Chapter XXIV: Gorgias (3)

This is applied to the provision of food, drink, clothing, bedding, for the hunger, thirst, &c., of the community (p. 517 D), to the saving of life (p. 511 D). The boatman between Ægina and Peiræus (says Plato) brings over his passengers in safety, together with their families and property, preserving them from all the dangers of the sea. The engineer, who constructs good fortifications, preserves from danger and destruction all the citizens with their families and their property (p. 512 B). But neither of these persons takes credit for this service: because both of them know that it is doubtful whether they have done any real service to the persons preserved, since they have not rendered them any better; and that it is even doubtful whether they may not have done them an actual mischief. Perhaps these persons may be wicked and corrupt; in that case it is a misfortune to them that their lives should be prolonged; it would be better for them to die. It is under this conviction (says Plato) that the boatman and the engineer, though they do preserve our lives, take to themselves no credit for it.

We shall hardly find any greater rhetorical exaggeration than this, among all the compositions of the rhetors against whom Plato declares war in the Gorgias. Moreover, it is a specimen of the way in which Plato colours and misinterprets the facts of social life, in order to serve the purpose of the argument of the moment. He says truly that when the passage boat from Ægina to Peiræus has reached its destination, the steersman receives his fare and walks about on the shore, without taking any great credit to himself, as if he had performed a brilliant deed or conferred an important service. But how does Plato explain this? By supposing in the steersman's mind feelings which never enter into the mind of a real agent; feelings which are put into words only when a moralist or a satirist is anxious to enforce a sentiment. The service which the steersman performs is not only adequately remunerated, but is, on most days, a regular and easy one, such as every man who has gone through a decent apprenticeship can perform. But suppose an exceptional day--suppose a sudden and terrible storm to supervene on the passage--suppose the boat full of passengers, with every prospect of all on board being drowned--suppose she is only saved by the extraordinary skill, vigilance, and efforts of the steersman. In that case he will, on reaching the land, walk about full of elate self-congratulation and pride: the passengers will encourage this sentiment by expressions of the deepest gratitude; while friends as well as competitors will praise his successful exploit. How many of the passengers there are for whom the preservation of life may be a curse rather than a blessing--is a question which neither they themselves, nor the steersman, nor the public, will ever dream of asking.]

* * * * *

[Side-note: Argument of Sokrates resumed--multifarious arts of flattery, aiming at immediate pleasure.]

We have now established (continues Sokrates) that pleasure is essentially different from good, and pain from evil: also, that to obtain good and avoid evil, a scientific choice is required--while to obtain pleasure and avoid pain, is nothing more than blind imitation or irrational knack. There are some arts and pursuits which aim only at procuring immediate pleasure--others which aim at attaining good or the best;[94] some arts, for a single person,--others for a multitude. Arts and pursuits which aim only at immediate pleasure, either of one or of a multitude, belong to the general head of Flattery. Among them are all the musical, choric, and dithyrambic representations at the festivals--tragedy as well as comedy--also political and judicial rhetoric. None of these arts aim at any thing except to gratify the public to whom they are addressed: none of them aim at the permanent good: none seek to better the character of the public. They adapt themselves to the prevalent desires: but whether those desires are such as, if realised, will make the public worse or better, they never enquire.[95]

[Footnote 94: The Sokrates of the Protagoras would have admitted a twofold distinction of aims, but would have stated the distinction otherwise. Two things (he would say) may be looked at in regard to any course of conduct: first, the immediate pleasure or pain which it yields; secondly, this item, not alone, but combined with all the other pleasures and pains which can be foreseen as its conditions, consequences, or concomitants. To obey the desire of immediate pleasure, or the fear of immediate pain, requires no science; to foresee, estimate, and compare the consequences, requires a scientific calculation often very difficult and complicated--a [Greek: te/chnê] or [Greek: e)pistê/mê metrêtikê/].

Thus we are told not only in what cases the calculation is required, but what are the elements to be taken into the calculation. In the Gorgias, we are not told on what elements the calculation of good and evil is to be based: we are told that there _must be science_, but we learn nothing more.]

[Footnote 95: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 502-503.]

[Side-note: The Rhetors aim at only flattering the public--even the best past Rhetors have done nothing else--citation of the four great Rhetors by Kallikles.]

_Sokr._--Do you know any public speakers who aim at anything more than gratifying the public, or who care to make the public better? _Kall._--There are some who do, and others who do not. _Sokr._--Which are those who do? and which of them has ever made the public better?[96] _Kall._--At any rate, former statesmen did so; such as Miltiades, Themistokles, Kimon, Perikles. _Sokr._--None of them. If they had, you would have seen them devoting themselves systematically and obviously to their one end. As a builder labours to construct a ship or a house, by putting together its various parts with order and symmetry--so these statesmen would have laboured to implant order and symmetry in the minds and bodies of the citizens: that is, justice and temperance in their minds, health and strength in their bodies.[97] Unless the statesman can do this, it is fruitless to supply the wants, to fulfil the desires and requirements, to uphold or enlarge the power, of the citizens. This is like supplying ample nourishment to a distempered body: the more such a body takes in, the worse it becomes. The citizens must be treated with refusal of their wishes and with punishment, until their vices are healed, and they become good.[98]

[Footnote 96: Plato, Gorgias, p. 503 C.]

[Footnote 97: Plato, Gorgias, p. 504 D.]

[Footnote 98: Plato, Gorgias, p. 505 B.]

[Side-note: Necessity for temperance, regulation, order. This is the condition of virtue and happiness.]

