workman will advise; or whengenerals have to be chosen and an order of battle arranged, or a positiontaken, 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, Icannot do better than learn the nature of your art from you. And here let meassure you that I have your interest in view as well as my own. For likelyenough some one or other of the young men present might desire to become yourpupil, and in fact I see some, and a good many too, who have this wish, butthey would be too modest to question you. And therefore when you areinterrogated by me, I would have you imagine that you are interrogated by them.“What is the use of coming to you, Gorgias?” they willsay—“about what will you teach us to advise the state?—aboutthe just and unjust only, or about those other things also which Socrates hasjust mentioned?” How will you answer them?

GORGIAS: I like your way of leading us on, Socrates, and I will endeavour toreveal to you the whole nature of rhetoric. You must have heard, I think, thatthe docks and the walls of the Athenians and the plan of the harbour weredevised in accordance with the counsels, partly of Themistocles, and partly ofPericles, and not at the suggestion of the builders.

SOCRATES: Such is the tradition, Gorgias, about Themistocles; and I myselfheard 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 givenin such matters the rhetoricians are the advisers; they are the men who wintheir point.

SOCRATES: I had that in my admiring mind, Gorgias, when I asked what is thenature of rhetoric, which always appears to me, when I look at the matter inthis way, to be a marvel of greatness.

GORGIAS: A marvel, indeed, Socrates, if you only knew how rhetoric comprehendsand holds under her sway all the inferior arts. Let me offer you a strikingexample of this. On several occasions I have been with my brother Herodicus orsome other physician to see one of his patients, who would not allow thephysician to give him medicine, or apply the knife or hot iron to him; and Ihave persuaded him to do for me what he would not do for the physician just bythe use of rhetoric. And I say that if a rhetorician and a physician were to goto any city, and had there to argue in the Ecclesia or any other assembly as towhich of them should be elected state-physician, the physician would have nochance; but he who could speak would be chosen if he wished; and in a contestwith a man of any other profession the rhetorician more than any one would havethe power of getting himself chosen, for he can speak more persuasively to themultitude than any of them, and on any subject. Such is the nature and power ofthe art of rhetoric! And yet, Socrates, rhetoric should be used like any othercompetitive art, not against everybody,—the rhetorician ought not toabuse his strength any more than a pugilist or pancratiast or other master offence;—because he has powers which are more than a match either forfriend 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 skilfulboxer,—he in the fulness of his strength goes and strikes his father ormother or one of his familiars or friends; but that is no reason why thetrainers or fencing-masters should be held in detestation or banished from thecity;—surely not. For they taught their art for a good purpose, to beused against enemies and evil-doers, in self-defence not in aggression, andothers have perverted their instructions, and turned to a bad use their ownstrength and skill. But not on this account are the teachers bad, neither isthe art in fault, or bad in itself; I should rather say that those who make abad 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,—inshort, he can persuade the multitude better than any other man of anythingwhich he pleases, but he should not therefore seek to defraud the physician orany other artist of his reputation merely because he has the power; he ought touse rhetoric fairly, as he would also use his athletic powers. And if afterhaving become a rhetorician he makes a bad use of his strength and skill, hisinstructor surely ought not on that account to be held in detestation orbanished. For he was intended by his teacher to make a good use of hisinstructions, but he abuses them. And therefore he is the person who ought tobe 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 inmutual edification, or in the definition by either party of the subjects whichthey are discussing; but disagreements are apt to arise—somebody saysthat another has not spoken truly or clearly; and then they get into a passionand begin to quarrel, both parties conceiving that their opponents are arguingfrom personal feeling only and jealousy of themselves, not from any interest inthe question at issue. And sometimes they will go on abusing one another untilthe company at last are quite vexed at themselves for ever listening to suchfellows. Why do I say this? Why, because I cannot help feeling that you are nowsaying what is not quite consistent or accordant with what you were saying atfirst about rhetoric. And I am afraid to point this out to you, lest you shouldthink that I have some animosity against you, and that I speak, not for thesake of discovering the truth, but from jealousy of you. Now if you are one ofmy 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 berefuted if I say anything which is not true, and very willing to refute any oneelse 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 isgreater of being cured of a very great evil than of curing another. For Iimagine that there is no evil which a man can endure so great as an erroneousopinion about the matters of which we are speaking; and if you claim to be oneof 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 hadalready given a long exhibition, and if we proceed the argument may run on to agreat length. And therefore I think that we should consider whether we may notbe detaining some part of the company when they are wanting to do somethingelse.

CHAEREPHON: You hear the audience cheering, Gorgias and Socrates, which showstheir desire to listen to you; and for myself, Heaven forbid that I should haveany business on hand which would take me away from a discussion so interestingand so ably maintained.

CALLICLES: By the gods, Chaerephon, although I have been present at manydiscussions, I doubt whether I was ever so much delighted before, and thereforeif 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 thewishes of the company, then, do you begin, and ask of me any question which youlike.

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 yourmeaning. You say that you can make any man, who will learn of you, arhetorician?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Do you mean that you will teach him to gain the ears of the multitudeon any subject, and this not by instruction but by persuasion?

GORGIAS: Quite so.

SOCRATES: You were saying, in fact, that the rhetorician will have greaterpowers 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 cannotbe supposed to have greater powers of persuasion.

GORGIAS: Very true.

SOCRATES: But if he is to have more power of persuasion than the physician, hewill 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 whatthe physician knows.

GORGIAS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: Then, when the rhetorician is more persuasive than the physician, theignorant is more persuasive with the ignorant than he who hasknowledge?—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 discoversome way of persuading the ignorant that he has more knowledge than those whoknow?

GORGIAS: Yes, Socrates, and is not this a great comfort?—not to havelearned the other arts, but the art of rhetoric only, and yet to be in no wayinferior to the professors of them?

SOCRATES: Whether the rhetorician is or not inferior on this account is aquestion which we will hereafter examine if the enquiry is likely to be of anyservice to us; but I would rather begin by asking, whether he is or is not asignorant of the just and unjust, base and honourable, good and evil, as he isof medicine and the other arts; I mean to say, does he really know anything ofwhat is good and evil, base or honourable, just or unjust in them; or has heonly a way with the ignorant of persuading them that he not knowing is to beesteemed to know more about these things than some one else who knows? Or mustthe pupil know these things and come to you knowing them before he can acquirethe art of rhetoric? If he is ignorant, you who are the teacher of rhetoricwill not teach him—it is not your business; but you will make him seem tothe multitude to know them, when he does not know them; and seem to be a goodman, when he is not. Or will you be unable to teach him rhetoric at all, unlesshe knows the truth of these things first? What is to be said about all this? Byheavens, Gorgias, I wish that you would reveal to me the power of rhetoric, asyou were saying that you would.

GORGIAS: Well, Socrates, I suppose that if the pupil does chance not to knowthem, 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 arhetorician must either know the nature of the just and unjust already, or hemust 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? Hewho 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 beaccused 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 hisrhetoric, that is not to be laid to the charge of his teacher, who is not to bebanished, but the wrong-doer himself who made a bad use of hisrhetoric—he is to be banished—was not that said?

GORGIAS: Yes, it was.

SOCRATES: But now we are affirming that the aforesaid rhetorician will neverhave done injustice at all?

GORGIAS: True.

SOCRATES: And at the very outset, Gorgias, it was said that rhetoric treated ofdiscourse, 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, thatrhetoric, which is always discoursing about justice, could not possibly be anunjust thing. But when you added, shortly afterwards, that the rhetoricianmight make a bad use of rhetoric I noted with surprise the inconsistency intowhich you had fallen; and I said, that if you thought, as I did, that there wasa gain in being refuted, there would be an advantage in going on with thequestion, but if not, I would leave off. And in the course of ourinvestigations, as you will see yourself, the rhetorician has been acknowledgedto be incapable of making an unjust use of rhetoric, or of willingness to doinjustice. 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 sayingabout rhetoric? What! because Gorgias was ashamed to deny that the rhetoricianknew the just and the honourable and the good, and admitted that to any one whocame to him ignorant of them he could teach them, and then out of thisadmission there arose a contradiction—the thing which you dearly love,and to which not he, but you, brought the argument by your captiousquestions—(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, thenature of justice? The truth is, that there is great want of manners inbringing the argument to such a pass.

SOCRATES: Illustrious Polus, the reason why we provide ourselves with friendsand children is, that when we get old and stumble, a younger generation may beat 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 formy part engage to retract any error into which you may think that I havefallen-upon one condition:

POLUS: What condition?

SOCRATES: That you contract, Polus, the prolixity of speech in which youindulged 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 youalone, should be deprived of the power of speech—that would be hardindeed. 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, ifyou 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 youplease; and in your turn ask and answer, like myself and Gorgias—refuteand be refuted: for I suppose that you would claim to know what Gorgiasknows—would you not?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And you, like him, invite any one to ask you about anything which hepleases, 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 whichGorgias, 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 saythat 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 afine 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 slightgratification 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 toanswer, 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 Ireally cannot tell:—from what he was just now saying, nothing appeared ofwhat he thought of his art, but the rhetoric which I mean is a part of a notvery 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 isnot an art at all, but the habit of a bold and ready wit, which knows how tomanage mankind: this habit I sum up under the word “flattery”; andit appears to me to have many other parts, one of which is cookery, which mayseem to be an art, but, as I maintain, is only an experience or routine and notan art:—another part is rhetoric, and the art of attiring and sophistryare two others: thus there are four branches, and four different thingsanswering to them. And Polus may ask, if he likes, for he has not as yet beeninformed, what part of flattery is rhetoric: he did not see that I had not yetanswered him when he proceeded to ask a further question: Whether I do notthink rhetoric a fine thing? But I shall not tell him whether rhetoric is afine 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 willask 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 theghost 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 whatis 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, andour friend Polus, colt by name and colt by nature, is apt to run away. (This isan untranslatable play on the name “Polus,” which means “acolt.”)

GORGIAS: Never mind him, but explain to me what you mean by saying thatrhetoric is the counterfeit of a part of politics.

SOCRATES: I will try, then, to explain my notion of rhetoric, and if I ammistaken, my friend Polus shall refute me. We may assume the existence ofbodies and of souls?

GORGIAS: Of course.

SOCRATES: You would further admit that there is a good condition of either ofthem?

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, andwhom only a physician or trainer will discern at first sight not to be in goodhealth.

GORGIAS: True.

SOCRATES: And this applies not only to the body, but also to the soul: ineither there may be that which gives the appearance of health and not thereality?

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 theart 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 twodivisions, one of them gymnastic, and the other medicine. And in politics thereis 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 samesubject as legislation, and medicine with the same subject as gymnastic, butwith a difference. Now, seeing that there are these four arts, two attending onthe body and two on the soul for their highest good; flattery knowing, orrather guessing their natures, has distributed herself into four shams orsimulations of them; she puts on the likeness of some one or other of them, andpretends to be that which she simulates, and having no regard for men’shighest interests, is ever making pleasure the bait of the unwary, anddeceiving 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 isthe best for the body; and if the physician and the cook had to enter into acompetition in which children were the judges, or men who had no more sensethan children, as to which of them best understands the goodness or badness offood, the physician would be starved to death. A flattery I deem this to be andof an ignoble sort, Polus, for to you I am now addressing myself, because itaims at pleasure without any thought of the best. An art I do not call it, butonly an experience, because it is unable to explain or to give a reason of thenature 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 oflines, and colours, and enamels, and garments, and making men affect a spuriousbeauty 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 mannerof 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 thesophist, but by reason of their near connection, they are apt to be jumbled uptogether; neither do they know what to make of themselves, nor do other menknow what to make of them. For if the body presided over itself, and were notunder the guidance of the soul, and the soul did not discern and discriminatebetween cookery and medicine, but the body was made the judge of them, and therule of judgment was the bodily delight which was given by them, then the wordof 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 havetold you my notion of rhetoric, which is, in relation to the soul, what cookeryis to the body. I may have been inconsistent in making a long speech, when Iwould 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 Ispoke shortly, and therefore I had to enter into an explanation. And if I showan equal inability to make use of yours, I hope that you will speak at equallength; but if I am able to understand you, let me have the benefit of yourbrevity, 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 cannotremember, what will you do by-and-by, when you get older?

POLUS: And are the good rhetoricians meanly regarded in states, under the ideathat 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 thecitizens.

POLUS: What! are they not like tyrants? They kill and despoil and exile any onewhom 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 Iwill answer both of them. And I tell you, Polus, that rhetoricians and tyrantshave the least possible power in states, as I was just now saying; for they doliterally 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 yousay 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, thisis 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 thatrhetoric 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 thinkbest in states, and the tyrants, will have nothing upon which to congratulatethemselves, if as you say, power be indeed a good, admitting at the same timethat 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 instates, unless Polus can refute Socrates, and prove to him that they do as theywill?

POLUS: This fellow—

SOCRATES: I say that they do not do as they will;—now refute me.

POLUS: Why, have you not already said that they do as they think best?

SOCRATES: And I say so still.

POLUS: Then surely they do as they will?

SOCRATES: I deny it.

POLUS: But they do what they think best?

SOCRATES: Aye.

POLUS: That, Socrates, is monstrous and absurd.

SOCRATES: Good words, good Polus, as I may say in your own peculiar style; butif you have any questions to ask of me, either prove that I am in error or givethe answer yourself.

POLUS: Very well, I am willing to answer that I may know what you mean.

SOCRATES: Do men appear to you to will that which they do, or to will thatfurther end for the sake of which they do a thing? when they take medicine, forexample, at the bidding of a physician, do they will the drinking of themedicine which is painful, or the health for the sake of which they drink?

POLUS: Clearly, the health.

SOCRATES: And when men go on a voyage or engage in business, they do not willthat which they are doing at the time; for who would desire to take the risk ofa voyage or the trouble of business?—But they will, to have the wealthfor the sake of which they go on a voyage.

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And is not this universally true? If a man does something for thesake of something else, he wills not that which he does, but that for the sakeof which he does it.

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And are not all things either good or evil, or intermediate andindifferent?

POLUS: To be sure, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Wisdom and health and wealth and the like you would call goods, andtheir opposites evils?

POLUS: I should.

SOCRATES: And the things which are neither good nor evil, and which partakesometimes of the nature of good and at other times of evil, or of neither, aresuch as sitting, walking, running, sailing; or, again, wood, stones, and thelike:—these are the things which you call neither good nor evil?

POLUS: Exactly so.

SOCRATES: Are these indifferent things done for the sake of the good, or thegood for the sake of the indifferent?

POLUS: Clearly, the indifferent for the sake of the good.

SOCRATES: When we walk we walk for the sake of the good, and under the ideathat it is better to walk, and when we stand we stand equally for the sake ofthe good?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And when we kill a man we kill him or exile him or despoil him of hisgoods, because, as we think, it will conduce to our good?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Men who do any of these things do them for the sake of the good?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And did we not admit that in doing something for the sake ofsomething else, we do not will those things which we do, but that other thingfor the sake of which we do them?

POLUS: Most true.

SOCRATES: Then we do not will simply to kill a man or to exile him or todespoil him of his goods, but we will to do that which conduces to our good,and if the act is not conducive to our good we do not will it; for we will, asyou say, that which is our good, but that which is neither good nor evil, orsimply evil, we do not will. Why are you silent, Polus? Am I not right?

POLUS: You are right.

SOCRATES: Hence we may infer, that if any one, whether he be a tyrant or arhetorician, kills another or exiles another or deprives him of his property,under the idea that the act is for his own interests when really not for hisown interests, he may be said to do what seems best to him?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: But does he do what he wills if he does what is evil? Why do you notanswer?

POLUS: Well, I suppose not.

SOCRATES: Then if great power is a good as you allow, will such a one havegreat power in a state?

POLUS: He will not.

SOCRATES: Then I was right in saying that a man may do what seems good to himin a state, and not have great power, and not do what he wills?

POLUS: As though you, Socrates, would not like to have the power of doing whatseemed good to you in the state, rather than not; you would not be jealous whenyou saw any one killing or despoiling or imprisoning whom he pleased, Oh, no!

SOCRATES: Justly or unjustly, do you mean?

POLUS: In either case is he not equally to be envied?

SOCRATES: Forbear, Polus!

POLUS: Why “forbear”?

SOCRATES: Because you ought not to envy wretches who are not to be envied, butonly to pity them.

POLUS: And are those of whom I spoke wretches?