We ought to do (continues Sokrates) what is pleasing for the sake of what is good: not _vice versà_. But every thing becomes good by possessing its appropriate virtue or regulation. The regulation appropriate to the mind is to be temperate. The temperate man will do what is just--his duty towards men: and what is holy--his duty towards the Gods. He will be just and holy. He will therefore also be courageous: for he will seek only such pleasures as duty permits, and he will endure all such pains as duty requires. Being thus temperate, just, brave, holy, he will be a perfectly good man, doing well and honourably throughout. The man who does well, will be happy: the man who does ill and is wicked, will be miserable.[99] It ought to be our principal aim, both for ourselves individually and for the city, to attain temperance and to keep clear of intemperance: not to let our desires run immoderately (as you, Kallikles, advise), and then seek repletion for them: which is an endless mischief, the life of a pirate. He who pursues this plan can neither be the friend of any other man, nor of the Gods: for he is incapable of communion, and therefore of friendship.[100]

[Footnote 99: Plato, Gorgias, p, 507 D (with Routh and Heindorf's notes).]

[Footnote 100: Plato, Gorgias, p. 507 E. [Greek: koinônei=n ga\r a)du/natos; o(/tô| de\ mê\ e(/ni koinôni/a, phili/a ou)k a)\n ei)/ê.]]

[Side-note: Impossible to succeed in public life, unless a man be thoroughly akin to and in harmony with the ruling force.]

Now, Kallikles (pursues Sokrates), you have reproached me with standing aloof from public life in order to pursue philosophy. You tell me that by not cultivating public speaking and public action, I am at the mercy of any one who chooses to accuse me unjustly and to bring upon me severe penalties. But I tell you, that it is a greater evil to do wrong than to suffer wrong; and that my first business is, to provide for myself such power and such skill as shall guard me against doing wrong.[101] Next, as to suffering wrong, there is only one way of taking precautions against it. You must yourself rule in the city: or you must be a friend of the ruling power. Like is the friend of like:[102] a cruel despot on the throne will hate and destroy any one who is better than himself, and will despise any one worse than himself. The only person who will have influence is, one of the same dispositions as the despot: not only submitting to him with good will, but praising and blaming the same things as he does--accustomed from youth upwards to share in his preferences and aversions, and assimilated to him as much as possible.[103] Now if the despot be a wrong-doer, he who likens himself to the despot will become a wrong-doer also. And thus, in taking precautions against suffering wrong, he will incur the still greater mischief and corruption of doing wrong, and will be worse off instead of better.

[Footnote 101: Plato, Gorgias, p. 509 C. Compare Leges, viii. 829 A, where [Greek: to\ mê\ a)dikei=n] is described as easy of attainment; [Greek: to\ mê\ a)dikei=sthai], as being [Greek: pagcha/lepon]: and both equally necessary [Greek: pro\s to\ eu)daimo/nôs zê=|n].]

[Footnote 102: Plat. Gorg. 510 B. [Greek: phi/los--o( o(/moios tô=| o(moi/ô|]. We have already seen this principle discussed and rejected in the Lysis, p. 214. See above, ch. xx., p. 179.]

[Footnote 103: Plato, Gorgias, p. 510 C. [Greek: lei/petai dê\ e)kei=nos mo/nos a)/xios lo/gou phi/los tô=| toiou/tô|, o(\s a)\n, o(moê/thês ô)/n, tau)ta\ pse/gôn kai\ e)painô=n, e)the/lê| a)/rchesthai kai\ u(pokei=sthai tô=| a)/rchonti. Ou(=tos me/ga e)n tau/tê| tê=| po/lei dunê/setai, tou=ton ou)dei\s chai/rôn a)dikê/sei. . . . Au(/tê o(do/s e)stin, eu)thu\s e)k ve/ou e)thi/zein au)to\n toi=s au)toi=s chai/rein kai\ a)/chthesthtai tô=| despo/tê|, kai\ paraskeua/zein o(/pôs o(/ ti ma/lista o(/moios e)/stai e)kei/nô|.]]

[Side-note: Danger of one who dissents from the public, either for better or for worse.]

_Kall._--But if he does not liken himself to the despot, the despot may put him to death, if he chooses? _Sokr._--Perhaps he may: but it will be death inflicted by a bad man upon a good man.[104] To prolong life is not the foremost consideration, but to decide by rational thought what is the best way of passing that length of life which the Fates allot.[105] Is it my best plan to do as you recommend, and to liken myself as much as possible to the Athenian people--in order that I may become popular and may acquire power in the city? For it will be impossible for you to acquire power in the city, if you dissent from the prevalent political character and practice, be it for the better or for the worse. Even imitation will not be sufficient: you must be, by natural disposition, homogeneous with the Athenians, if you intend to acquire much favour with them. Whoever makes you most like to them, will help you forward most towards becoming an effective statesman and speaker: for every assembly delight in speeches suited to their own dispositions, and reject speeches of an opposite tenor.[106]

[Footnote 104: Plato, Gorgias, p. 511 B.]

[Footnote 105: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 511 B, 512 E.]

[Footnote 106: Plato, Gorgias, p. 513 A. [Greek: kai\ nu=n de\ a)/ra dei= se ô(s o(moio/taton gi/gnesthai tô=| dêmô| tô=| A)thênai/ôn, ei) me/lleis tou/tô| prosphilê\s ei)=nai kai\ me/ga du/nasthai e)n tê=| po/lei. . . . ei) de/ soi oi)/ei o(ntinou=n a)nthrô/pôn paradô/sein te/chnên tina\ toiau/tên, ê(/ ti/s se poiê/sei me/ga du/nasthai e)n tê=| po/lei tê=|de, _a)no/moion o)/nta tê=| politei/a| ei)/t' e)pi\ to\ be/ltion ei)/t' e)pi\ to\ chei=ron_, ou)k o)rthô=s bouleu/ei; ou) ga\r mimêtê\n dei= ei)=nai, a)ll' au)tophuô=s o(/moion toou/tois, ei) me/lleis ti gnê/sion a)perga/zesthai ei)s phili/an tô=| A)thênai/ôn dê/mô|.]]

[Side-note: Sokrates resolves upon a scheme of life for himself--to study permanent good, and not immediate satisfaction.]

Such are the essential conditions of political success and popularity. But I, Kalliklês, have already distinguished two schemes of life; one aiming at pleasure, the other aiming at good: one, that of the statesman who studies the felt wants, wishes, and impulses of the people, displaying his genius in providing for them effective satisfaction--the other, the statesman who makes it his chief or sole object to amend the character and disposition of the people. The last scheme is the only one which I approve: and if it be that to which you invite me, we must examine whether either you, Kallikles, or I, have ever yet succeeded in amending or improving the character of any individuals privately, before we undertake the task of amending the citizens collectively.[107] None of the past statesmen whom you extol, Miltiades, Kimon, Themistokles, Perikles, has produced any such amendment.[108] Considered as ministers, indeed, they were skilful and effective; better than the present statesmen. They were successful in furnishing satisfaction to the prevalent wants and desires of the citizens: they provided docks, walls, ships, tribute, and other such follies, abundantly:[109] but they did nothing to amend the character of the people--to transfer the desires of the people from worse things to better things--or to create in them justice and temperance. They thus did no real good by feeding the desires of the people: no more good than would be done by a skilful cook for a sick man, in cooking for him a sumptuous meal before the physician had cured him.

[Footnote 107: Plato, Gorgias, p. 515 A.]

[Footnote 108: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 516, 517.]

[Footnote 109: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 517, 519. [Greek: a)/neu ga\r sôphrosu/nês kai\ dikaiosu/nês lime/nôn kai\ neôri/ôn kai\ teichô=n kai\ pho/rôn kai\ toiou/tôn phluariô=n e)mpeplê/kasi tê\n po/lin.]]

[Side-note: Sokrates announces himself as almost the only man at Athens, who follows out the true political art. Danger of doing this.]

I believe myself (continues Sokrates) to be the only man in Athens,--or certainly one among a very few,--who am a true statesman, following out the genuine purposes of the political art.[110] I aim at what is best for the people, not at what is most agreeable. I do not value those captivating accomplishments which tell in the Dikastery. If I am tried, I shall be like a physician arraigned by the confectioner before a jury of children. I shall not be able to refer to any pleasures provided for them by me: pleasures which _they_ call benefits, but which I regard as worthless. If any one accuses me of corrupting the youth by making them sceptical, or of libelling the older men in my private and public talk--it will be in vain for me to justify myself by saying the real truth.--Dikasts, I do and say all these things justly, for your real benefit. I shall not be believed when I say this, and I have nothing else to say: so that I do not know what sentence may be passed on me.[111] My only refuge and defence will be, the innocence of my life. As for death, no one except a fool or a coward fears _that_: the real evil, and the greatest of all evils, is to pass into Hades with a corrupt and polluted mind.[112]

[Footnote 110: Plato, Gorgias, p. 521 D.]

[Footnote 111: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 521-522.]

[Footnote 112: Plato, Gorgias, p. 522 E. [Greek: au)to\ me\n ga\r to\ a)pothnê/skein ou)dei\s phobei=tai, o(/stis mê\ panta/pasin a)lo/gisto/s te kai\ a)/nandro/s e)sti, to\ de\ a)dikei=n phobei=tai], &c. ]

[Side-note: Mythe respecting Hades, and the treatment of deceased persons therein, according to their merits during life--the philosopher who stood aloof from public affairs, will then be rewarded.]

Sokrates then winds up the dialogue, by reciting a [Greek: Ne/kuia], a mythe or hypothesis about judgment in Hades after death, and rewards and punishments to be apportioned to deceased men, according to their merits during life, by Rhadamanthus and Minos. The greatest sufferers by these judgments (he says) will be the kings, despots, and men politically powerful, who have during their lives committed the greatest injustices,--which indeed few of them avoid.[113] The man most likely to fare well and to be rewarded, will be the philosopher, "who has passed through life minding his own business, and not meddling with the affairs of others".[114]

[Footnote 113: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 525-526.]

[Footnote 114: Plato, Gorgias, p. 526 C. [Greek: philoso/phou ta\ au)tou= pra/xantos, kai\ ou) polupragmonê/santos e)n tô=| bi/ô|.]

It must be confessed that these terms do not correspond to the life of Sokrates, as he himself describes it in the Platonic Apology. He seems to have fancied that no one was [Greek: polupra/gmôn] except those who spoke habitually in the Ekklesia and the Dikastery.]

* * * * *

[Side-note: Peculiar ethical views of Sokrates--Rhetorical or dogmatical character of the Gorgias.]