SOCRATES: Yes, certainly they are.

POLUS: And so you think that he who slays any one whom he pleases, and justlyslays him, is pitiable and wretched?

SOCRATES: No, I do not say that of him: but neither do I think that he is to beenvied.

POLUS: Were you not saying just now that he is wretched?

SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, if he killed another unjustly, in which case he isalso to be pitied; and he is not to be envied if he killed him justly.

POLUS: At any rate you will allow that he who is unjustly put to death iswretched, and to be pitied?

SOCRATES: Not so much, Polus, as he who kills him, and not so much as he who isjustly killed.

POLUS: How can that be, Socrates?

SOCRATES: That may very well be, inasmuch as doing injustice is the greatest ofevils.

POLUS: But is it the greatest? Is not suffering injustice a greater evil?

SOCRATES: Certainly not.

POLUS: Then would you rather suffer than do injustice?

SOCRATES: I should not like either, but if I must choose between them, I wouldrather suffer than do.

POLUS: Then you would not wish to be a tyrant?

SOCRATES: Not if you mean by tyranny what I mean.

POLUS: I mean, as I said before, the power of doing whatever seems good to youin a state, killing, banishing, doing in all things as you like.

SOCRATES: Well then, illustrious friend, when I have said my say, do you replyto me. Suppose that I go into a crowded Agora, and take a dagger under my arm.Polus, I say to you, I have just acquired rare power, and become a tyrant; forif I think that any of these men whom you see ought to be put to death, the manwhom I have a mind to kill is as good as dead; and if I am disposed to breakhis head or tear his garment, he will have his head broken or his garment tornin an instant. Such is my great power in this city. And if you do not believeme, and I show you the dagger, you would probably reply: Socrates, in that sortof way any one may have great power—he may burn any house which hepleases, and the docks and triremes of the Athenians, and all their othervessels, whether public or private—but can you believe that this meredoing as you think best is great power?

POLUS: Certainly not such doing as this.

SOCRATES: But can you tell me why you disapprove of such a power?

POLUS: I can.

SOCRATES: Why then?

POLUS: Why, because he who did as you say would be certain to be punished.

SOCRATES: And punishment is an evil?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And you would admit once more, my good sir, that great power is abenefit to a man if his actions turn out to his advantage, and that this is themeaning of great power; and if not, then his power is an evil and is no power.But let us look at the matter in another way:—do we not acknowledge thatthe things of which we were speaking, the infliction of death, and exile, andthe deprivation of property are sometimes a good and sometimes not a good?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: About that you and I may be supposed to agree?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Tell me, then, when do you say that they are good and when that theyare evil—what principle do you lay down?

POLUS: I would rather, Socrates, that you should answer as well as ask thatquestion.

SOCRATES: Well, Polus, since you would rather have the answer from me, I saythat they are good when they are just, and evil when they are unjust.

POLUS: You are hard of refutation, Socrates, but might not a child refute thatstatement?

SOCRATES: Then I shall be very grateful to the child, and equally grateful toyou if you will refute me and deliver me from my foolishness. And I hope thatrefute me you will, and not weary of doing good to a friend.

POLUS: Yes, Socrates, and I need not go far or appeal to antiquity; eventswhich happened only a few days ago are enough to refute you, and to prove thatmany men who do wrong are happy.

SOCRATES: What events?

POLUS: You see, I presume, that Archelaus the son of Perdiccas is now the rulerof Macedonia?

SOCRATES: At any rate I hear that he is.

POLUS: And do you think that he is happy or miserable?

SOCRATES: I cannot say, Polus, for I have never had any acquaintance with him.

POLUS: And cannot you tell at once, and without having an acquaintance withhim, whether a man is happy?

SOCRATES: Most certainly not.

POLUS: Then clearly, Socrates, you would say that you did not even know whetherthe great king was a happy man?

SOCRATES: And I should speak the truth; for I do not know how he stands in thematter of education and justice.

POLUS: What! and does all happiness consist in this?

SOCRATES: Yes, indeed, Polus, that is my doctrine; the men and women who aregentle and good are also happy, as I maintain, and the unjust and evil aremiserable.

POLUS: Then, according to your doctrine, the said Archelaus is miserable?

SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, if he is wicked.

POLUS: That he is wicked I cannot deny; for he had no title at all to thethrone which he now occupies, he being only the son of a woman who was theslave of Alcetas the brother of Perdiccas; he himself therefore in strict rightwas the slave of Alcetas; and if he had meant to do rightly he would haveremained his slave, and then, according to your doctrine, he would have beenhappy. But now he is unspeakably miserable, for he has been guilty of thegreatest crimes: in the first place he invited his uncle and master, Alcetas,to come to him, under the pretence that he would restore to him the thronewhich Perdiccas has usurped, and after entertaining him and his son Alexander,who was his own cousin, and nearly of an age with him, and making them drunk,he threw them into a waggon and carried them off by night, and slew them, andgot both of them out of the way; and when he had done all this wickedness henever discovered that he was the most miserable of all men, and was very farfrom repenting: shall I tell you how he showed his remorse? he had a youngerbrother, a child of seven years old, who was the legitimate son of Perdiccas,and to him of right the kingdom belonged; Archelaus, however, had no mind tobring him up as he ought and restore the kingdom to him; that was not hisnotion of happiness; but not long afterwards he threw him into a well anddrowned him, and declared to his mother Cleopatra that he had fallen in whilerunning after a goose, and had been killed. And now as he is the greatestcriminal of all the Macedonians, he may be supposed to be the most miserableand not the happiest of them, and I dare say that there are many Athenians, andyou would be at the head of them, who would rather be any other Macedonian thanArchelaus!

SOCRATES: I praised you at first, Polus, for being a rhetorician rather than areasoner. And this, as I suppose, is the sort of argument with which you fancythat a child might refute me, and by which I stand refuted when I say that theunjust man is not happy. But, my good friend, where is the refutation? I cannotadmit a word which you have been saying.

POLUS: That is because you will not; for you surely must think as I do.

SOCRATES: Not so, my simple friend, but because you will refute me after themanner which rhetoricians practise in courts of law. For there the one partythink that they refute the other when they bring forward a number of witnessesof good repute in proof of their allegations, and their adversary has only asingle one or none at all. But this kind of proof is of no value where truth isthe aim; a man may often be sworn down by a multitude of false witnesses whohave a great air of respectability. And in this argument nearly every one,Athenian and stranger alike, would be on your side, if you should bringwitnesses in disproof of my statement;—you may, if you will, summonNicias the son of Niceratus, and let his brothers, who gave the row of tripodswhich stand in the precincts of Dionysus, come with him; or you may summonAristocrates, the son of Scellius, who is the giver of that famous offeringwhich is at Delphi; summon, if you will, the whole house of Pericles, or anyother great Athenian family whom you choose;—they will all agree withyou: I only am left alone and cannot agree, for you do not convince me;although you produce many false witnesses against me, in the hope of deprivingme of my inheritance, which is the truth. But I consider that nothing worthspeaking of will have been effected by me unless I make you the one witness ofmy words; nor by you, unless you make me the one witness of yours; no matterabout the rest of the world. For there are two ways of refutation, one which isyours and that of the world in general; but mine is of another sort—letus compare them, and see in what they differ. For, indeed, we are at issueabout matters which to know is honourable and not to know disgraceful; to knowor not to know happiness and misery—that is the chief of them. And whatknowledge can be nobler? or what ignorance more disgraceful than this? Andtherefore I will begin by asking you whether you do not think that a man who isunjust and doing injustice can be happy, seeing that you think Archelausunjust, and yet happy? May I assume this to be your opinion?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: But I say that this is an impossibility—here is one point aboutwhich we are at issue:—very good. And do you mean to say also that if hemeets with retribution and punishment he will still be happy?

POLUS: Certainly not; in that case he will be most miserable.

SOCRATES: On the other hand, if the unjust be not punished, then, according toyou, he will be happy?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: But in my opinion, Polus, the unjust or doer of unjust actions ismiserable in any case,—more miserable, however, if he be not punished anddoes not meet with retribution, and less miserable if he be punished and meetswith retribution at the hands of gods and men.

POLUS: You are maintaining a strange doctrine, Socrates.

SOCRATES: I shall try to make you agree with me, O my friend, for as a friend Iregard you. Then these are the points at issue between us—are they not? Iwas saying that to do is worse than to suffer injustice?

POLUS: Exactly so.

SOCRATES: And you said the opposite?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: I said also that the wicked are miserable, and you refuted me?

POLUS: By Zeus, I did.

SOCRATES: In your own opinion, Polus.

POLUS: Yes, and I rather suspect that I was in the right.

SOCRATES: You further said that the wrong-doer is happy if he be unpunished?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And I affirm that he is most miserable, and that those who arepunished are less miserable—are you going to refute this propositionalso?

POLUS: A proposition which is harder of refutation than the other, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Say rather, Polus, impossible; for who can refute the truth?

POLUS: What do you mean? If a man is detected in an unjust attempt to makehimself a tyrant, and when detected is racked, mutilated, has his eyes burnedout, and after having had all sorts of great injuries inflicted on him, andhaving seen his wife and children suffer the like, is at last impaled or tarredand burned alive, will he be happier than if he escape and become a tyrant, andcontinue all through life doing what he likes and holding the reins ofgovernment, the envy and admiration both of citizens and strangers? Is that theparadox which, as you say, cannot be refuted?

SOCRATES: There again, noble Polus, you are raising hobgoblins instead ofrefuting me; just now you were calling witnesses against me. But please torefresh my memory a little; did you say—“in an unjust attempt tomake himself a tyrant”?

POLUS: Yes, I did.

SOCRATES: Then I say that neither of them will be happier than theother,—neither he who unjustly acquires a tyranny, nor he who suffers inthe attempt, for of two miserables one cannot be the happier, but that he whoescapes and becomes a tyrant is the more miserable of the two. Do you laugh,Polus? Well, this is a new kind of refutation,—when any one saysanything, instead of refuting him to laugh at him.

POLUS: But do you not think, Socrates, that you have been sufficiently refuted,when you say that which no human being will allow? Ask the company.

SOCRATES: O Polus, I am not a public man, and only last year, when my tribewere serving as Prytanes, and it became my duty as their president to take thevotes, there was a laugh at me, because I was unable to take them. And as Ifailed then, you must not ask me to count the suffrages of the company now; butif, as I was saying, you have no better argument than numbers, let me have aturn, and do you make trial of the sort of proof which, as I think, isrequired; for I shall produce one witness only of the truth of my words, and heis the person with whom I am arguing; his suffrage I know how to take; but withthe many I have nothing to do, and do not even address myself to them. May Iask then whether you will answer in turn and have your words put to the proof?For I certainly think that I and you and every man do really believe, that todo is a greater evil than to suffer injustice: and not to be punished than tobe punished.

POLUS: And I should say neither I, nor any man: would you yourself, forexample, suffer rather than do injustice?

SOCRATES: Yes, and you, too; I or any man would.

POLUS: Quite the reverse; neither you, nor I, nor any man.

SOCRATES: But will you answer?

POLUS: To be sure, I will; for I am curious to hear what you can have to say.

SOCRATES: Tell me, then, and you will know, and let us suppose that I ambeginning at the beginning: which of the two, Polus, in your opinion, is theworst?—to do injustice or to suffer?

POLUS: I should say that suffering was worst.

SOCRATES: And which is the greater disgrace?—Answer.

POLUS: To do.

SOCRATES: And the greater disgrace is the greater evil?

POLUS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: I understand you to say, if I am not mistaken, that the honourable isnot the same as the good, or the disgraceful as the evil?

POLUS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: Let me ask a question of you: When you speak of beautiful things,such as bodies, colours, figures, sounds, institutions, do you not call thembeautiful in reference to some standard: bodies, for example, are beautiful inproportion as they are useful, or as the sight of them gives pleasure to thespectators; can you give any other account of personal beauty?

POLUS: I cannot.

SOCRATES: And you would say of figures or colours generally that they werebeautiful, either by reason of the pleasure which they give, or of their use,or of both?

POLUS: Yes, I should.

SOCRATES: And you would call sounds and music beautiful for the same reason?

POLUS: I should.

SOCRATES: Laws and institutions also have no beauty in them except in so far asthey are useful or pleasant or both?

POLUS: I think not.

SOCRATES: And may not the same be said of the beauty of knowledge?

POLUS: To be sure, Socrates; and I very much approve of your measuring beautyby the standard of pleasure and utility.

SOCRATES: And deformity or disgrace may be equally measured by the oppositestandard of pain and evil?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then when of two beautiful things one exceeds in beauty, the measureof the excess is to be taken in one or both of these; that is to say, inpleasure or utility or both?

POLUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And of two deformed things, that which exceeds in deformity ordisgrace, exceeds either in pain or evil—must it not be so?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: But then again, what was the observation which you just now made,about doing and suffering wrong? Did you not say, that suffering wrong was moreevil, and doing wrong more disgraceful?

POLUS: I did.

SOCRATES: Then, if doing wrong is more disgraceful than suffering, the moredisgraceful must be more painful and must exceed in pain or in evil or both:does not that also follow?

POLUS: Of course.

SOCRATES: First, then, let us consider whether the doing of injustice exceedsthe suffering in the consequent pain: Do the injurers suffer more than theinjured?

POLUS: No, Socrates; certainly not.

SOCRATES: Then they do not exceed in pain?

POLUS: No.

SOCRATES: But if not in pain, then not in both?

POLUS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: Then they can only exceed in the other?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: That is to say, in evil?

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: Then doing injustice will have an excess of evil, and will thereforebe a greater evil than suffering injustice?

POLUS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: But have not you and the world already agreed that to do injustice ismore disgraceful than to suffer?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And that is now discovered to be more evil?

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: And would you prefer a greater evil or a greater dishonour to a lessone? Answer, Polus, and fear not; for you will come to no harm if you noblyresign yourself into the healing hand of the argument as to a physician withoutshrinking, and either say “Yes” or “No” to me.

POLUS: I should say “No.”

SOCRATES: Would any other man prefer a greater to a less evil?

POLUS: No, not according to this way of putting the case, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Then I said truly, Polus, that neither you, nor I, nor any man, wouldrather do than suffer injustice; for to do injustice is the greater evil of thetwo.

POLUS: That is the conclusion.

SOCRATES: You see, Polus, when you compare the two kinds of refutations, howunlike they are. All men, with the exception of myself, are of your way ofthinking; but your single assent and witness are enough for me,—I have noneed of any other, I take your suffrage, and am regardless of the rest. Enoughof this, and now let us proceed to the next question; which is, Whether thegreatest of evils to a guilty man is to suffer punishment, as you supposed, orwhether to escape punishment is not a greater evil, as I supposed.Consider:—You would say that to suffer punishment is another name forbeing justly corrected when you do wrong?

POLUS: I should.

SOCRATES: And would you not allow that all just things are honourable in so faras they are just? Please to reflect, and tell me your opinion.

POLUS: Yes, Socrates, I think that they are.

SOCRATES: Consider again:—Where there is an agent, must there not also bea patient?

POLUS: I should say so.

SOCRATES: And will not the patient suffer that which the agent does, and willnot the suffering have the quality of the action? I mean, for example, that ifa man strikes, there must be something which is stricken?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And if the striker strikes violently or quickly, that which is struckwill be struck violently or quickly?

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: And the suffering to him who is stricken is of the same nature as theact of him who strikes?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And if a man burns, there is something which is burned?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And if he burns in excess or so as to cause pain, the thing burnedwill be burned in the same way?

POLUS: Truly.

SOCRATES: And if he cuts, the same argument holds—there will be somethingcut?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And if the cutting be great or deep or such as will cause pain, thecut will be of the same nature?

POLUS: That is evident.

SOCRATES: Then you would agree generally to the universal proposition which Iwas just now asserting: that the affection of the patient answers to theaffection of the agent?

POLUS: I agree.

SOCRATES: Then, as this is admitted, let me ask whether being punished issuffering or acting?

POLUS: Suffering, Socrates; there can be no doubt of that.

SOCRATES: And suffering implies an agent?

POLUS: Certainly, Socrates; and he is the punisher.

SOCRATES: And he who punishes rightly, punishes justly?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And therefore he acts justly?

POLUS: Justly.

SOCRATES: Then he who is punished and suffers retribution, suffers justly?

POLUS: That is evident.

SOCRATES: And that which is just has been admitted to be honourable?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then the punisher does what is honourable, and the punished sufferswhat is honourable?

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: And if what is honourable, then what is good, for the honourable iseither pleasant or useful?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then he who is punished suffers what is good?

POLUS: That is true.

SOCRATES: Then he is benefited?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Do I understand you to mean what I mean by the term“benefited”? I mean, that if he be justly punished his soul isimproved.

POLUS: Surely.

SOCRATES: Then he who is punished is delivered from the evil of his soul?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And is he not then delivered from the greatest evil? Look at thematter in this way:—In respect of a man’s estate, do you see anygreater evil than poverty?

POLUS: There is no greater evil.

SOCRATES: Again, in a man’s bodily frame, you would say that the evil isweakness and disease and deformity?

POLUS: I should.

SOCRATES: And do you not imagine that the soul likewise has some evil of herown?

POLUS: Of course.

SOCRATES: And this you would call injustice and ignorance and cowardice, andthe like?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: So then, in mind, body, and estate, which are three, you have pointedout three corresponding evils—injustice, disease, poverty?

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: And which of the evils is the most disgraceful?—Is not the mostdisgraceful of them injustice, and in general the evil of the soul?

POLUS: By far the most.

SOCRATES: And if the most disgraceful, then also the worst?

POLUS: What do you mean, Socrates?

SOCRATES: I mean to say, that is most disgraceful has been already admitted tobe most painful or hurtful, or both.

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And now injustice and all evil in the soul has been admitted by us tobe most disgraceful?

POLUS: It has been admitted.

SOCRATES: And most disgraceful either because most painful and causingexcessive pain, or most hurtful, or both?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And therefore to be unjust and intemperate, and cowardly andignorant, is more painful than to be poor and sick?

POLUS: Nay, Socrates; the painfulness does not appear to me to follow from yourpremises.

SOCRATES: Then, if, as you would argue, not more painful, the evil of the soulis of all evils the most disgraceful; and the excess of disgrace must be causedby some preternatural greatness, or extraordinary hurtfulness of the evil.

POLUS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: And that which exceeds most in hurtfulness will be the greatest ofevils?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then injustice and intemperance, and in general the depravity of thesoul, are the greatest of evils?

POLUS: That is evident.

SOCRATES: Now, what art is there which delivers us from poverty? Does not theart of making money?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And what art frees us from disease? Does not the art of medicine?

POLUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And what from vice and injustice? If you are not able to answer atonce, ask yourself whither we go with the sick, and to whom we take them.

POLUS: To the physicians, Socrates.

SOCRATES: And to whom do we go with the unjust and intemperate?

POLUS: To the judges, you mean.

SOCRATES: —Who are to punish them?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And do not those who rightly punish others, punish them in accordancewith a certain rule of justice?

POLUS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: Then the art of money-making frees a man from poverty; medicine fromdisease; and justice from intemperance and injustice?

POLUS: That is evident.

SOCRATES: Which, then, is the best of these three?

POLUS: Will you enumerate them?

SOCRATES: Money-making, medicine, and justice.

POLUS: Justice, Socrates, far excels the two others.

SOCRATES: And justice, if the best, gives the greatest pleasure or advantage orboth?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: But is the being healed a pleasant thing, and are those who are beinghealed pleased?

POLUS: I think not.

SOCRATES: A useful thing, then?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Yes, because the patient is delivered from a great evil; and this isthe advantage of enduring the pain—that you get well?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And would he be the happier man in his bodily condition, who ishealed, or who never was out of health?

POLUS: Clearly he who was never out of health.

SOCRATES: Yes; for happiness surely does not consist in being delivered fromevils, but in never having had them.

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: And suppose the case of two persons who have some evil in theirbodies, and that one of them is healed and delivered from evil, and another isnot healed, but retains the evil—which of them is the most miserable?

POLUS: Clearly he who is not healed.

SOCRATES: And was not punishment said by us to be a deliverance from thegreatest of evils, which is vice?

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: And justice punishes us, and makes us more just, and is the medicineof our vice?

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: He, then, has the first place in the scale of happiness who has neverhad vice in his soul; for this has been shown to be the greatest of evils.

POLUS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: And he has the second place, who is delivered from vice?

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: That is to say, he who receives admonition and rebuke and punishment?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then he lives worst, who, having been unjust, has no deliverance frominjustice?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: That is, he lives worst who commits the greatest crimes, and who,being the most unjust of men, succeeds in escaping rebuke or correction orpunishment; and this, as you say, has been accomplished by Archelaus and othertyrants and rhetoricians and potentates? (Compare Republic.)

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: May not their way of proceeding, my friend, be compared to theconduct of a person who is afflicted with the worst of diseases and yetcontrives not to pay the penalty to the physician for his sins against hisconstitution, and will not be cured, because, like a child, he is afraid of thepain of being burned or cut:—Is not that a parallel case?

POLUS: Yes, truly.

SOCRATES: He would seem as if he did not know the nature of health and bodilyvigour; and if we are right, Polus, in our previous conclusions, they are in alike case who strive to evade justice, which they see to be painful, but areblind to the advantage which ensues from it, not knowing how far more miserablea companion a diseased soul is than a diseased body; a soul, I say, which iscorrupt and unrighteous and unholy. And hence they do all that they can toavoid punishment and to avoid being released from the greatest of evils; theyprovide themselves with money and friends, and cultivate to the utmost theirpowers of persuasion. But if we, Polus, are right, do you see what follows, orshall we draw out the consequences in form?

POLUS: If you please.

SOCRATES: Is it not a fact that injustice, and the doing of injustice, is thegreatest of evils?

POLUS: That is quite clear.

SOCRATES: And further, that to suffer punishment is the way to be released fromthis evil?

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: And not to suffer, is to perpetuate the evil?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: To do wrong, then, is second only in the scale of evils; but to dowrong and not to be punished, is first and greatest of all?

POLUS: That is true.

SOCRATES: Well, and was not this the point in dispute, my friend? You deemedArchelaus happy, because he was a very great criminal and unpunished: I, on theother hand, maintained that he or any other who like him has done wrong and hasnot been punished, is, and ought to be, the most miserable of all men; and thatthe doer of injustice is more miserable than the sufferer; and he who escapespunishment, more miserable than he who suffers.—Was not that what I said?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And it has been proved to be true?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Well, Polus, but if this is true, where is the great use of rhetoric?If we admit what has been just now said, every man ought in every way to guardhimself against doing wrong, for he will thereby suffer great evil?

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: And if he, or any one about whom he cares, does wrong, he ought ofhis own accord to go where he will be immediately punished; he will run to thejudge, as he would to the physician, in order that the disease of injustice maynot be rendered chronic and become the incurable cancer of the soul; must wenot allow this consequence, Polus, if our former admissions are tostand:—is any other inference consistent with them?

POLUS: To that, Socrates, there can be but one answer.

SOCRATES: Then rhetoric is of no use to us, Polus, in helping a man to excusehis own injustice, that of his parents or friends, or children or country; butmay be of use to any one who holds that instead of excusing he ought toaccuse—himself above all, and in the next degree his family or any of hisfriends who may be doing wrong; he should bring to light the iniquity and notconceal it, that so the wrong-doer may suffer and be made whole; and he shouldeven force himself and others not to shrink, but with closed eyes like bravemen to let the physician operate with knife or searing iron, not regarding thepain, in the hope of attaining the good and the honourable; let him who hasdone things worthy of stripes, allow himself to be scourged, if of bonds, to bebound, if of a fine, to be fined, if of exile, to be exiled, if of death, todie, himself being the first to accuse himself and his own relations, and usingrhetoric to this end, that his and their unjust actions may be made manifest,and that they themselves may be delivered from injustice, which is the greatestevil. Then, Polus, rhetoric would indeed be useful. Do you say“Yes” or “No” to that?

POLUS: To me, Socrates, what you are saying appears very strange, thoughprobably in agreement with your premises.

SOCRATES: Is not this the conclusion, if the premises are not disproven?

POLUS: Yes; it certainly is.

SOCRATES: And from the opposite point of view, if indeed it be our duty to harmanother, whether an enemy or not—I except the case ofself-defence—then I have to be upon my guard—but if my enemyinjures a third person, then in every sort of way, by word as well as deed, Ishould try to prevent his being punished, or appearing before the judge; and ifhe appears, I should contrive that he should escape, and not suffer punishment:if he has stolen a sum of money, let him keep what he has stolen and spend iton him and his, regardless of religion and justice; and if he have done thingsworthy of death, let him not die, but rather be immortal in his wickedness; or,if this is not possible, let him at any rate be allowed to live as long as hecan. For such purposes, Polus, rhetoric may be useful, but is of small if ofany use to him who is not intending to commit injustice; at least, there was nosuch use discovered by us in the previous discussion.

CALLICLES: Tell me, Chaerephon, is Socrates in earnest, or is he joking?

CHAEREPHON: I should say, Callicles, that he is in most profound earnest; butyou may well ask him.

CALLICLES: By the gods, and I will. Tell me, Socrates, are you in earnest, oronly in jest? For if you are in earnest, and what you say is true, is not thewhole of human life turned upside down; and are we not doing, as would appear,in everything the opposite of what we ought to be doing?

SOCRATES: O Callicles, if there were not some community of feelings amongmankind, however varying in different persons—I mean to say, if everyman’s feelings were peculiar to himself and were not shared by the restof his species—I do not see how we could ever communicate our impressionsto one another. I make this remark because I perceive that you and I have acommon feeling. For we are lovers both, and both of us have two lovesapiece:—I am the lover of Alcibiades, the son of Cleinias, and ofphilosophy; and you of the Athenian Demus, and of Demus the son of Pyrilampes.Now, I observe that you, with all your cleverness, do not venture to contradictyour favourite in any word or opinion of his; but as he changes you change,backwards and forwards. When the Athenian Demus denies anything that you aresaying in the assembly, you go over to his opinion; and you do the same withDemus, the fair young son of Pyrilampes. For you have not the power to resistthe words and ideas of your loves; and if a person were to express surprise atthe strangeness of what you say from time to time when under their influence,you would probably reply to him, if you were honest, that you cannot helpsaying what your loves say unless they are prevented; and that you can only besilent when they are. Now you must understand that my words are an echo too,and therefore you need not wonder at me; but if you want to silence me, silencephilosophy, who is my love, for she is always telling me what I am now tellingyou, my friend; neither is she capricious like my other love, for the son ofCleinias says one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow, but philosophy isalways true. She is the teacher at whose words you are now wondering, and youhave heard her yourself. Her you must refute, and either show, as I was saying,that to do injustice and to escape punishment is not the worst of all evils;or, if you leave her word unrefuted, by the dog the god of Egypt, I declare, OCallicles, that Callicles will never be at one with himself, but that his wholelife will be a discord. And yet, my friend, I would rather that my lyre shouldbe inharmonious, and that there should be no music in the chorus which Iprovided; aye, or that the whole world should be at odds with me, and opposeme, rather than that I myself should be at odds with myself, and contradictmyself.

CALLICLES: O Socrates, you are a regular declaimer, and seem to be running riotin the argument. And now you are declaiming in this way because Polus hasfallen into the same error himself of which he accused Gorgias:—for hesaid that when Gorgias was asked by you, whether, if some one came to him whowanted to learn rhetoric, and did not know justice, he would teach him justice,Gorgias in his modesty replied that he would, because he thought that mankindin general would be displeased if he answered “No”; and then inconsequence of this admission, Gorgias was compelled to contradict himself,that being just the sort of thing in which you delight. Whereupon Polus laughedat you deservedly, as I think; but now he has himself fallen into the sametrap. I cannot say very much for his wit when he conceded to you that to do ismore dishonourable than to suffer injustice, for this was the admission whichled to his being entangled by you; and because he was too modest to say what hethought, he had his mouth stopped. For the truth is, Socrates, that you, whopretend to be engaged in the pursuit of truth, are appealing now to the popularand vulgar notions of right, which are not natural, but only conventional.Convention and nature are generally at variance with one another: and hence, ifa person is too modest to say what he thinks, he is compelled to contradicthimself; and you, in your ingenuity perceiving the advantage to be therebygained, slyly ask of him who is arguing conventionally a question which is tobe determined by the rule of nature; and if he is talking of the rule ofnature, you slip away to custom: as, for instance, you did in this verydiscussion about doing and suffering injustice. When Polus was speaking of theconventionally dishonourable, you assailed him from the point of view ofnature; for by the rule of nature, to suffer injustice is the greater disgracebecause the greater evil; but conventionally, to do evil is the moredisgraceful. For the suffering of injustice is not the part of a man, but of aslave, who indeed had better die than live; since when he is wronged andtrampled upon, he is unable to help himself, or any other about whom he cares.The reason, as I conceive, is that the makers of laws are the majority who areweak; and they make laws and distribute praises and censures with a view tothemselves and to their own interests; and they terrify the stronger sort ofmen, and those who are able to get the better of them, in order that they maynot get the better of them; and they say, that dishonesty is shameful andunjust; meaning, by the word injustice, the desire of a man to have more thanhis neighbours; for knowing their own inferiority, I suspect that they are tooglad of equality. And therefore the endeavour to have more than the many, isconventionally said to be shameful and unjust, and is called injustice (compareRepublic), whereas nature herself intimates that it is just for the better tohave more than the worse, the more powerful than the weaker; and in many waysshe shows, among men as well as among animals, and indeed among whole citiesand races, that justice consists in the superior ruling over and having morethan the inferior. For on what principle of justice did Xerxes invade Hellas,or his father the Scythians? (not to speak of numberless other examples). Nay,but these are the men who act according to nature; yes, by Heaven, andaccording to the law of nature: not, perhaps, according to that artificial law,which we invent and impose upon our fellows, of whom we take the best andstrongest from their youth upwards, and tame them like younglions,—charming them with the sound of the voice, and saying to them,that with equality they must be content, and that the equal is the honourableand the just. But if there were a man who had sufficient force, he would shakeoff and break through, and escape from all this; he would trample under footall our formulas and spells and charms, and all our laws which are againstnature: the slave would rise in rebellion and be lord over us, and the light ofnatural justice would shine forth. And this I take to be the sentiment ofPindar, when he says in his poem, that

“Law is the king of all, of mortals as well as of immortals;”

this, as he says,

“Makes might to be right, doing violence with highest hand; as I inferfrom the deeds of Heracles, for without buying them—” (Fragm.Incert. 151 (Bockh).) —I do not remember the exact words, but the meaningis, that without buying them, and without their being given to him, he carriedoff the oxen of Geryon, according to the law of natural right, and that theoxen and other possessions of the weaker and inferior properly belong to thestronger and superior. And this is true, as you may ascertain, if you willleave philosophy and go on to higher things: for philosophy, Socrates, ifpursued in moderation and at the proper age, is an elegant accomplishment, buttoo much philosophy is the ruin of human life. Even if a man has good parts,still, if he carries philosophy into later life, he is necessarily ignorant ofall those things which a gentleman and a person of honour ought to know; he isinexperienced in the laws of the State, and in the language which ought to beused in the dealings of man with man, whether private or public, and utterlyignorant of the pleasures and desires of mankind and of human character ingeneral. And people of this sort, when they betake themselves to politics orbusiness, are as ridiculous as I imagine the politicians to be, when they maketheir appearance in the arena of philosophy. For, as Euripides says,

“Every man shines in that and pursues that, and devotes the greatestportion of the day to that in which he most excels,” (Antiope, fragm. 20(Dindorf).)

but anything in which he is inferior, he avoids and depreciates, and praisesthe opposite from partiality to himself, and because he thinks that he willthus praise himself. The true principle is to unite them. Philosophy, as a partof education, is an excellent thing, and there is no disgrace to a man while heis young in pursuing such a study; but when he is more advanced in years, thething becomes ridiculous, and I feel towards philosophers as I do towards thosewho lisp and imitate children. For I love to see a little child, who is not ofan age to speak plainly, lisping at his play; there is an appearance of graceand freedom in his utterance, which is natural to his childish years. But whenI hear some small creature carefully articulating its words, I am offended; thesound is disagreeable, and has to my ears the twang of slavery. So when I heara man lisping, or see him playing like a child, his behaviour appears to meridiculous and unmanly and worthy of stripes. And I have the same feeling aboutstudents of philosophy; when I see a youth thus engaged,—the studyappears to me to be in character, and becoming a man of liberal education, andhim who neglects philosophy I regard as an inferior man, who will never aspireto anything great or noble. But if I see him continuing the study in laterlife, and not leaving off, I should like to beat him, Socrates; for, as I wassaying, such a one, even though he have good natural parts, becomes effeminate.He flies from the busy centre and the market-place, in which, as the poet says,men become distinguished; he creeps into a corner for the rest of his life, andtalks in a whisper with three or four admiring youths, but never speaks outlike a freeman in a satisfactory manner. Now I, Socrates, am very well inclinedtowards you, and my feeling may be compared with that of Zethus towardsAmphion, in the play of Euripides, whom I was mentioning just now: for I amdisposed to say to you much what Zethus said to his brother, that you,Socrates, are careless about the things of which you ought to be careful; andthat you

“Who have a soul so noble, are remarkable for a puerile exterior; Neitherin a court of justice could you state a case, or give any reason or proof, Oroffer valiant counsel on another’s behalf.”