"Dicuntur ista magnifice,"[115]--we may exclaim, in Ciceronian words, on reaching the close of the Gorgias. It is pre-eminently solemn and impressive; all the more so, from the emphasis of Sokrates, when proclaiming the isolation in which he stands at Athens, and the contradiction between his ethico-political views and those of his fellow-citizens. In this respect it harmonises with the Apology, the Kriton, Republic, and Leges: in all which, the peculiarity of his ethical points of view stands proclaimed--especially in the Kriton, where he declares that his difference with his opponents is fundamental, and that there can be between them no common ground for debate--nothing but reciprocal contempt.[116]

[Footnote 115: Cicero, De Finib. iii. 3, 11.]

[Footnote 116: Plato, Kriton, p. 49 D.]

[Side-note: He merges politics in Ethics--he conceives the rulers as spiritual teachers and trainers of the community.]

The argument of Sokrates in the Gorgias is interesting, not merely as extolling the value of ethical self-restraint, but also as considering political phenomena under this point of view: that is, merging politics in ethics. The proper and paramount function of statesmen (we find it eloquently proclaimed) is to serve as spiritual teachers in the community: for the purpose of amending the lives and characters of the citizens, and of converting them from bad dispositions to good. We are admonished that until this is effected, more is lost than gained by realising the actual wants and wishes of the community, which are disorderly and distempered: like the state of a sick man, who would receive harm and not benefit from a sumptuous banquet.

[Side-note: _Idéal_ of Plato--a despotic lawgiver or man-trainer, on scientific principles, fashioning all characters pursuant to certain types of his own.]

This is the conception of Plato in the Gorgias, speaking through the person of Sokrates, respecting the ends for which the political magistrate ought to employ his power. The magistrate, as administering law and justice, is to the minds of the community what the trainer and the physician are to their bodies: he produces goodness of mind, as the two latter produce health and strength of body. The Platonic _idéal_ is that of a despotic law-giver and man-trainer, wielding the compulsory force of the secular arm for what he believes to be spiritual improvement. However instructive it is to study the manner in which a mind like that of Plato works out such a purpose in theory, there is no reason for regret that he never had an opportunity of carrying it into practice. The manner in which he always keeps in view the standing mental character, as an object of capital importance to be attended to, and as the analogon of health in the body--deserves all esteem. But when he assumes the sceptre of King Nomos (as in Republic and Leges) to fix by unchangeable authority what shall be the orthodox type of character, and to suppress all the varieties of emotion and intellect, except such as will run into a few predetermined moulds--he oversteps all the reasonable aims and boundaries of the political office.

[Side-note: Platonic analogy between mental goodness and bodily health--incomplete analogy--circumstances of difference.]

Plato forgets two important points of difference, in that favourite and very instructive analogy which he perpetually reproduces, between mental goodness and bodily health. First, good health and strength of the body (as I have observed already) are states which every man knows when he has got them. Though there is much doubt and dispute about causes, preservative, destructive, and restorative, there is none about the present fact. Every sick man derives from his own sensations an anxiety to get well. But virtue is not a point thus fixed, undisputed, indubitable: it is differently conceived by different persons, and must first be discovered and settled by a process of enquiry; the Platonic Sokrates himself, in many of the dialogues--after declaring that neither he nor any one else within his knowledge, knows what it is--tries to find it out without success. Next, the physician, who is the person actively concerned in imparting health and strength, exercises no coercive power over any one: those who consult him have the option whether they will follow the advice given, or not. To put himself upon the same footing with the physician, the political magistrate ought to confine himself to the function of advice; a function highly useful, but in which he will be called upon to meet argumentative opposition, and frequent failure, together with the mortification of leaving those whom he cannot convince, to follow their own mode of life. Here are two material differences, modifying the applicability of that very analogy on which Plato so frequently rests his proof.

[Side-note: Sokrates in the Gorgias speaks like a dissenter among a community of fixed opinions and habits. Impossible that a dissenter, on important points, should acquire any public influence.]

In Plato's two imaginary commonwealths, where he is himself despotic law-giver, there would have been no tolerable existence possible for any one not shaped upon the Platonic spiritual model. But in the Gorgias, Plato (speaking in the person of Sokrates) is called upon to define his plan of life in a free state, where he was merely a private citizen. Sokrates receives from Kallikles the advice, to forego philosophy and to aspire to the influence and celebrity of an active public speaker. His reply is instructive, as revealing the interior workings of every political society. No man (he says) can find favour as an adviser--either of a despot, where there is one, or of a people where there is free government--unless he be in harmony with the sentiments and ideas prevalent, either with the ruling Many or the ruling One. He must be moulded, from youth upwards, on the same spiritual pattern as they are:[117] his love and hate, his praise and blame, must turn towards the same things: he must have the same tastes, the same morality, the same _idéal_, as theirs: he must be no imitator, but a chip of the same block. If he be either better than they or worse than they,[118] he will fail in acquiring popularity, and his efforts as a competitor for public influence will be not only abortive, but perhaps dangerous to himself.

[Footnote 117: Plato, Gorgias, p. 510 C-D. [Greek: o(moê/thês ô)/n, tau)ta\ pse/gôn kai\ e)painô=n tô=| a)/rchonti. . . . eu)thu\s e)k ne/ou e)thi/zein au(to\n toi=s au)toi=s chai/rein kai\ a)/chthesthai tô=| despo/tê|, kai\ paraskeua/zein o(/pôs o(/ ti ma/lista o(/moios e)/stai e)kei/nô|.] 513 B: [Greek: ou) mimêtê\n dei= ei)=nai a)ll' au)tophuô=s o(/moion tou/tois.]]