And you must not be offended, my dear Socrates, for I am speaking out ofgood-will towards you, if I ask whether you are not ashamed of being thusdefenceless; which I affirm to be the condition not of you only but of allthose who will carry the study of philosophy too far. For suppose that some onewere to take you, or any one of your sort, off to prison, declaring that youhad done wrong when you had done no wrong, you must allow that you would notknow what to do:—there you would stand giddy and gaping, and not having aword to say; and when you went up before the Court, even if the accuser were apoor creature and not good for much, you would die if he were disposed to claimthe penalty of death. And yet, Socrates, what is the value of

“An art which converts a man of sense into a fool,”

who is helpless, and has no power to save either himself or others, when he isin the greatest danger and is going to be despoiled by his enemies of all hisgoods, and has to live, simply deprived of his rights of citizenship?—hebeing a man who, if I may use the expression, may be boxed on the ears withimpunity. Then, my good friend, take my advice, and refute no more:

“Learn the philosophy of business, and acquire the reputation of wisdom.But leave to others these niceties,”

whether they are to be described as follies or absurdities:

“For they will only Give you poverty for the inmate of yourdwelling.”

Cease, then, emulating these paltry splitters of words, and emulate only theman of substance and honour, who is well to do.

SOCRATES: If my soul, Callicles, were made of gold, should I not rejoice todiscover one of those stones with which they test gold, and the very bestpossible one to which I might bring my soul; and if the stone and I agreed inapproving of her training, then I should know that I was in a satisfactorystate, and that no other test was needed by me.

CALLICLES: What is your meaning, Socrates?

SOCRATES: I will tell you; I think that I have found in you the desiredtouchstone.

CALLICLES: Why?

SOCRATES: Because I am sure that if you agree with me in any of the opinionswhich my soul forms, I have at last found the truth indeed. For I consider thatif a man is to make a complete trial of the good or evil of the soul, he oughtto have three qualities—knowledge, good-will, outspokenness, which areall possessed by you. Many whom I meet are unable to make trial of me, becausethey are not wise as you are; others are wise, but they will not tell me thetruth, because they have not the same interest in me which you have; and thesetwo strangers, Gorgias and Polus, are undoubtedly wise men and my very goodfriends, but they are not outspoken enough, and they are too modest. Why, theirmodesty is so great that they are driven to contradict themselves, first oneand then the other of them, in the face of a large company, on matters of thehighest moment. But you have all the qualities in which these others aredeficient, having received an excellent education; to this many Athenians cantestify. And you are my friend. Shall I tell you why I think so? I know thatyou, Callicles, and Tisander of Aphidnae, and Andron the son of Androtion, andNausicydes of the deme of Cholarges, studied together: there were four of you,and I once heard you advising with one another as to the extent to which thepursuit of philosophy should be carried, and, as I know, you came to theconclusion that the study should not be pushed too much into detail. You werecautioning one another not to be overwise; you were afraid that too much wisdommight unconsciously to yourselves be the ruin of you. And now when I hear yougiving the same advice to me which you then gave to your most intimate friends,I have a sufficient evidence of your real good-will to me. And of the franknessof your nature and freedom from modesty I am assured by yourself, and theassurance is confirmed by your last speech. Well then, the inference in thepresent case clearly is, that if you agree with me in an argument about anypoint, that point will have been sufficiently tested by us, and will notrequire to be submitted to any further test. For you could not have agreed withme, either from lack of knowledge or from superfluity of modesty, nor yet froma desire to deceive me, for you are my friend, as you tell me yourself. Andtherefore when you and I are agreed, the result will be the attainment ofperfect truth. Now there is no nobler enquiry, Callicles, than that which youcensure me for making,—What ought the character of a man to be, and whathis pursuits, and how far is he to go, both in maturer years and in youth? Forbe assured that if I err in my own conduct I do not err intentionally, but fromignorance. Do not then desist from advising me, now that you have begun, untilI have learned clearly what this is which I am to practise, and how I mayacquire it. And if you find me assenting to your words, and hereafter not doingthat to which I assented, call me “dolt,” and deem me unworthy ofreceiving further instruction. Once more, then, tell me what you and Pindarmean by natural justice: Do you not mean that the superior should take theproperty of the inferior by force; that the better should rule the worse, thenoble have more than the mean? Am I not right in my recollection?

CALLICLES: Yes; that is what I was saying, and so I still aver.

SOCRATES: And do you mean by the better the same as the superior? for I couldnot make out what you were saying at the time—whether you meant by thesuperior the stronger, and that the weaker must obey the stronger, as youseemed to imply when you said that great cities attack small ones in accordancewith natural right, because they are superior and stronger, as though thesuperior and stronger and better were the same; or whether the better may bealso the inferior and weaker, and the superior the worse, or whether better isto be defined in the same way as superior:—this is the point which I wantto have cleared up. Are the superior and better and stronger the same ordifferent?

CALLICLES: I say unequivocally that they are the same.

SOCRATES: Then the many are by nature superior to the one, against whom, as youwere saying, they make the laws?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then the laws of the many are the laws of the superior?

CALLICLES: Very true.

SOCRATES: Then they are the laws of the better; for the superior class are farbetter, as you were saying?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And since they are superior, the laws which are made by them are bynature good?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And are not the many of opinion, as you were lately saying, thatjustice is equality, and that to do is more disgraceful than to sufferinjustice?—is that so or not? Answer, Callicles, and let no modesty befound to come in the way; do the many think, or do they not think thus?—Imust beg of you to answer, in order that if you agree with me I may fortifymyself by the assent of so competent an authority.

CALLICLES: Yes; the opinion of the many is what you say.

SOCRATES: Then not only custom but nature also affirms that to do is moredisgraceful than to suffer injustice, and that justice is equality; so that youseem to have been wrong in your former assertion, when accusing me you saidthat nature and custom are opposed, and that I, knowing this, was dishonestlyplaying between them, appealing to custom when the argument is about nature,and to nature when the argument is about custom?

CALLICLES: This man will never cease talking nonsense. At your age, Socrates,are you not ashamed to be catching at words and chuckling over some verbalslip? do you not see—have I not told you already, that by superior I meanbetter: do you imagine me to say, that if a rabble of slaves and nondescripts,who are of no use except perhaps for their physical strength, get together,their ipsissima verba are laws?

SOCRATES: Ho! my philosopher, is that your line?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: I was thinking, Callicles, that something of the kind must have beenin your mind, and that is why I repeated the question,—What is thesuperior? I wanted to know clearly what you meant; for you surely do not thinkthat two men are better than one, or that your slaves are better than youbecause they are stronger? Then please to begin again, and tell me who thebetter are, if they are not the stronger; and I will ask you, great Sir, to bea little milder in your instructions, or I shall have to run away from you.

CALLICLES: You are ironical.

SOCRATES: No, by the hero Zethus, Callicles, by whose aid you were just nowsaying many ironical things against me, I am not:—tell me, then, whom youmean, by the better?

CALLICLES: I mean the more excellent.

SOCRATES: Do you not see that you are yourself using words which have nomeaning and that you are explaining nothing?—will you tell me whether youmean by the better and superior the wiser, or if not, whom?

CALLICLES: Most assuredly, I do mean the wiser.

SOCRATES: Then according to you, one wise man may often be superior to tenthousand fools, and he ought to rule them, and they ought to be his subjects,and he ought to have more than they should. This is what I believe that youmean (and you must not suppose that I am word-catching), if you allow that theone is superior to the ten thousand?

CALLICLES: Yes; that is what I mean, and that is what I conceive to be naturaljustice—that the better and wiser should rule and have more than theinferior.

SOCRATES: Stop there, and let me ask you what you would say in this case: Letus suppose that we are all together as we are now; there are several of us, andwe have a large common store of meats and drinks, and there are all sorts ofpersons in our company having various degrees of strength and weakness, and oneof us, being a physician, is wiser in the matter of food than all the rest, andhe is probably stronger than some and not so strong as others of us—willhe not, being wiser, be also better than we are, and our superior in thismatter of food?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Either, then, he will have a larger share of the meats and drinks,because he is better, or he will have the distribution of all of them by reasonof his authority, but he will not expend or make use of a larger share of themon his own person, or if he does, he will be punished;—his share willexceed that of some, and be less than that of others, and if he be the weakestof all, he being the best of all will have the smallest share of all,Callicles:—am I not right, my friend?

CALLICLES: You talk about meats and drinks and physicians and other nonsense; Iam not speaking of them.

SOCRATES: Well, but do you admit that the wiser is the better? Answer“Yes” or “No.”

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And ought not the better to have a larger share?

CALLICLES: Not of meats and drinks.

SOCRATES: I understand: then, perhaps, of coats—the skilfullest weaverought to have the largest coat, and the greatest number of them, and go aboutclothed in the best and finest of them?

CALLICLES: Fudge about coats!

SOCRATES: Then the skilfullest and best in making shoes ought to have theadvantage in shoes; the shoemaker, clearly, should walk about in the largestshoes, and have the greatest number of them?

CALLICLES: Fudge about shoes! What nonsense are you talking?

SOCRATES: Or, if this is not your meaning, perhaps you would say that the wiseand good and true husbandman should actually have a larger share of seeds, andhave as much seed as possible for his own land?

CALLICLES: How you go on, always talking in the same way, Socrates!

SOCRATES: Yes, Callicles, and also about the same things.

CALLICLES: Yes, by the Gods, you are literally always talking of cobblers andfullers and cooks and doctors, as if this had to do with our argument.

SOCRATES: But why will you not tell me in what a man must be superior and wiserin order to claim a larger share; will you neither accept a suggestion, noroffer one?

CALLICLES: I have already told you. In the first place, I mean by superiors notcobblers or cooks, but wise politicians who understand the administration of astate, and who are not only wise, but also valiant and able to carry out theirdesigns, and not the men to faint from want of soul.

SOCRATES: See now, most excellent Callicles, how different my charge againstyou is from that which you bring against me, for you reproach me with alwayssaying the same; but I reproach you with never saying the same about the samethings, for at one time you were defining the better and the superior to be thestronger, then again as the wiser, and now you bring forward a new notion; thesuperior and the better are now declared by you to be the more courageous: Iwish, my good friend, that you would tell me, once for all, whom you affirm tobe the better and superior, and in what they are better?

CALLICLES: I have already told you that I mean those who are wise andcourageous in the administration of a state—they ought to be the rulersof their states, and justice consists in their having more than their subjects.

SOCRATES: But whether rulers or subjects will they or will they not have morethan themselves, my friend?

CALLICLES: What do you mean?

SOCRATES: I mean that every man is his own ruler; but perhaps you think thatthere is no necessity for him to rule himself; he is only required to ruleothers?

CALLICLES: What do you mean by his “ruling over himself”?

SOCRATES: A simple thing enough; just what is commonly said, that a man shouldbe temperate and master of himself, and ruler of his own pleasures andpassions.

CALLICLES: What innocence! you mean those fools,—the temperate?

SOCRATES: Certainly:—any one may know that to be my meaning.

CALLICLES: Quite so, Socrates; and they are really fools, for how can a man behappy who is the servant of anything? On the contrary, I plainly assert, thathe who would truly live ought to allow his desires to wax to the uttermost, andnot to chastise them; but when they have grown to their greatest he should havecourage and intelligence to minister to them and to satisfy all his longings.And this I affirm to be natural justice and nobility. To this however the manycannot attain; and they blame the strong man because they are ashamed of theirown weakness, which they desire to conceal, and hence they say thatintemperance is base. As I have remarked already, they enslave the noblernatures, and being unable to satisfy their pleasures, they praise temperanceand justice out of their own cowardice. For if a man had been originally theson of a king, or had a nature capable of acquiring an empire or a tyranny orsovereignty, what could be more truly base or evil than temperance—to aman like him, I say, who might freely be enjoying every good, and has no one tostand in his way, and yet has admitted custom and reason and the opinion ofother men to be lords over him?—must not he be in a miserable plight whomthe reputation of justice and temperance hinders from giving more to hisfriends than to his enemies, even though he be a ruler in his city? Nay,Socrates, for you profess to be a votary of the truth, and the truth isthis:—that luxury and intemperance and licence, if they be provided withmeans, are virtue and happiness—all the rest is a mere bauble, agreementscontrary to nature, foolish talk of men, nothing worth. (Compare Republic.)

SOCRATES: There is a noble freedom, Callicles, in your way of approaching theargument; for what you say is what the rest of the world think, but do not liketo say. And I must beg of you to persevere, that the true rule of human lifemay become manifest. Tell me, then:—you say, do you not, that in therightly-developed man the passions ought not to be controlled, but that weshould let them grow to the utmost and somehow or other satisfy them, and thatthis is virtue?

CALLICLES: Yes; I do.

SOCRATES: Then those who want nothing are not truly said to be happy?

CALLICLES: No indeed, for then stones and dead men would be the happiest ofall.

SOCRATES: But surely life according to your view is an awful thing; and indeedI think that Euripides may have been right in saying,

“Who knows if life be not death and death life;”

and that we are very likely dead; I have heard a philosopher say that at thismoment we are actually dead, and that the body (soma) is our tomb (sema(compare Phaedr.)), and that the part of the soul which is the seat of thedesires is liable to be tossed about by words and blown up and down; and someingenious person, probably a Sicilian or an Italian, playing with the word,invented a tale in which he called the soul—because of its believing andmake-believe nature—a vessel (An untranslatable pun,—dia topithanon te kai pistikon onomase pithon.), and the ignorant he called theuninitiated or leaky, and the place in the souls of the uninitiated in whichthe desires are seated, being the intemperate and incontinent part, he comparedto a vessel full of holes, because it can never be satisfied. He is not of yourway of thinking, Callicles, for he declares, that of all the souls in Hades,meaning the invisible world (aeides), these uninitiated or leaky persons arethe most miserable, and that they pour water into a vessel which is full ofholes out of a colander which is similarly perforated. The colander, as myinformer assures me, is the soul, and the soul which he compares to a colanderis the soul of the ignorant, which is likewise full of holes, and thereforeincontinent, owing to a bad memory and want of faith. These notions are strangeenough, but they show the principle which, if I can, I would fain prove to you;that you should change your mind, and, instead of the intemperate and insatiatelife, choose that which is orderly and sufficient and has a due provision fordaily needs. Do I make any impression on you, and are you coming over to theopinion that the orderly are happier than the intemperate? Or do I fail topersuade you, and, however many tales I rehearse to you, do you continue of thesame opinion still?

CALLICLES: The latter, Socrates, is more like the truth.

SOCRATES: Well, I will tell you another image, which comes out of the sameschool:—Let me request you to consider how far you would accept this asan account of the two lives of the temperate and intemperate in afigure:—There are two men, both of whom have a number of casks; the oneman has his casks sound and full, one of wine, another of honey, and a third ofmilk, besides others filled with other liquids, and the streams which fill themare few and scanty, and he can only obtain them with a great deal of toil anddifficulty; but when his casks are once filled he has no need to feed them anymore, and has no further trouble with them or care about them. The other, inlike manner, can procure streams, though not without difficulty; but hisvessels are leaky and unsound, and night and day he is compelled to be fillingthem, and if he pauses for a moment, he is in an agony of pain. Such are theirrespective lives:—And now would you say that the life of the intemperateis happier than that of the temperate? Do I not convince you that the oppositeis the truth?

CALLICLES: You do not convince me, Socrates, for the one who has filled himselfhas no longer any pleasure left; and this, as I was just now saying, is thelife of a stone: he has neither joy nor sorrow after he is once filled; but thepleasure depends on the superabundance of the influx.