[Footnote 118: Plato, Gorgias, p. 513 A. [Greek: ei)/t' e)pi\ to\ be/ltion ei)/t' e)pi\ to\ chei=ron.]]

[Side-note: Sokrates feels his own isolation from his countrymen. He is thrown upon individual speculation and dialectic.]

The reasons which Sokrates gives here (as well as in the Apology, and partly also in the Republic) for not embarking in the competition of political aspirants, are of very general application. He is an innovator in religion; and a dissenter from the received ethics, politics, social sentiment, and estimate of life and conduct.[119] Whoever dissents upon these matters from the governing force (in whatever hands that may happen to reside) has no chance of being listened to as a political counsellor, and may think himself fortunate if he escapes without personal hurt or loss. Whether his dissent be for the better or for the worse, is a matter of little moment: the ruling body always think it worse, and the consequences to the dissenter are the same.

[Footnote 119: Plato, Gorgias, p. 522 B; Theætêtus, p. 179; Menon, p. 79.]

[Side-note: Antithesis between philosophy and rhetoric.]

Herein consists the real antithesis between Sokrates, Plato, and philosophy, on the one side--Perikles, Nikias, Kleon, Demosthenes, and rhetoric, on the other. "You," (says Sokrates to Kalliklês),[120] "are in love with the Athenian people, and take up or renounce such opinions as they approve or discountenance: I am in love with philosophy, and follow her guidance. You and other active politicians do not wish to have more than a smattering of philosophy; you are afraid of becoming unconsciously corrupted, if you carry it beyond such elementary stage."[121] Each of these orators, discussing political measures before the public assembly, appealed to general maxims borrowed from the received creed of morality, religion, taste, politics, &c. His success depended mainly on the emphasis which his eloquence could lend to such maxims, and on the skill with which he could apply them to the case in hand. But Sokrates could not follow such an example. Anxious in his research after truth, he applied the test of analysis to the prevalent opinions--found them, in his judgment, neither consistent nor rational--constrained many persons to feel this, by an humiliating cross-examination--but became disqualified from addressing, with any chance of assent, the assembled public.

[Footnote 120: Plato, Gorgias, p, 481 E.]

[Footnote 121: Plato, Gorgias, p. 487 C. [Greek: e)ni/ka e)s u(mi=n toia/de tis do/xa, mê\ prothumei=sthai ei)s tê\n a)kribei/an philosophei=n, a)lla\ eu)labei=sthai. . . . o(/pôs mê\ pe/ra tou= de/ontos sophô/teroi geno/menoi lê/sete diaphthare/ntes.]

The view here advocated by Kallikles:--That philosophy is good and useful, to be studied up to a point in the earlier years of life, in order to qualify persons for effective discharge of the duties of active citizenship, but that it ought not to be made the main occupation of mature life, nor be prosecuted up to the pitch of accurate theorising: this view, since Plato here assigns it to Kallikles, is denounced by most of the Platonic critics as if it were low and worthless. Yet it was held by many of the most respectable citizens of antiquity; and the question is, in point of fact, that which has always been in debate between the life of theoretical speculation and the life of action.

Isokrates urges the same view both in Orat. xv. De Permutatione, sect. 282-287, pp. 485-486, Bekker; and Orat. xii. Panathenaic. sect. 29-32, p. 321, Bekker. [Greek: diatri/psai me\n ou)=n peri\ ta\s paidei/as tau/tas chro/non tina\ sumbouleu/saim' a)\n toi=s neôte/rois, mê\ me/ntoi perii+dei=n tê\n phu/sin tê\n au)tô=n kataskeleteuthei=san e)pi\ tou/tois], &c. Cicero quotes a similar opinion put by Ennius the poet into the mouth of Neoptolemus, Tusc. D. ii. 1, 1; Aulus Gell. v. 16--"degustandum ex philosophiâ censet, non in eam ingurgitandum".

Tacitus, in describing the education of Agricola, who was taken by his mother in his earlier years to study at Massilia, says, c. 4:--"Memoriâ teneo, solitum ipsum narrare, se in primâ juventâ studium philosophiæ, _ultra quam concessum Romano et senatori_, hausisse; ni prudentia matris incensum ac flagrantem animum coercuisset".

I have already cited this last passage, and commented upon the same point, in my notes at the end of the Euthydêmus, p. 230.]

[Side-note: Position of one who dissents, upon material points, from the fixed opinions and creed of his countrymen.]

That in order to succeed politically, a man must be a genuine believer in the creed of King Nomos or the ruling force--cast in the same spiritual mould--(I here take the word _creed_ not as confined to religion, but as embracing the whole of a man's critical _idéal_, on moral or social practice, politics, or taste--the ends which he deems worthy of being aspired to, or proper to be shunned, by himself or others) is laid down by Sokrates as a general position: and with perfect truth. In disposing of the force or influence of government, whoever possesses that force will use it conformably to his own maxims. A man who dissents from these maxims will find no favour in the public assembly; nor, probably, if his dissent be grave and wide, will he ever be able to speak out his convictions aloud in it, without incurring dangerous antipathy. But what is to become of such a dissenter[122]--the man who frequents the same porticos with the people, but does not hold the same creed, nor share their judgments respecting social _expetenda_ and _fugienda_? How is he to be treated by the government, or by the orthodox majority of society in their individual capacity? Debarred, by the necessity of the case, from influence over the public councils--what latitude of pursuit, profession, or conduct, is to be left to him as a citizen? How far is he to question, or expose, or require to be proved, that which the majority believe without proof? Shall he be required to profess, or to obey, or to refrain from contradicting, religious or ethical doctrines which he has examined and rejected? Shall such requirement be enforced by threat of legal penalties, or of ill-treatment from individuals, which is not less intolerable than legal penalties? What is likely to be his character, if compelled to suppress all declaration of his own creed, and to act and speak as if he were believer in another?

[Footnote 122: Horat. Epist. i. 1, 70--

"Quod si me populus Romanus forté roget, cur Non ut porticibus, sic judiciis fruar iisdem, Nec sequar aut fugiam quæ diligit ipse vel odit: Olim quod vulpes ægroto cauta leoni Respondit, referam: Quia me vestigia terrent Omnia te adversum spectantia, nulla retrorsum."]

[Side-note: Probable feelings of Plato on this subject. Claim put forward in the Gorgias of an independent _locus standi_ for philosophy, but without the indiscriminate cross-examination pursued by Sokrates.]

The questions here suggested must have impressed themselves forcibly on the mind of Plato when he recollected the fate of Sokrates. In spite of a blameless life, Sokrates had been judicially condemned and executed for publicly questioning received opinions, innovating upon the established religion, and instilling into young persons habits of doubt. To dissent only for the better, afforded no assurance of safety: and Plato knew well that his own dissent from the Athenian public was even wider and more systematic than that of his master. The position and plan of life for an active-minded reasoner, dissenting from the established opinions of the public, could not but be an object of interesting reflection to him.[123] The Gorgias (written, in my judgment, long after the death of Sokrates, probably after the Platonic school was established) announces the vocation of the philosopher, and claims an open field for speculation, apart from the actualities of politics--for the self-acting reason of the individual doubter and investigator, against the authority of numbers and the pressure of inherited tradition. A formal assertion to this effect was worthy of the founder of the Academy--the earliest philosophical school at Athens. Yet we may observe that while the Platonic Sokrates in the Gorgias adopts the life of philosophy, he does not renew that farther demand with which the historical Sokrates had coupled it in his Apology--the liberty of oral and aggressive cross-examination, addressed to individuals personally and indiscriminately[124]--to the _primores populi_ as well as to the _populum tributim_. The fate of Sokrates rendered Plato more cautious, and induced him to utter his ethical interrogations and novelties of opinion in no other way except that of lectures to chosen hearers and written dialogue: borrowing the name of Sokrates or some other speaker, and refraining upon system (as his letters[125] tell us that he did) from publishing any doctrines in his own name.

[Footnote 123: I have already referred to the treatise of Mr. John Stuart Mill "On Liberty," where this important topic is discussed in a manner equally profound and enlightened. The co-existence of individual reasoners enquiring and philosophising for themselves, with the fixed opinions of the majority, is one of the main conditions which distinguish a progressive from a stationary community.]

[Footnote 124: Plat. Apol. Sokr. pp. 21-22-23-28 E. [Greek: tou= de\ theou= ta/ttontos, ô(s e)gô\ ô)|ê/thên te kai\ u(pe/labon, philophou=nta me dei=n zê=|n kai\ _e)xeta/zonta e)mauto/n te kai\ tou\s a)/llous_], &c.]

[Footnote 125: Plat. Epist. ii. 314 B. K. F. Hermann (Ueber Platon's Schriftstellerische Motive, p. 290) treats any such prudential discretion, in respect to the form and mode of putting forward unpopular opinions, as unworthy of Plato, and worthy only of Protagoras and other Sophists. I dissent from this opinion altogether. We know that Protagoras was very circumspect as to form (Timon ap. Sext. Emp. adv. Mathemat. ix. s. 57); but the passage of Plato cited by Hermann does not prove it.]

[Side-note: Importance of maintaining the utmost liberty of discussion. Tendency of all ruling orthodoxy towards intolerance.]

As a man dissenting from received opinions, Sokrates had his path marked out in the field of philosophy or individual speculation. To such a mind as his, the fullest liberty ought to be left, of professing and defending his own opinions, as well as of combating other opinions, accredited or not, which he may consider false or uncertified.[126] The public guidance of the state thus falls to one class of minds, the activity of speculative discussion to another; though accident may produce, here and there, a superior individual, comprehensive or dexterous enough to suffice for both. But the main desideratum is that this freedom of discussion should exist: that room shall be made, and encouragement held out, to the claims of individual reason, and to the full publication of all doubts or opinions, be they what they may: that the natural tendency of all ruling force, whether in few or in many hands, to perpetuate their own dogmas by proscribing or silencing all heretics and questioners, may be neutralised as far as possible. The great expansive vigour of the Greek mind--the sympathy felt among the best varieties of Greeks for intellectual superiority in all its forms--and the privilege of free speech ([Greek: par)r(êsi/a]), on which the democratical citizens of Athens prided themselves--did in fact neutralise very considerably these tendencies in Athens. A greater and more durable liberty of philosophising was procured for Athens, and through Athens for Greece generally, than had ever been known before in the history of mankind.

[Footnote 126: So Sokrates also says in the Platonic Apology, pp. 31-32. [Greek: Ou) ga\r e)/stin o(/stis a)nthrô/pôn sôthê/setai ou)/te u(mi=n ou)/te a)/llô| plê/thei ou)deni\ gnêsi/ôs e)nantiou/menos, kai\ diakôlu/ôn polla\ a)/dika kai\ para/noma e)n tê=| po/lei gi/gnesthai; a)ll' a)nagkai=o/n e)sti to\n tô=| o)/nti machou/menon u(pe\r tou= dikai/ou, kai\ ei) me/llei o)li/gon chro/non sôthê/sesthai, _i)diôteu/ein a)lla\ mê\ dêmosieu/ein_.]