SOCRATES: But the more you pour in, the greater the waste; and the holes mustbe large for the liquid to escape.

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: The life which you are now depicting is not that of a dead man, or ofa stone, but of a cormorant; you mean that he is to be hungering and eating?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And he is to be thirsting and drinking?

CALLICLES: Yes, that is what I mean; he is to have all his desires about him,and to be able to live happily in the gratification of them.

SOCRATES: Capital, excellent; go on as you have begun, and have no shame; I,too, must disencumber myself of shame: and first, will you tell me whether youinclude itching and scratching, provided you have enough of them and pass yourlife in scratching, in your notion of happiness?

CALLICLES: What a strange being you are, Socrates! a regular mob-orator.

SOCRATES: That was the reason, Callicles, why I scared Polus and Gorgias, untilthey were too modest to say what they thought; but you will not be too modestand will not be scared, for you are a brave man. And now, answer my question.

CALLICLES: I answer, that even the scratcher would live pleasantly.

SOCRATES: And if pleasantly, then also happily?

CALLICLES: To be sure.

SOCRATES: But what if the itching is not confined to the head? Shall I pursuethe question? And here, Callicles, I would have you consider how you wouldreply if consequences are pressed upon you, especially if in the last resortyou are asked, whether the life of a catamite is not terrible, foul, miserable?Or would you venture to say, that they too are happy, if they only get enoughof what they want?

CALLICLES: Are you not ashamed, Socrates, of introducing such topics into theargument?

SOCRATES: Well, my fine friend, but am I the introducer of these topics, or hewho says without any qualification that all who feel pleasure in whatevermanner are happy, and who admits of no distinction between good and badpleasures? And I would still ask, whether you say that pleasure and good arethe same, or whether there is some pleasure which is not a good?

CALLICLES: Well, then, for the sake of consistency, I will say that they arethe same.

SOCRATES: You are breaking the original agreement, Callicles, and will nolonger be a satisfactory companion in the search after truth, if you say whatis contrary to your real opinion.

CALLICLES: Why, that is what you are doing too, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Then we are both doing wrong. Still, my dear friend, I would ask youto consider whether pleasure, from whatever source derived, is the good; for,if this be true, then the disagreeable consequences which have been darklyintimated must follow, and many others.

CALLICLES: That, Socrates, is only your opinion.

SOCRATES: And do you, Callicles, seriously maintain what you are saying?

CALLICLES: Indeed I do.

SOCRATES: Then, as you are in earnest, shall we proceed with the argument?

CALLICLES: By all means. (Or, “I am in profound earnest.”)

SOCRATES: Well, if you are willing to proceed, determine this question forme:—There is something, I presume, which you would call knowledge?

CALLICLES: There is.

SOCRATES: And were you not saying just now, that some courage impliedknowledge?

CALLICLES: I was.

SOCRATES: And you were speaking of courage and knowledge as two thingsdifferent from one another?

CALLICLES: Certainly I was.

SOCRATES: And would you say that pleasure and knowledge are the same, or notthe same?

CALLICLES: Not the same, O man of wisdom.

SOCRATES: And would you say that courage differed from pleasure?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Well, then, let us remember that Callicles, the Acharnian, says thatpleasure and good are the same; but that knowledge and courage are not thesame, either with one another, or with the good.

CALLICLES: And what does our friend Socrates, of Foxton, say—does heassent to this, or not?

SOCRATES: He does not assent; neither will Callicles, when he sees himselftruly. You will admit, I suppose, that good and evil fortune are opposed toeach other?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And if they are opposed to each other, then, like health and disease,they exclude one another; a man cannot have them both, or be without them both,at the same time?

CALLICLES: What do you mean?

SOCRATES: Take the case of any bodily affection:—a man may have thecomplaint in his eyes which is called ophthalmia?

CALLICLES: To be sure.

SOCRATES: But he surely cannot have the same eyes well and sound at the sametime?

CALLICLES: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: And when he has got rid of his ophthalmia, has he got rid of thehealth of his eyes too? Is the final result, that he gets rid of them bothtogether?

CALLICLES: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: That would surely be marvellous and absurd?

CALLICLES: Very.

SOCRATES: I suppose that he is affected by them, and gets rid of them in turns?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And he may have strength and weakness in the same way, by fits?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Or swiftness and slowness?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And does he have and not have good and happiness, and theiropposites, evil and misery, in a similar alternation? (Compare Republic.)

CALLICLES: Certainly he has.

SOCRATES: If then there be anything which a man has and has not at the sametime, clearly that cannot be good and evil—do we agree? Please not toanswer without consideration.

CALLICLES: I entirely agree.

SOCRATES: Go back now to our former admissions.—Did you say that tohunger, I mean the mere state of hunger, was pleasant or painful?

CALLICLES: I said painful, but that to eat when you are hungry is pleasant.

SOCRATES: I know; but still the actual hunger is painful: am I not right?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And thirst, too, is painful?

CALLICLES: Yes, very.

SOCRATES: Need I adduce any more instances, or would you agree that all wantsor desires are painful?

CALLICLES: I agree, and therefore you need not adduce any more instances.

SOCRATES: Very good. And you would admit that to drink, when you are thirsty,is pleasant?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And in the sentence which you have just uttered, the word“thirsty” implies pain?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And the word “drinking” is expressive of pleasure, and ofthe satisfaction of the want?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: There is pleasure in drinking?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: When you are thirsty?

SOCRATES: And in pain?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Do you see the inference:—that pleasure and pain aresimultaneous, when you say that being thirsty, you drink? For are they notsimultaneous, and do they not affect at the same time the same part, whether ofthe soul or the body?—which of them is affected cannot be supposed to beof any consequence: Is not this true?

CALLICLES: It is.

SOCRATES: You said also, that no man could have good and evil fortune at thesame time?

CALLICLES: Yes, I did.

SOCRATES: But you admitted, that when in pain a man might also have pleasure?

CALLICLES: Clearly.

SOCRATES: Then pleasure is not the same as good fortune, or pain the same asevil fortune, and therefore the good is not the same as the pleasant?

CALLICLES: I wish I knew, Socrates, what your quibbling means.

SOCRATES: You know, Callicles, but you affect not to know.

CALLICLES: Well, get on, and don’t keep fooling: then you will know whata wiseacre you are in your admonition of me.

SOCRATES: Does not a man cease from his thirst and from his pleasure indrinking at the same time?

CALLICLES: I do not understand what you are saying.

GORGIAS: Nay, Callicles, answer, if only for our sakes;—we should like tohear the argument out.

CALLICLES: Yes, Gorgias, but I must complain of the habitual trifling ofSocrates; he is always arguing about little and unworthy questions.

GORGIAS: What matter? Your reputation, Callicles, is not at stake. Let Socratesargue in his own fashion.

CALLICLES: Well, then, Socrates, you shall ask these little peddling questions,since Gorgias wishes to have them.

SOCRATES: I envy you, Callicles, for having been initiated into the greatmysteries before you were initiated into the lesser. I thought that this wasnot allowable. But to return to our argument:—Does not a man cease fromthirsting and from the pleasure of drinking at the same moment?

CALLICLES: True.

SOCRATES: And if he is hungry, or has any other desire, does he not cease fromthe desire and the pleasure at the same moment?

CALLICLES: Very true.

SOCRATES: Then he ceases from pain and pleasure at the same moment?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: But he does not cease from good and evil at the same moment, as youhave admitted: do you still adhere to what you said?

CALLICLES: Yes, I do; but what is the inference?

SOCRATES: Why, my friend, the inference is that the good is not the same as thepleasant, or the evil the same as the painful; there is a cessation of pleasureand pain at the same moment; but not of good and evil, for they are different.How then can pleasure be the same as good, or pain as evil? And I would haveyou look at the matter in another light, which could hardly, I think, have beenconsidered by you when you identified them: Are not the good good because theyhave good present with them, as the beautiful are those who have beauty presentwith them?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And do you call the fools and cowards good men? For you were sayingjust now that the courageous and the wise are the good—would you not sayso?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And did you never see a foolish child rejoicing?

CALLICLES: Yes, I have.

SOCRATES: And a foolish man too?

CALLICLES: Yes, certainly; but what is your drift?

SOCRATES: Nothing particular, if you will only answer.

CALLICLES: Yes, I have.

SOCRATES: And did you ever see a sensible man rejoicing or sorrowing?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Which rejoice and sorrow most—the wise or the foolish?

CALLICLES: They are much upon a par, I think, in that respect.

SOCRATES: Enough: And did you ever see a coward in battle?

CALLICLES: To be sure.

SOCRATES: And which rejoiced most at the departure of the enemy, the coward orthe brave?

CALLICLES: I should say “most” of both; or at any rate, theyrejoiced about equally.

SOCRATES: No matter; then the cowards, and not only the brave, rejoice?

CALLICLES: Greatly.

SOCRATES: And the foolish; so it would seem?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And are only the cowards pained at the approach of their enemies, orare the brave also pained?

CALLICLES: Both are pained.

SOCRATES: And are they equally pained?

CALLICLES: I should imagine that the cowards are more pained.

SOCRATES: And are they not better pleased at the enemy’s departure?

CALLICLES: I dare say.

SOCRATES: Then are the foolish and the wise and the cowards and the brave allpleased and pained, as you were saying, in nearly equal degree; but are thecowards more pleased and pained than the brave?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: But surely the wise and brave are the good, and the foolish and thecowardly are the bad?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then the good and the bad are pleased and pained in a nearly equaldegree?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then are the good and bad good and bad in a nearly equal degree, orhave the bad the advantage both in good and evil? (i.e. in having more pleasureand more pain.)

CALLICLES: I really do not know what you mean.

SOCRATES: Why, do you not remember saying that the good were good because goodwas present with them, and the evil because evil; and that pleasures were goodsand pains evils?

CALLICLES: Yes, I remember.

SOCRATES: And are not these pleasures or goods present to those whorejoice—if they do rejoice?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then those who rejoice are good when goods are present with them?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And those who are in pain have evil or sorrow present with them?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And would you still say that the evil are evil by reason of thepresence of evil?

CALLICLES: I should.

SOCRATES: Then those who rejoice are good, and those who are in pain evil?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: The degrees of good and evil vary with the degrees of pleasure and ofpain?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Have the wise man and the fool, the brave and the coward, joy andpain in nearly equal degrees? or would you say that the coward has more?

CALLICLES: I should say that he has.

SOCRATES: Help me then to draw out the conclusion which follows from ouradmissions; for it is good to repeat and review what is good twice and thriceover, as they say. Both the wise man and the brave man we allow to be good?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And the foolish man and the coward to be evil?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And he who has joy is good?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And he who is in pain is evil?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: The good and evil both have joy and pain, but, perhaps, the evil hasmore of them?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then must we not infer, that the bad man is as good and bad as thegood, or, perhaps, even better?—is not this a further inference whichfollows equally with the preceding from the assertion that the good and thepleasant are the same:—can this be denied, Callicles?

CALLICLES: I have been listening and making admissions to you, Socrates; and Iremark that if a person grants you anything in play, you, like a child, want tokeep hold and will not give it back. But do you really suppose that I or anyother human being denies that some pleasures are good and others bad?

SOCRATES: Alas, Callicles, how unfair you are! you certainly treat me as if Iwere a child, sometimes saying one thing, and then another, as if you weremeaning to deceive me. And yet I thought at first that you were my friend, andwould not have deceived me if you could have helped. But I see that I wasmistaken; and now I suppose that I must make the best of a bad business, asthey said of old, and take what I can get out of you.—Well, then, as Iunderstand you to say, I may assume that some pleasures are good and othersevil?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: The beneficial are good, and the hurtful are evil?

CALLICLES: To be sure.

SOCRATES: And the beneficial are those which do some good, and the hurtful arethose which do some evil?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Take, for example, the bodily pleasures of eating and drinking, whichwe were just now mentioning—you mean to say that those which promotehealth, or any other bodily excellence, are good, and their opposites evil?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And in the same way there are good pains and there are evil pains?

CALLICLES: To be sure.

SOCRATES: And ought we not to choose and use the good pleasures and pains?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: But not the evil?

CALLICLES: Clearly.

SOCRATES: Because, if you remember, Polus and I have agreed that all ouractions are to be done for the sake of the good;—and will you agree withus in saying, that the good is the end of all our actions, and that all ouractions are to be done for the sake of the good, and not the good for the sakeof them?—will you add a third vote to our two?

CALLICLES: I will.

SOCRATES: Then pleasure, like everything else, is to be sought for the sake ofthat which is good, and not that which is good for the sake of pleasure?

CALLICLES: To be sure.

SOCRATES: But can every man choose what pleasures are good and what are evil,or must he have art or knowledge of them in detail?

CALLICLES: He must have art.

SOCRATES: Let me now remind you of what I was saying to Gorgias and Polus; Iwas saying, as you will not have forgotten, that there were some processeswhich aim only at pleasure, and know nothing of a better and worse, and thereare other processes which know good and evil. And I considered that cookery,which I do not call an art, but only an experience, was of the former class,which is concerned with pleasure, and that the art of medicine was of the classwhich is concerned with the good. And now, by the god of friendship, I must begyou, Callicles, not to jest, or to imagine that I am jesting with you; do notanswer at random and contrary to your real opinion—for you will observethat we are arguing about the way of human life; and to a man who has any senseat all, what question can be more serious than this?—whether he shouldfollow after that way of life to which you exhort me, and act what you call themanly part of speaking in the assembly, and cultivating rhetoric, and engagingin public affairs, according to the principles now in vogue; or whether heshould pursue the life of philosophy;—and in what the latter way differsfrom the former. But perhaps we had better first try to distinguish them, as Idid before, and when we have come to an agreement that they are distinct, wemay proceed to consider in what they differ from one another, and which of themwe should choose. Perhaps, however, you do not even now understand what I mean?

CALLICLES: No, I do not.

SOCRATES: Then I will explain myself more clearly: seeing that you and I haveagreed that there is such a thing as good, and that there is such a thing aspleasure, and that pleasure is not the same as good, and that the pursuit andprocess of acquisition of the one, that is pleasure, is different from thepursuit and process of acquisition of the other, which is good—I wishthat you would tell me whether you agree with me thus far or not—do youagree?

CALLICLES: I do.

SOCRATES: Then I will proceed, and ask whether you also agree with me, andwhether you think that I spoke the truth when I further said to Gorgias andPolus that cookery in my opinion is only an experience, and not an art at all;and that whereas medicine is an art, and attends to the nature and constitutionof the patient, and has principles of action and reason in each case, cookeryin attending upon pleasure never regards either the nature or reason of thatpleasure to which she devotes herself, but goes straight to her end, nor everconsiders or calculates anything, but works by experience and routine, and justpreserves the recollection of what she has usually done when producingpleasure. And first, I would have you consider whether I have proved what I wassaying, and then whether there are not other similar processes which have to dowith the soul—some of them processes of art, making a provision for thesoul’s highest interest—others despising the interest, and, as inthe previous case, considering only the pleasure of the soul, and how this maybe acquired, but not considering what pleasures are good or bad, and having noother aim but to afford gratification, whether good or bad. In my opinion,Callicles, there are such processes, and this is the sort of thing which I termflattery, whether concerned with the body or the soul, or whenever employedwith a view to pleasure and without any consideration of good and evil. And nowI wish that you would tell me whether you agree with us in this notion, orwhether you differ.

CALLICLES: I do not differ; on the contrary, I agree; for in that way I shallsoonest bring the argument to an end, and shall oblige my friend Gorgias.

SOCRATES: And is this notion true of one soul, or of two or more?

CALLICLES: Equally true of two or more.

SOCRATES: Then a man may delight a whole assembly, and yet have no regard fortheir true interests?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Can you tell me the pursuits which delight mankind—or rather,if you would prefer, let me ask, and do you answer, which of them belong to thepleasurable class, and which of them not? In the first place, what say you offlute-playing? Does not that appear to be an art which seeks only pleasure,Callicles, and thinks of nothing else?

CALLICLES: I assent.

SOCRATES: And is not the same true of all similar arts, as, for example, theart of playing the lyre at festivals?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And what do you say of the choral art and of dithyrambicpoetry?—are not they of the same nature? Do you imagine that Cinesias theson of Meles cares about what will tend to the moral improvement of hishearers, or about what will give pleasure to the multitude?

CALLICLES: There can be no mistake about Cinesias, Socrates.

SOCRATES: And what do you say of his father, Meles the harp-player? Did heperform with any view to the good of his hearers? Could he be said to regardeven their pleasure? For his singing was an infliction to his audience. And ofharp-playing and dithyrambic poetry in general, what would you say? Have theynot been invented wholly for the sake of pleasure?

CALLICLES: That is my notion of them.

SOCRATES: And as for the Muse of Tragedy, that solemn and augustpersonage—what are her aspirations? Is all her aim and desire only togive pleasure to the spectators, or does she fight against them and refuse tospeak of their pleasant vices, and willingly proclaim in word and song truthswelcome and unwelcome?—which in your judgment is her character?

CALLICLES: There can be no doubt, Socrates, that Tragedy has her face turnedtowards pleasure and the gratification of the audience.

SOCRATES: And is not that the sort of thing, Callicles, which we were just nowdescribing as flattery?

CALLICLES: Quite true.

SOCRATES: Well now, suppose that we strip all poetry of song and rhythm andmetre, there will remain speech? (Compare Republic.)

CALLICLES: To be sure.

SOCRATES: And this speech is addressed to a crowd of people?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then poetry is a sort of rhetoric?

CALLICLES: True.

SOCRATES: And do not the poets in the theatres seem to you to be rhetoricians?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then now we have discovered a sort of rhetoric which is addressed toa crowd of men, women, and children, freemen and slaves. And this is not muchto our taste, for we have described it as having the nature of flattery.

CALLICLES: Quite true.

SOCRATES: Very good. And what do you say of that other rhetoric which addressesthe Athenian assembly and the assemblies of freemen in other states? Do therhetoricians appear to you always to aim at what is best, and do they seek toimprove the citizens by their speeches, or are they too, like the rest ofmankind, bent upon giving them pleasure, forgetting the public good in thethought of their own interest, playing with the people as with children, andtrying to amuse them, but never considering whether they are better or worsefor this?

CALLICLES: I must distinguish. There are some who have a real care of thepublic in what they say, while others are such as you describe.

SOCRATES: I am contented with the admission that rhetoric is of two sorts; one,which is mere flattery and disgraceful declamation; the other, which is nobleand aims at the training and improvement of the souls of the citizens, andstrives to say what is best, whether welcome or unwelcome, to the audience; buthave you ever known such a rhetoric; or if you have, and can point out anyrhetorician who is of this stamp, who is he?

CALLICLES: But, indeed, I am afraid that I cannot tell you of any such amongthe orators who are at present living.

SOCRATES: Well, then, can you mention any one of a former generation, who maybe said to have improved the Athenians, who found them worse and made thembetter, from the day that he began to make speeches? for, indeed, I do not knowof such a man.

CALLICLES: What! did you never hear that Themistocles was a good man, and Cimonand Miltiades and Pericles, who is just lately dead, and whom you heardyourself?

SOCRATES: Yes, Callicles, they were good men, if, as you said at first, truevirtue consists only in the satisfaction of our own desires and those ofothers; but if not, and if, as we were afterwards compelled to acknowledge, thesatisfaction of some desires makes us better, and of others, worse, and weought to gratify the one and not the other, and there is an art indistinguishing them,—can you tell me of any of these statesmen who diddistinguish them?

CALLICLES: No, indeed, I cannot.

SOCRATES: Yet, surely, Callicles, if you look you will find such a one. Supposethat we just calmly consider whether any of these was such as I have described.Will not the good man, who says whatever he says with a view to the best, speakwith a reference to some standard and not at random; just as all other artists,whether the painter, the builder, the shipwright, or any other look all of themto their own work, and do not select and apply at random what they apply, butstrive to give a definite form to it? The artist disposes all things in order,and compels the one part to harmonize and accord with the other part, until hehas constructed a regular and systematic whole; and this is true of allartists, and in the same way the trainers and physicians, of whom we spokebefore, give order and regularity to the body: do you deny this?

CALLICLES: No; I am ready to admit it.

SOCRATES: Then the house in which order and regularity prevail is good; that inwhich there is disorder, evil?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And the same is true of a ship?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And the same may be said of the human body?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And what would you say of the soul? Will the good soul be that inwhich disorder is prevalent, or that in which there is harmony and order?

CALLICLES: The latter follows from our previous admissions.

SOCRATES: What is the name which is given to the effect of harmony and order inthe body?

CALLICLES: I suppose that you mean health and strength?

SOCRATES: Yes, I do; and what is the name which you would give to the effect ofharmony and order in the soul? Try and discover a name for this as well as forthe other.

CALLICLES: Why not give the name yourself, Socrates?

SOCRATES: Well, if you had rather that I should, I will; and you shall saywhether you agree with me, and if not, you shall refute and answer me.“Healthy,” as I conceive, is the name which is given to the regularorder of the body, whence comes health and every other bodily excellence: isthat true or not?

CALLICLES: True.

SOCRATES: And “lawful” and “law” are the names whichare given to the regular order and action of the soul, and these make menlawful and orderly:—and so we have temperance and justice: have we not?

CALLICLES: Granted.

SOCRATES: And will not the true rhetorician who is honest and understands hisart have his eye fixed upon these, in all the words which he addresses to thesouls of men, and in all his actions, both in what he gives and in what hetakes away? Will not his aim be to implant justice in the souls of his citizensand take away injustice, to implant temperance and take away intemperance, toimplant every virtue and take away every vice? Do you not agree?

CALLICLES: I agree.

SOCRATES: For what use is there, Callicles, in giving to the body of a sick manwho is in a bad state of health a quantity of the most delightful food or drinkor any other pleasant thing, which may be really as bad for him as if you gavehim nothing, or even worse if rightly estimated. Is not that true?

CALLICLES: I will not say No to it.

SOCRATES: For in my opinion there is no profit in a man’s life if hisbody is in an evil plight—in that case his life also is evil: am I notright?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: When a man is in health the physicians will generally allow him toeat when he is hungry and drink when he is thirsty, and to satisfy his desiresas he likes, but when he is sick they hardly suffer him to satisfy his desiresat all: even you will admit that?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And does not the same argument hold of the soul, my good sir? Whileshe is in a bad state and is senseless and intemperate and unjust and unholy,her desires ought to be controlled, and she ought to be prevented from doinganything which does not tend to her own improvement.

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Such treatment will be better for the soul herself?

CALLICLES: To be sure.

SOCRATES: And to restrain her from her appetites is to chastise her?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then restraint or chastisement is better for the soul thanintemperance or the absence of control, which you were just now preferring?

CALLICLES: I do not understand you, Socrates, and I wish that you would asksome one who does.

SOCRATES: Here is a gentleman who cannot endure to be improved or to subjecthimself to that very chastisement of which the argument speaks!

CALLICLES: I do not heed a word of what you are saying, and have only answeredhitherto out of civility to Gorgias.

SOCRATES: What are we to do, then? Shall we break off in the middle?

CALLICLES: You shall judge for yourself.

SOCRATES: Well, but people say that “a tale should have a head and notbreak off in the middle,” and I should not like to have the argumentgoing about without a head (compare Laws); please then to go on a littlelonger, and put the head on.

CALLICLES: How tyrannical you are, Socrates! I wish that you and your argumentwould rest, or that you would get some one else to argue with you.

SOCRATES: But who else is willing?—I want to finish the argument.

CALLICLES: Cannot you finish without my help, either talking straight on, orquestioning and answering yourself?

SOCRATES: Must I then say with Epicharmus, “Two men spoke before, but nowone shall be enough”? I suppose that there is absolutely no help. And ifI am to carry on the enquiry by myself, I will first of all remark that notonly I but all of us should have an ambition to know what is true and what isfalse in this matter, for the discovery of the truth is a common good. And nowI will proceed to argue according to my own notion. But if any of you thinkthat I arrive at conclusions which are untrue you must interpose and refute me,for I do not speak from any knowledge of what I am saying; I am an enquirerlike yourselves, and therefore, if my opponent says anything which is of force,I shall be the first to agree with him. I am speaking on the supposition thatthe argument ought to be completed; but if you think otherwise let us leave offand go our ways.

GORGIAS: I think, Socrates, that we should not go our ways until you havecompleted the argument; and this appears to me to be the wish of the rest ofthe company; I myself should very much like to hear what more you have to say.

SOCRATES: I too, Gorgias, should have liked to continue the argument withCallicles, and then I might have given him an “Amphion” in returnfor his “Zethus”; but since you, Callicles, are unwilling tocontinue, I hope that you will listen, and interrupt me if I seem to you to bein error. And if you refute me, I shall not be angry with you as you are withme, but I shall inscribe you as the greatest of benefactors on the tablets ofmy soul.

CALLICLES: My good fellow, never mind me, but get on.

SOCRATES: Listen to me, then, while I recapitulate the argument:—Is thepleasant the same as the good? Not the same. Callicles and I are agreed aboutthat. And is the pleasant to be pursued for the sake of the good? or the goodfor the sake of the pleasant? The pleasant is to be pursued for the sake of thegood. And that is pleasant at the presence of which we are pleased, and that isgood at the presence of which we are good? To be sure. And we are good, and allgood things whatever are good when some virtue is present in us or them? That,Callicles, is my conviction. But the virtue of each thing, whether body orsoul, instrument or creature, when given to them in the best way comes to themnot by chance but as the result of the order and truth and art which areimparted to them: Am I not right? I maintain that I am. And is not the virtueof each thing dependent on order or arrangement? Yes, I say. And that whichmakes a thing good is the proper order inhering in each thing? Such is my view.And is not the soul which has an order of her own better than that which has noorder? Certainly. And the soul which has order is orderly? Of course. And thatwhich is orderly is temperate? Assuredly. And the temperate soul is good? Noother answer can I give, Callicles dear; have you any?

CALLICLES: Go on, my good fellow.

SOCRATES: Then I shall proceed to add, that if the temperate soul is the goodsoul, the soul which is in the opposite condition, that is, the foolish andintemperate, is the bad soul. Very true.

And will not the temperate man do what is proper, both in relation to the godsand to men;—for he would not be temperate if he did not? Certainly hewill do what is proper. In his relation to other men he will do what is just;and in his relation to the gods he will do what is holy; and he who does whatis just and holy must be just and holy? Very true. And must he not becourageous? for the duty of a temperate man is not to follow or to avoid whathe ought not, but what he ought, whether things or men or pleasures or pains,and patiently to endure when he ought; and therefore, Callicles, the temperateman, being, as we have described, also just and courageous and holy, cannot beother than a perfectly good man, nor can the good man do otherwise than welland perfectly whatever he does; and he who does well must of necessity be happyand blessed, and the evil man who does evil, miserable: now this latter is hewhom you were applauding—the intemperate who is the opposite of thetemperate. Such is my position, and these things I affirm to be true. And ifthey are true, then I further affirm that he who desires to be happy mustpursue and practise temperance and run away from intemperance as fast as hislegs will carry him: he had better order his life so as not to need punishment;but if either he or any of his friends, whether private individual or city, arein need of punishment, then justice must be done and he must suffer punishment,if he would be happy. This appears to me to be the aim which a man ought tohave, and towards which he ought to direct all the energies both of himself andof the state, acting so that he may have temperance and justice present withhim and be happy, not suffering his lusts to be unrestrained, and in thenever-ending desire satisfy them leading a robber’s life. Such a one isthe friend neither of God nor man, for he is incapable of communion, and he whois incapable of communion is also incapable of friendship. And philosopherstell us, Callicles, that communion and friendship and orderliness andtemperance and justice bind together heaven and earth and gods and men, andthat this universe is therefore called Cosmos or order, not disorder ormisrule, my friend. But although you are a philosopher you seem to me never tohave observed that geometrical equality is mighty, both among gods and men; youthink that you ought to cultivate inequality or excess, and do not care aboutgeometry.—Well, then, either the principle that the happy are made happyby the possession of justice and temperance, and the miserable miserable by thepossession of vice, must be refuted, or, if it is granted, what will be theconsequences? All the consequences which I drew before, Callicles, and aboutwhich you asked me whether I was in earnest when I said that a man ought toaccuse himself and his son and his friend if he did anything wrong, and that tothis end he should use his rhetoric—all those consequences are true. Andthat which you thought that Polus was led to admit out of modesty is true,viz., that, to do injustice, if more disgraceful than to suffer, is in thatdegree worse; and the other position, which, according to Polus, Gorgiasadmitted out of modesty, that he who would truly be a rhetorician ought to bejust and have a knowledge of justice, has also turned out to be true.

And now, these things being as we have said, let us proceed in the next placeto consider whether you are right in throwing in my teeth that I am unable tohelp myself or any of my friends or kinsmen, or to save them in the extremityof danger, and that I am in the power of another like an outlaw to whom any onemay do what he likes,—he may box my ears, which was a brave saying ofyours; or take away my goods or banish me, or even do his worst and kill me; acondition which, as you say, is the height of disgrace. My answer to you is onewhich has been already often repeated, but may as well be repeated once more. Itell you, Callicles, that to be boxed on the ears wrongfully is not the worstevil which can befall a man, nor to have my purse or my body cut open, but thatto smite and slay me and mine wrongfully is far more disgraceful and more evil;aye, and to despoil and enslave and pillage, or in any way at all to wrong meand mine, is far more disgraceful and evil to the doer of the wrong than to mewho am the sufferer. These truths, which have been already set forth as I statethem in the previous discussion, would seem now to have been fixed and rivetedby us, if I may use an expression which is certainly bold, in words which arelike bonds of iron and adamant; and unless you or some other still moreenterprising hero shall break them, there is no possibility of denying what Isay. For my position has always been, that I myself am ignorant how thesethings are, but that I have never met any one who could say otherwise, any morethan you can, and not appear ridiculous. This is my position still, and if whatI am saying is true, and injustice is the greatest of evils to the doer ofinjustice, and yet there is if possible a greater than this greatest of evils(compare Republic), in an unjust man not suffering retribution, what is thatdefence of which the want will make a man truly ridiculous? Must not thedefence be one which will avert the greatest of human evils? And will not theworst of all defences be that with which a man is unable to defend himself orhis family or his friends?—and next will come that which is unable toavert the next greatest evil; thirdly that which is unable to avert the thirdgreatest evil; and so of other evils. As is the greatness of evil so is thehonour of being able to avert them in their several degrees, and the disgraceof not being able to avert them. Am I not right Callicles?

CALLICLES: Yes, quite right.

SOCRATES: Seeing then that there are these two evils, the doing injustice andthe suffering injustice—and we affirm that to do injustice is a greater,and to suffer injustice a lesser evil—by what devices can a man succeedin obtaining the two advantages, the one of not doing and the other of notsuffering injustice? must he have the power, or only the will to obtain them? Imean to ask whether a man will escape injustice if he has only the will toescape, or must he have provided himself with the power?

CALLICLES: He must have provided himself with the power; that is clear.

SOCRATES: And what do you say of doing injustice? Is the will only sufficient,and will that prevent him from doing injustice, or must he have providedhimself with power and art; and if he have not studied and practised, will hebe unjust still? Surely you might say, Callicles, whether you think that Polusand I were right in admitting the conclusion that no one does wrongvoluntarily, but that all do wrong against their will?

CALLICLES: Granted, Socrates, if you will only have done.

SOCRATES: Then, as would appear, power and art have to be provided in orderthat we may do no injustice?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And what art will protect us from suffering injustice, if not wholly,yet as far as possible? I want to know whether you agree with me; for I thinkthat such an art is the art of one who is either a ruler or even tyranthimself, or the equal and companion of the ruling power.

CALLICLES: Well said, Socrates; and please to observe how ready I am to praiseyou when you talk sense.

SOCRATES: Think and tell me whether you would approve of another view of mine:To me every man appears to be most the friend of him who is most like tohim—like to like, as ancient sages say: Would you not agree to this?

CALLICLES: I should.

SOCRATES: But when the tyrant is rude and uneducated, he may be expected tofear any one who is his superior in virtue, and will never be able to beperfectly friendly with him.

CALLICLES: That is true.

SOCRATES: Neither will he be the friend of any one who is greatly his inferior,for the tyrant will despise him, and will never seriously regard him as afriend.

CALLICLES: That again is true.