The reader will find the speculative individuality of Sokrates illustrated in the sixty-eighth chapter of my History of Greece.

The antithesis of the philosophising or speculative life, against the rhetorical, political, forensic life--which is put so much to the advantage of the former by Plato in the Gorgias, Theætêtus (p. 173, seq.), and elsewhere was the theme of Cicero's lost dialogue called Hortensius: wherein Hortensius was introduced pleading the cause against philosophy, (see Orelli, Fragm. Ciceron. pp. 479-480), while the other speakers were provided by Cicero with arguments mainly in defence of philosophy, partly also against rhetoric. The competition between the teachers of rhetoric and the teachers of philosophy continued to be not merely animated but bitter, from Plato downward throughout the Ciceronian age. (Cicero, De Orat. i. 45-46-47-75, &c.)

We read in the treatise of Plutarch against the Epikurean Kolôtes, an acrimonious invective against Epikurus and his followers, for recommending a scheme of life such as to withdraw men from active political functions (Plutarch, adv. Kolôt. pp. 1125 C, 1127-1128); the like also in his other treatise, Non Posse Suaviter Vivi secundum Epicurum. But Plutarch at the same time speaks as if Epikurus were the only philosopher who had recommended this, and as if all the other philosophers had recommended an active life; nay, he talks of Plato among the philosophers actively engaged in practical reformatory legislation, through Dion and the pupils of the Academy (p. 1126, B, C). Here Plutarch mistakes: the Platonic tendencies were quite different from what he supposes. The Gorgias and Theætêtus enforce upon the philosopher a life quite apart from politics, pursuing his own course, and not meddling with others--[Greek: philoso/phou ta\ au(tou= pra/xantos kai\ ou) polupragmonê/santos e)n tô=| bi/ô|] (Gorg. 526 C); which is the same advice as Epikurus gave. It is set forth eloquently in the poetry of Lucretius, but it had been set forth previously, not less eloquently, in the rhetoric of Plato.]

[Side-note: Issue between philosophy and rhetoric--not satisfactorily handled by Plato. Injustice done to rhetoric. Ignoble manner in which it is presented by Polus and Kalliklês.]

This antithesis of the philosophical life to the rhetorical or political, constitutes one of the most interesting features of the Platonic Gorgias. But when we follow the pleadings upon which Plato rests this grand issue, and the line which he draws between the two functions, we find much that is unsatisfactory. Since Plato himself pleads both sides of the case, he is bound in fairness to set forth the case which he attacks (that of rhetoric), as it would be put by competent and honourable advocates--by Perikles, for example, or Demosthenes, or Isokrates, or Quintilian. He does this, to a certain extent, in the first part of the dialogue, carried on by Sokrates with Gorgias. But in the succeeding portions--carried on with Pôlus and Kalliklês, and occupying three-fourths of the whole--he alters the character of the defence, and merges it in ethical theories which Perikles, had he been the defender, would not only have put aside as misplaced, but disavowed as untrue. Perikles would have listened with mixed surprise and anger, if he had heard any one utter the monstrous assertion which Plato puts into the mouth of Polus--That rhetors, like despots, kill, impoverish, or expel any citizen at their pleasure. Though Perikles was the most powerful of all Athenian rhetors, yet he had to contend all his life against fierce opposition from others, and was even fined during his last years. He would hardly have understood how an Athenian citizen could have made any assertion so completely falsified by all the history of Athens, respecting the omnipotence of the rhetors. Again, if he had heard Kalliklês proclaiming that the strong giant had a natural right to satiate all his desires at the cost of the weaker Many--and that these latter sinned against Nature when they took precautions to prevent him--Perikles would have protested against the proclamation as emphatically as Plato.[127]

[Footnote 127: Perikles might indeed have referred to his own panegyrical oration in Thucydides, ii. 37.]

[Side-note: Perikles would have accepted the defence of rhetoric, as Plato has put it into the mouth of Gorgias.]

If we suppose Perikles to have undertaken the defence of the rhetorical element at Athens, against the dialectic element represented by Sokrates, he would have accepted it, though not a position of his own choosing, on the footing on which Plato places it in the mouth of Gorgias: "Rhetoric is an engine of persuasion addressed to numerous assembled auditors: it ensures freedom to the city (through the free exercise of such a gift by many competing orators) and political ascendency or command to the ablest rhetor. It thus confers great power on him who possesses it in the highest measure: but he ought by no means to employ that power for unjust purposes." It is very probable that Perikles might have recommended rhetorical study to Sokrates, as a means of defending himself against unjust accusations, and of acquiring a certain measure of influence on public affairs.[128] But he would have distinguished carefully (as Horace does) between defending yourself against unjust attacks, and making unjust attacks upon others: though the same weapon may suit for both.

[Footnote 128: Horat. Satir. ii. 1, 39--

"Hic stilus haud petet ultro Quemquam animantem; et me veluti custodiet ensis Vaginâ tectus; quem cur destringere coner, Tutus ab infestis latronibus? Oh pater et rex Jupiter! ut pereat positum rubigine telum, Nec quisquam noceat cupido mihi pacis! At ille Qui me commôrit (melius non tangere! clamo) Flebit, et insignis totâ cantabitur urbe."