SOCRATES: Then the only friend worth mentioning, whom the tyrant can have, willbe one who is of the same character, and has the same likes and dislikes, andis at the same time willing to be subject and subservient to him; he is the manwho will have power in the state, and no one will injure him withimpunity:—is not that so?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And if a young man begins to ask how he may become great andformidable, this would seem to be the way—he will accustom himself, fromhis youth upward, to feel sorrow and joy on the same occasions as his master,and will contrive to be as like him as possible?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And in this way he will have accomplished, as you and your friendswould say, the end of becoming a great man and not suffering injury?

CALLICLES: Very true.

SOCRATES: But will he also escape from doing injury? Must not the very oppositebe true,—if he is to be like the tyrant in his injustice, and to haveinfluence with him? Will he not rather contrive to do as much wrong aspossible, and not be punished?

CALLICLES: True.

SOCRATES: And by the imitation of his master and by the power which he thusacquires will not his soul become bad and corrupted, and will not this be thegreatest evil to him?

CALLICLES: You always contrive somehow or other, Socrates, to inverteverything: do you not know that he who imitates the tyrant will, if he has amind, kill him who does not imitate him and take away his goods?

SOCRATES: Excellent Callicles, I am not deaf, and I have heard that a greatmany times from you and from Polus and from nearly every man in the city, but Iwish that you would hear me too. I dare say that he will kill him if he has amind—the bad man will kill the good and true.

CALLICLES: And is not that just the provoking thing?

SOCRATES: Nay, not to a man of sense, as the argument shows: do you think thatall our cares should be directed to prolonging life to the uttermost, and tothe study of those arts which secure us from danger always; like that art ofrhetoric which saves men in courts of law, and which you advise me tocultivate?

CALLICLES: Yes, truly, and very good advice too.

SOCRATES: Well, my friend, but what do you think of swimming; is that an art ofany great pretensions?

CALLICLES: No, indeed.

SOCRATES: And yet surely swimming saves a man from death, and there areoccasions on which he must know how to swim. And if you despise the swimmers, Iwill tell you of another and greater art, the art of the pilot, who not onlysaves the souls of men, but also their bodies and properties from the extremityof danger, just like rhetoric. Yet his art is modest and unpresuming: it has noairs or pretences of doing anything extraordinary, and, in return for the samesalvation which is given by the pleader, demands only two obols, if he bringsus from Aegina to Athens, or for the longer voyage from Pontus or Egypt, at theutmost two drachmae, when he has saved, as I was just now saying, the passengerand his wife and children and goods, and safely disembarked them at thePiraeus,—this is the payment which he asks in return for so great a boon;and he who is the master of the art, and has done all this, gets out and walksabout on the sea-shore by his ship in an unassuming way. For he is able toreflect and is aware that he cannot tell which of his fellow-passengers he hasbenefited, and which of them he has injured in not allowing them to be drowned.He knows that they are just the same when he has disembarked them as when theyembarked, and not a whit better either in their bodies or in their souls; andhe considers that if a man who is afflicted by great and incurable bodilydiseases is only to be pitied for having escaped, and is in no way benefited byhim in having been saved from drowning, much less he who has great andincurable diseases, not of the body, but of the soul, which is the morevaluable part of him; neither is life worth having nor of any profit to the badman, whether he be delivered from the sea, or the law-courts, or any otherdevourer;—and so he reflects that such a one had better not live, for hecannot live well. (Compare Republic.)

And this is the reason why the pilot, although he is our saviour, is notusually conceited, any more than the engineer, who is not at all behind eitherthe general, or the pilot, or any one else, in his saving power, for hesometimes saves whole cities. Is there any comparison between him and thepleader? And if he were to talk, Callicles, in your grandiose style, he wouldbury you under a mountain of words, declaring and insisting that we ought allof us to be engine-makers, and that no other profession is worth thinkingabout; he would have plenty to say. Nevertheless you despise him and his art,and sneeringly call him an engine-maker, and you will not allow your daughtersto marry his son, or marry your son to his daughters. And yet, on yourprinciple, what justice or reason is there in your refusal? What right have youto despise the engine-maker, and the others whom I was just now mentioning? Iknow that you will say, “I am better, and better born.” But if thebetter is not what I say, and virtue consists only in a man saving himself andhis, whatever may be his character, then your censure of the engine-maker, andof the physician, and of the other arts of salvation, is ridiculous. O myfriend! I want you to see that the noble and the good may possibly be somethingdifferent from saving and being saved:—May not he who is truly a mancease to care about living a certain time?—he knows, as women say, thatno man can escape fate, and therefore he is not fond of life; he leaves allthat with God, and considers in what way he can best spend his appointedterm;—whether by assimilating himself to the constitution under which helives, as you at this moment have to consider how you may become as like aspossible to the Athenian people, if you mean to be in their good graces, and tohave power in the state; whereas I want you to think and see whether this isfor the interest of either of us;—I would not have us risk that which isdearest on the acquisition of this power, like the Thessalian enchantresses,who, as they say, bring down the moon from heaven at the risk of their ownperdition. But if you suppose that any man will show you the art of becominggreat in the city, and yet not conforming yourself to the ways of the city,whether for better or worse, then I can only say that you are mistaken,Callides; for he who would deserve to be the true natural friend of theAthenian Demus, aye, or of Pyrilampes’ darling who is called after them,must be by nature like them, and not an imitator only. He, then, who will makeyou most like them, will make you as you desire, a statesman and orator: forevery man is pleased when he is spoken to in his own language and spirit, anddislikes any other. But perhaps you, sweet Callicles, may be of another mind.What do you say?

CALLICLES: Somehow or other your words, Socrates, always appear to me to begood words; and yet, like the rest of the world, I am not quite convinced bythem. (Compare Symp.: 1 Alcib.)

SOCRATES: The reason is, Callicles, that the love of Demus which abides in yoursoul is an adversary to me; but I dare say that if we recur to these samematters, and consider them more thoroughly, you may be convinced for all that.Please, then, to remember that there are two processes of training all things,including body and soul; in the one, as we said, we treat them with a view topleasure, and in the other with a view to the highest good, and then we do notindulge but resist them: was not that the distinction which we drew?

CALLICLES: Very true.

SOCRATES: And the one which had pleasure in view was just a vulgarflattery:—was not that another of our conclusions?

CALLICLES: Be it so, if you will have it.

SOCRATES: And the other had in view the greatest improvement of that which wasministered to, whether body or soul?

CALLICLES: Quite true.

SOCRATES: And must we not have the same end in view in the treatment of ourcity and citizens? Must we not try and make them as good as possible? For wehave already discovered that there is no use in imparting to them any othergood, unless the mind of those who are to have the good, whether money, oroffice, or any other sort of power, be gentle and good. Shall we say that?

CALLICLES: Yes, certainly, if you like.

SOCRATES: Well, then, if you and I, Callicles, were intending to set about somepublic business, and were advising one another to undertake buildings, such aswalls, docks or temples of the largest size, ought we not to examine ourselves,first, as to whether we know or do not know the art of building, and who taughtus?—would not that be necessary, Callicles?

CALLICLES: True.

SOCRATES: In the second place, we should have to consider whether we had everconstructed any private house, either of our own or for our friends, andwhether this building of ours was a success or not; and if upon considerationwe found that we had had good and eminent masters, and had been successful inconstructing many fine buildings, not only with their assistance, but withoutthem, by our own unaided skill—in that case prudence would not dissuadeus from proceeding to the construction of public works. But if we had no masterto show, and only a number of worthless buildings or none at all, then, surely,it would be ridiculous in us to attempt public works, or to advise one anotherto undertake them. Is not this true?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And does not the same hold in all other cases? If you and I werephysicians, and were advising one another that we were competent to practise asstate-physicians, should I not ask about you, and would you not ask about me,Well, but how about Socrates himself, has he good health? and was any one elseever known to be cured by him, whether slave or freeman? And I should make thesame enquiries about you. And if we arrived at the conclusion that no one,whether citizen or stranger, man or woman, had ever been any the better for themedical skill of either of us, then, by Heaven, Callicles, what an absurdity tothink that we or any human being should be so silly as to set up asstate-physicians and advise others like ourselves to do the same, withouthaving first practised in private, whether successfully or not, and acquiredexperience of the art! Is not this, as they say, to begin with the big jar whenyou are learning the potter’s art; which is a foolish thing?

CALLICLES: True.

SOCRATES: And now, my friend, as you are already beginning to be a publiccharacter, and are admonishing and reproaching me for not being one, supposethat we ask a few questions of one another. Tell me, then, Callicles, how aboutmaking any of the citizens better? Was there ever a man who was once vicious,or unjust, or intemperate, or foolish, and became by the help of Callicles goodand noble? Was there ever such a man, whether citizen or stranger, slave orfreeman? Tell me, Callicles, if a person were to ask these questions of you,what would you answer? Whom would you say that you had improved by yourconversation? There may have been good deeds of this sort which were done byyou as a private person, before you came forward in public. Why will you notanswer?

CALLICLES: You are contentious, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Nay, I ask you, not from a love of contention, but because I reallywant to know in what way you think that affairs should be administered amongus—whether, when you come to the administration of them, you have anyother aim but the improvement of the citizens? Have we not already admittedmany times over that such is the duty of a public man? Nay, we have surely saidso; for if you will not answer for yourself I must answer for you. But if thisis what the good man ought to effect for the benefit of his own state, allow meto recall to you the names of those whom you were just now mentioning,Pericles, and Cimon, and Miltiades, and Themistocles, and ask whether you stillthink that they were good citizens.

CALLICLES: I do.

SOCRATES: But if they were good, then clearly each of them must have made thecitizens better instead of worse?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And, therefore, when Pericles first began to speak in the assembly,the Athenians were not so good as when he spoke last?

CALLICLES: Very likely.

SOCRATES: Nay, my friend, “likely” is not the word; for if he was agood citizen, the inference is certain.

CALLICLES: And what difference does that make?

SOCRATES: None; only I should like further to know whether the Athenians aresupposed to have been made better by Pericles, or, on the contrary, to havebeen corrupted by him; for I hear that he was the first who gave the peoplepay, and made them idle and cowardly, and encouraged them in the love of talkand money.

CALLICLES: You heard that, Socrates, from the laconising set who bruise theirears.

SOCRATES: But what I am going to tell you now is not mere hearsay, but wellknown both to you and me: that at first, Pericles was glorious and hischaracter unimpeached by any verdict of the Athenians—this was during thetime when they were not so good—yet afterwards, when they had been madegood and gentle by him, at the very end of his life they convicted him oftheft, and almost put him to death, clearly under the notion that he was amalefactor.

CALLICLES: Well, but how does that prove Pericles’ badness?

SOCRATES: Why, surely you would say that he was a bad manager of asses orhorses or oxen, who had received them originally neither kicking nor buttingnor biting him, and implanted in them all these savage tricks? Would he not bea bad manager of any animals who received them gentle, and made them fiercerthan they were when he received them? What do you say?

CALLICLES: I will do you the favour of saying “yes.”

SOCRATES: And will you also do me the favour of saying whether man is ananimal?

CALLICLES: Certainly he is.

SOCRATES: And was not Pericles a shepherd of men?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And if he was a good political shepherd, ought not the animals whowere his subjects, as we were just now acknowledging, to have become more just,and not more unjust?

CALLICLES: Quite true.

SOCRATES: And are not just men gentle, as Homer says?—or are you ofanother mind?

CALLICLES: I agree.

SOCRATES: And yet he really did make them more savage than he received them,and their savageness was shown towards himself; which he must have been veryfar from desiring.

CALLICLES: Do you want me to agree with you?

SOCRATES: Yes, if I seem to you to speak the truth.

CALLICLES: Granted then.

SOCRATES: And if they were more savage, must they not have been more unjust andinferior?

CALLICLES: Granted again.

SOCRATES: Then upon this view, Pericles was not a good statesman?

CALLICLES: That is, upon your view.

SOCRATES: Nay, the view is yours, after what you have admitted. Take the caseof Cimon again. Did not the very persons whom he was serving ostracize him, inorder that they might not hear his voice for ten years? and they did just thesame to Themistocles, adding the penalty of exile; and they voted thatMiltiades, the hero of Marathon, should be thrown into the pit of death, and hewas only saved by the Prytanis. And yet, if they had been really good men, asyou say, these things would never have happened to them. For the goodcharioteers are not those who at first keep their place, and then, when theyhave broken-in their horses, and themselves become better charioteers, arethrown out—that is not the way either in charioteering or in anyprofession.—What do you think?

CALLICLES: I should think not.

SOCRATES: Well, but if so, the truth is as I have said already, that in theAthenian State no one has ever shown himself to be a good statesman—youadmitted that this was true of our present statesmen, but not true of formerones, and you preferred them to the others; yet they have turned out to be nobetter than our present ones; and therefore, if they were rhetoricians, theydid not use the true art of rhetoric or of flattery, or they would not havefallen out of favour.

CALLICLES: But surely, Socrates, no living man ever came near any one of themin his performances.

SOCRATES: O, my dear friend, I say nothing against them regarded as theserving-men of the State; and I do think that they were certainly moreserviceable than those who are living now, and better able to gratify thewishes of the State; but as to transforming those desires and not allowing themto have their way, and using the powers which they had, whether of persuasionor of force, in the improvement of their fellow citizens, which is the primeobject of the truly good citizen, I do not see that in these respects they werea whit superior to our present statesmen, although I do admit that they weremore clever at providing ships and walls and docks, and all that. You and Ihave a ridiculous way, for during the whole time that we are arguing, we arealways going round and round to the same point, and constantly misunderstandingone another. If I am not mistaken, you have admitted and acknowledged more thanonce, that there are two kinds of operations which have to do with the body,and two which have to do with the soul: one of the two is ministerial, and ifour bodies are hungry provides food for them, and if they are thirsty givesthem drink, or if they are cold supplies them with garments, blankets, shoes,and all that they crave. I use the same images as before intentionally, inorder that you may understand me the better. The purveyor of the articles mayprovide them either wholesale or retail, or he may be the maker of any ofthem,—the baker, or the cook, or the weaver, or the shoemaker, or thecurrier; and in so doing, being such as he is, he is naturally supposed byhimself and every one to minister to the body. For none of them know that thereis another art—an art of gymnastic and medicine which is the trueminister of the body, and ought to be the mistress of all the rest, and to usetheir results according to the knowledge which she has and they have not, ofthe real good or bad effects of meats and drinks on the body. All other artswhich have to do with the body are servile and menial and illiberal; andgymnastic and medicine are, as they ought to be, their mistresses. Now, when Isay that all this is equally true of the soul, you seem at first to know andunderstand and assent to my words, and then a little while afterwards you comerepeating, Has not the State had good and noble citizens? and when I ask youwho they are, you reply, seemingly quite in earnest, as if I had asked, Who areor have been good trainers?—and you had replied, Thearion, the baker,Mithoecus, who wrote the Sicilian cookery-book, Sarambus, the vintner: theseare ministers of the body, first-rate in their art; for the first makesadmirable loaves, the second excellent dishes, and the third capitalwine;—to me these appear to be the exact parallel of the statesmen whomyou mention. Now you would not be altogether pleased if I said to you, Myfriend, you know nothing of gymnastics; those of whom you are speaking to meare only the ministers and purveyors of luxury, who have no good or noblenotions of their art, and may very likely be filling and fattening men’sbodies and gaining their approval, although the result is that they lose theiroriginal flesh in the long run, and become thinner than they were before; andyet they, in their simplicity, will not attribute their diseases and loss offlesh to their entertainers; but when in after years the unhealthy surfeitbrings the attendant penalty of disease, he who happens to be near them at thetime, and offers them advice, is accused and blamed by them, and if they couldthey would do him some harm; while they proceed to eulogize the men who havebeen the real authors of the mischief. And that, Callicles, is just what youare now doing. You praise the men who feasted the citizens and satisfied theirdesires, and people say that they have made the city great, not seeing that theswollen and ulcerated condition of the State is to be attributed to these elderstatesmen; for they have filled the city full of harbours and docks and wallsand revenues and all that, and have left no room for justice and temperance.And when the crisis of the disorder comes, the people will blame the advisersof the hour, and applaud Themistocles and Cimon and Pericles, who are the realauthors of their calamities; and if you are not careful they may assail you andmy friend Alcibiades, when they are losing not only their new acquisitions, butalso their original possessions; not that you are the authors of thesemisfortunes of theirs, although you may perhaps be accessories to them. A greatpiece of work is always being made, as I see and am told, now as of old; aboutour statesmen. When the State treats any of them as malefactors, I observe thatthere is a great uproar and indignation at the supposed wrong which is done tothem; “after all their many services to the State, that they shouldunjustly perish,”—so the tale runs. But the cry is all a lie; forno statesman ever could be unjustly put to death by the city of which he is thehead. The case of the professed statesman is, I believe, very much like that ofthe professed sophist; for the sophists, although they are wise men, arenevertheless guilty of a strange piece of folly; professing to be teachers ofvirtue, they will often accuse their disciples of wronging them, and defraudingthem of their pay, and showing no gratitude for their services. Yet what can bemore absurd than that men who have become just and good, and whose injusticehas been taken away from them, and who have had justice implanted in them bytheir teachers, should act unjustly by reason of the injustice which is not inthem? Can anything be more irrational, my friends, than this? You, Callicles,compel me to be a mob-orator, because you will not answer.

CALLICLES: And you are the man who cannot speak unless there is some one toanswer?

SOCRATES: I suppose that I can; just now, at any rate, the speeches which I ammaking are long enough because you refuse to answer me. But I adjure you by thegod of friendship, my good sir, do tell me whether there does not appear to youto be a great inconsistency in saying that you have made a man good, and thenblaming him for being bad?

CALLICLES: Yes, it appears so to me.

SOCRATES: Do you never hear our professors of education speaking in thisinconsistent manner?

CALLICLES: Yes, but why talk of men who are good for nothing?

SOCRATES: I would rather say, why talk of men who profess to be rulers, anddeclare that they are devoted to the improvement of the city, and neverthelessupon occasion declaim against the utter vileness of the city:—do youthink that there is any difference between one and the other? My good friend,the sophist and the rhetorician, as I was saying to Polus, are the same, ornearly the same; but you ignorantly fancy that rhetoric is a perfect thing, andsophistry a thing to be despised; whereas the truth is, that sophistry is asmuch superior to rhetoric as legislation is to the practice of law, orgymnastic to medicine. The orators and sophists, as I am inclined to think, arethe only class who cannot complain of the mischief ensuing to themselves fromthat which they teach others, without in the same breath accusing themselves ofhaving done no good to those whom they profess to benefit. Is not this a fact?

CALLICLES: Certainly it is.

SOCRATES: If they were right in saying that they make men better, then they arethe only class who can afford to leave their remuneration to those who havebeen benefited by them. Whereas if a man has been benefited in any other way,if, for example, he has been taught to run by a trainer, he might possiblydefraud him of his pay, if the trainer left the matter to him, and made noagreement with him that he should receive money as soon as he had given him theutmost speed; for not because of any deficiency of speed do men act unjustly,but by reason of injustice.

CALLICLES: Very true.

SOCRATES: And he who removes injustice can be in no danger of being treatedunjustly: he alone can safely leave the honorarium to his pupils, if he bereally able to make them good—am I not right? (Compare Protag.)

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then we have found the reason why there is no dishonour in a manreceiving pay who is called in to advise about building or any other art?

CALLICLES: Yes, we have found the reason.

SOCRATES: But when the point is, how a man may become best himself, and bestgovern his family and state, then to say that you will give no advice gratis isheld to be dishonourable?

CALLICLES: True.

SOCRATES: And why? Because only such benefits call forth a desire to requitethem, and there is evidence that a benefit has been conferred when thebenefactor receives a return; otherwise not. Is this true?

CALLICLES: It is.

SOCRATES: Then to which service of the State do you invite me? determine forme. Am I to be the physician of the State who will strive and struggle to makethe Athenians as good as possible; or am I to be the servant and flatterer ofthe State? Speak out, my good friend, freely and fairly as you did at first andought to do again, and tell me your entire mind.

CALLICLES: I say then that you should be the servant of the State.

SOCRATES: The flatterer? well, sir, that is a noble invitation.

CALLICLES: The Mysian, Socrates, or what you please. For if you refuse, theconsequences will be—

SOCRATES: Do not repeat the old story—that he who likes will kill me andget my money; for then I shall have to repeat the old answer, that he will be abad man and will kill the good, and that the money will be of no use to him,but that he will wrongly use that which he wrongly took, and if wrongly,basely, and if basely, hurtfully.

CALLICLES: How confident you are, Socrates, that you will never come to harm!you seem to think that you are living in another country, and can never bebrought into a court of justice, as you very likely may be brought by somemiserable and mean person.

SOCRATES: Then I must indeed be a fool, Callicles, if I do not know that in theAthenian State any man may suffer anything. And if I am brought to trial andincur the dangers of which you speak, he will be a villain who brings me totrial—of that I am very sure, for no good man would accuse the innocent.Nor shall I be surprised if I am put to death. Shall I tell you why Ianticipate this?

CALLICLES: By all means.

SOCRATES: I think that I am the only or almost the only Athenian living whopractises the true art of politics; I am the only politician of my time. Now,seeing that when I speak my words are not uttered with any view of gainingfavour, and that I look to what is best and not to what is most pleasant,having no mind to use those arts and graces which you recommend, I shall havenothing to say in the justice court. And you might argue with me, as I wasarguing with Polus:—I shall be tried just as a physician would be triedin a court of little boys at the indictment of the cook. What would he replyunder such circumstances, if some one were to accuse him, saying, “O myboys, many evil things has this man done to you: he is the death of you,especially of the younger ones among you, cutting and burning and starving andsuffocating you, until you know not what to do; he gives you the bitterestpotions, and compels you to hunger and thirst. How unlike the variety of meatsand sweets on which I feasted you!” What do you suppose that thephysician would be able to reply when he found himself in such a predicament?If he told the truth he could only say, “All these evil things, my boys,I did for your health,” and then would there not just be a clamour amonga jury like that? How they would cry out!

CALLICLES: I dare say.

SOCRATES: Would he not be utterly at a loss for a reply?

CALLICLES: He certainly would.

SOCRATES: And I too shall be treated in the same way, as I well know, if I ambrought before the court. For I shall not be able to rehearse to the people thepleasures which I have procured for them, and which, although I am not disposedto envy either the procurers or enjoyers of them, are deemed by them to bebenefits and advantages. And if any one says that I corrupt young men, andperplex their minds, or that I speak evil of old men, and use bitter wordstowards them, whether in private or public, it is useless for me to reply, as Itruly might:—“All this I do for the sake of justice, and with aview to your interest, my judges, and to nothing else.” And thereforethere is no saying what may happen to me.

CALLICLES: And do you think, Socrates, that a man who is thus defenceless is ina good position?

SOCRATES: Yes, Callicles, if he have that defence, which as you have oftenacknowledged he should have—if he be his own defence, and have never saidor done anything wrong, either in respect of gods or men; and this has beenrepeatedly acknowledged by us to be the best sort of defence. And if any onecould convict me of inability to defend myself or others after this sort, Ishould blush for shame, whether I was convicted before many, or before a few,or by myself alone; and if I died from want of ability to do so, that wouldindeed grieve me. But if I died because I have no powers of flattery orrhetoric, I am very sure that you would not find me repining at death. For noman who is not an utter fool and coward is afraid of death itself, but he isafraid of doing wrong. For to go to the world below having one’s soulfull of injustice is the last and worst of all evils. And in proof of what Isay, if you have no objection, I should like to tell you a story.

CALLICLES: Very well, proceed; and then we shall have done.

SOCRATES: Listen, then, as story-tellers say, to a very pretty tale, which Idare say that you may be disposed to regard as a fable only, but which, as Ibelieve, is a true tale, for I mean to speak the truth. Homer tells us (Il.),how Zeus and Poseidon and Pluto divided the empire which they inherited fromtheir father. Now in the days of Cronos there existed a law respecting thedestiny of man, which has always been, and still continues to be inHeaven,—that he who has lived all his life in justice and holiness shallgo, when he is dead, to the Islands of the Blessed, and dwell there in perfecthappiness out of the reach of evil; but that he who has lived unjustly andimpiously shall go to the house of vengeance and punishment, which is calledTartarus. And in the time of Cronos, and even quite lately in the reign ofZeus, the judgment was given on the very day on which the men were to die; thejudges were alive, and the men were alive; and the consequence was that thejudgments were not well given. Then Pluto and the authorities from the Islandsof the Blessed came to Zeus, and said that the souls found their way to thewrong places. Zeus said: “I shall put a stop to this; the judgments arenot well given, because the persons who are judged have their clothes on, forthey are alive; and there are many who, having evil souls, are apparelled infair bodies, or encased in wealth or rank, and, when the day of judgmentarrives, numerous witnesses come forward and testify on their behalf that theyhave lived righteously. The judges are awed by them, and they themselves toohave their clothes on when judging; their eyes and ears and their whole bodiesare interposed as a veil before their own souls. All this is a hindrance tothem; there are the clothes of the judges and the clothes of thejudged.—What is to be done? I will tell you:—In the first place, Iwill deprive men of the foreknowledge of death, which they possess at present:this power which they have Prometheus has already received my orders to takefrom them: in the second place, they shall be entirely stripped before they arejudged, for they shall be judged when they are dead; and the judge too shall benaked, that is to say, dead—he with his naked soul shall pierce into theother naked souls; and they shall die suddenly and be deprived of all theirkindred, and leave their brave attire strewn upon the earth—conducted inthis manner, the judgment will be just. I knew all about the matter before anyof you, and therefore I have made my sons judges; two from Asia, Minos andRhadamanthus, and one from Europe, Aeacus. And these, when they are dead, shallgive judgment in the meadow at the parting of the ways, whence the two roadslead, one to the Islands of the Blessed, and the other to Tartarus.Rhadamanthus shall judge those who come from Asia, and Aeacus those who comefrom Europe. And to Minos I shall give the primacy, and he shall hold a courtof appeal, in case either of the two others are in any doubt:—then thejudgment respecting the last journey of men will be as just as possible.”

From this tale, Callicles, which I have heard and believe, I draw the followinginferences:—Death, if I am right, is in the first place the separationfrom one another of two things, soul and body; nothing else. And after they areseparated they retain their several natures, as in life; the body keeps thesame habit, and the results of treatment or accident are distinctly visible init: for example, he who by nature or training or both, was a tall man while hewas alive, will remain as he was, after he is dead; and the fat man will remainfat; and so on; and the dead man, who in life had a fancy to have flowing hair,will have flowing hair. And if he was marked with the whip and had the printsof the scourge, or of wounds in him when he was alive, you might see the samein the dead body; and if his limbs were broken or misshapen when he was alive,the same appearance would be visible in the dead. And in a word, whatever wasthe habit of the body during life would be distinguishable after death, eitherperfectly, or in a great measure and for a certain time. And I should imaginethat this is equally true of the soul, Callicles; when a man is stripped of thebody, all the natural or acquired affections of the soul are laid open toview.—And when they come to the judge, as those from Asia come toRhadamanthus, he places them near him and inspects them quite impartially, notknowing whose the soul is: perhaps he may lay hands on the soul of the greatking, or of some other king or potentate, who has no soundness in him, but hissoul is marked with the whip, and is full of the prints and scars of perjuriesand crimes with which each action has stained him, and he is all crooked withfalsehood and imposture, and has no straightness, because he has lived withouttruth. Him Rhadamanthus beholds, full of all deformity and disproportion, whichis caused by licence and luxury and insolence and incontinence, and despatcheshim ignominiously to his prison, and there he undergoes the punishment which hedeserves.

Now the proper office of punishment is twofold: he who is rightly punishedought either to become better and profit by it, or he ought to be made anexample to his fellows, that they may see what he suffers, and fear and becomebetter. Those who are improved when they are punished by gods and men, arethose whose sins are curable; and they are improved, as in this world so alsoin another, by pain and suffering; for there is no other way in which they canbe delivered from their evil. But they who have been guilty of the worstcrimes, and are incurable by reason of their crimes, are made examples; for, asthey are incurable, the time has passed at which they can receive any benefit.They get no good themselves, but others get good when they behold them enduringfor ever the most terrible and painful and fearful sufferings as the penalty oftheir sins—there they are, hanging up as examples, in the prison-house ofthe world below, a spectacle and a warning to all unrighteous men who comethither. And among them, as I confidently affirm, will be found Archelaus, ifPolus truly reports of him, and any other tyrant who is like him. Of thesefearful examples, most, as I believe, are taken from the class of tyrants andkings and potentates and public men, for they are the authors of the greatestand most impious crimes, because they have the power. And Homer witnesses tothe truth of this; for they are always kings and potentates whom he hasdescribed as suffering everlasting punishment in the world below: such wereTantalus and Sisyphus and Tityus. But no one ever described Thersites, or anyprivate person who was a villain, as suffering everlasting punishment, or asincurable. For to commit the worst crimes, as I am inclined to think, was notin his power, and he was happier than those who had the power. No, Callicles,the very bad men come from the class of those who have power (compareRepublic). And yet in that very class there may arise good men, and worthy ofall admiration they are, for where there is great power to do wrong, to liveand to die justly is a hard thing, and greatly to be praised, and few there arewho attain to this. Such good and true men, however, there have been, and willbe again, at Athens and in other states, who have fulfilled their trustrighteously; and there is one who is quite famous all over Hellas, Aristeides,the son of Lysimachus. But, in general, great men are also bad, my friend.

As I was saying, Rhadamanthus, when he gets a soul of the bad kind, knowsnothing about him, neither who he is, nor who his parents are; he knows onlythat he has got hold of a villain; and seeing this, he stamps him as curable orincurable, and sends him away to Tartarus, whither he goes and receives hisproper recompense. Or, again, he looks with admiration on the soul of some justone who has lived in holiness and truth; he may have been a private man or not;and I should say, Callicles, that he is most likely to have been a philosopherwho has done his own work, and not troubled himself with the doings of othermen in his lifetime; him Rhadamanthus sends to the Islands of the Blessed.Aeacus does the same; and they both have sceptres, and judge; but Minos alonehas a golden sceptre and is seated looking on, as Odysseus in Homer declaresthat he saw him:

“Holding a sceptre of gold, and giving laws to the dead.”

Now I, Callicles, am persuaded of the truth of these things, and I consider howI shall present my soul whole and undefiled before the judge in that day.Renouncing the honours at which the world aims, I desire only to know thetruth, and to live as well as I can, and, when I die, to die as well as I can.And, to the utmost of my power, I exhort all other men to do the same. And, inreturn for your exhortation of me, I exhort you also to take part in the greatcombat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthlyconflict. And I retort your reproach of me, and say, that you will not be ableto help yourself when the day of trial and judgment, of which I was speaking,comes upon you; you will go before the judge, the son of Aegina, and, when hehas got you in his grip and is carrying you off, you will gape and your headwill swim round, just as mine would in the courts of this world, and verylikely some one will shamefully box you on the ears, and put upon you any sortof insult.

Perhaps this may appear to you to be only an old wife’s tale, which youwill contemn. And there might be reason in your contemning such tales, if bysearching we could find out anything better or truer: but now you see that youand Polus and Gorgias, who are the three wisest of the Greeks of our day, arenot able to show that we ought to live any life which does not profit inanother world as well as in this. And of all that has been said, nothingremains unshaken but the saying, that to do injustice is more to be avoidedthan to suffer injustice, and that the reality and not the appearance of virtueis to be followed above all things, as well in public as in private life; andthat when any one has been wrong in anything, he is to be chastised, and thatthe next best thing to a man being just is that he should become just, and bechastised and punished; also that he should avoid all flattery of himself aswell as of others, of the few or of the many: and rhetoric and any other artshould be used by him, and all his actions should be done always, with a viewto justice.

Follow me then, and I will lead you where you will be happy in life and afterdeath, as the argument shows. And never mind if some one despises you as afool, and insults you, if he has a mind; let him strike you, by Zeus, and doyou be of good cheer, and do not mind the insulting blow, for you will nevercome to any harm in the practice of virtue, if you are a really good and trueman. When we have practised virtue together, we will apply ourselves topolitics, if that seems desirable, or we will advise about whatever else mayseem good to us, for we shall be better able to judge then. In our presentcondition we ought not to give ourselves airs, for even on the most importantsubjects we are always changing our minds; so utterly stupid are we! Let us,then, take the argument as our guide, which has revealed to us that the bestway of life is to practise justice and every virtue in life and death. This waylet us go; and in this exhort all men to follow, not in the way to which youtrust and in which you exhort me to follow you; for that way, Callicles, isnothing worth.

Related articles