We need only read the Memorabilia of Xenophon (ii. 9), to see that the historical Sokrates judged of these matters differently from the Platonic Sokrates of the Gorgias. Kriton complained to Sokrates that life was difficult at Athens for a quiet man who wished only to mind his own business ([Greek: ta\ e(autou= pra/ttein]); because there were persons who brought unjust actions at law against him, for the purpose of extorting money to buy them off. The Platonic Sokrates of the Gorgias would have replied to him: "Never mind: you are just, and these assailants are unjust: they are by their own conduct entailing upon themselves a terrible distemper, from which, if you leave them unpunished, they will suffer all their lives: they injure themselves more than they injure you". But the historical Sokrates in Xenophon replies in quite another spirit. He advises Kriton to look out for a clever and active friend, to attach this person to his interest by attention and favours, and to trust to him for keeping off the assailants. Accordingly, a poor but energetic man named Archedemus is found, who takes Kriton's part against the assailants, and even brings counterattacks against them, which force them to leave Kriton alone, and to give money to Archedemus himself. The advice given by the Xenophontic Sokrates to Kriton is the same in principle as the advice given by Kallikles to the Platonic Sokrates.]

[Side-note: The Athenian people recognise a distinction between the pleasurable and the good: but not the same as that which Plato conceived.]

Farther, neither Perikles, nor any defender of free speech, would assent to the definition of rhetoric--That it is a branch of the art of flattery, studying the immediately pleasurable, and disregarding the good.[129] This indeed represents Plato's own sentiment, and was true in the sense which the Platonic Sokrates assigns (in the Gorgias, though not in the Protagoras) to the words _good_ and _evil_. But it is not true in the sense which the Athenian people and the Athenian public men assigned to those words. Both the one and the other used the words _pleasurable_ and _good_ as familiarly as Plato, and had sentiments corresponding to both of them. The pleasurable and painful referred to present and temporary causes: the Good and Evil to prospective causes and permanent situations, involving security against indefinite future suffering, combined with love of national dignity and repugnance to degradation, as well as with a strong sense of common interests and common obligations to each other. To provide satisfaction for these common patriotic feelings--to sustain the dignity of the city by effective and even imposing public establishments, against foreign enemies--to protect the individual rights of citizens by an equitable administration of justice--counted in the view of the Athenians as objects _good_ and _honourable_: while the efforts and sacrifices necessary for these permanent ends, were, so far as they went, a renunciation of what they would call the _pleasurable_. When, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, the Athenians, acting on the advice of Perikles, allowed all Attica to be ravaged, and submitted to the distress of cooping the whole population within the long walls, rather than purchase peace by abnegating their Hellenic dignity, independence, and security--they not only renounced much that was pleasurable, but endured great immediate distress, for the sake of what they regarded as a permanent good.[130] Eighty years afterwards, when Demosthenes pointed out to them the growing power and encroachments of the Macedonian Philip, and exhorted them to the efforts requisite for keeping back that formidable enemy, while there was yet time--they could not be wound up to the pitch requisite for affronting so serious an amount of danger and suffering. They had lost that sense of Hellenic dignity, and that association of self-respect with active personal soldiership and sailorship, which rendered submission to an enemy the most intolerable of all pains, at the time when Perikles had addressed them. They shut their eyes to an impending danger, which ultimately proved their ruin. On both these occasions, we have the _pleasurable_ and the _good_ brought into contrast in the Athenian mind; in both we have the two most eminent orators of Grecian antiquity enforcing the _good_ in opposition to the _pleasurable_: the first successfully, the last vainly, in opposition to other orators.

[Footnote 129: The reply composed by the rhetor Aristeides to the Gorgias of Plato is well deserving of perusal, though (like all his compositions) it is very prolix and wordy. See Aristeides, Orationes xlv. and xlvi.--[Greek: Perei\ R(êtorikê=s], and [Greek: U(pe\r tô=n Tetta/rôn]. In the last of the two orations he defends the four eminent Athenians (Miltiades, Themistoklês, Periklês, Kimon) whom Plato disparages in the Gorgias.

Aristeides insists forcibly on the partial and narrow view here taken by Plato of persuasion, as a working force both for establishing laws and carrying on government. He remarks truly that there are only two forces between which the choice must be made, intimidation and persuasion: that the substitution of persuasion in place of force is the great improvement which has made public and private life worth having ([Greek: mo/nê biôto\n ê(mi=n pepoi/êke to\n bi/on], Orat. xlv. p. 64, Dindorf); that neither laws could be discussed and passed, nor judicial trial held under them, without [Greek: r(êtorikê\] as the engine of persuasion (pp. 66-67-136); that Plato in attacking Rhetoric had no right to single out despots and violent conspirators as illustrations of it--[Greek: ei)=t' e)le/gchein me\n bou/letai tê\n r(êtorikê/n, katêgorei= de\ tô=n tura/nnôn kai\ dunastô=n, _ta\ a)/mikta mignu/s--ti/s_ ga\r ou)k oi)=den, o(/ti r(êtorikê\ kai\ turanni\s tosou=ton a)llê/lôn kechôri/stai, o(/son to\ pei/thein tou= bia/zesthai] (p. 99). He impugns the distinction which Plato has drawn between [Greek: i)atrikê/, gumnastikê/, kubernêtikê/, nomothetikê/], &c., on the one side, which Plato calls [Greek: te/chnai], arts or sciences, and affirms to rest on scientific principles--and [Greek: r(êtorikê/, mageirikê/], &c., on the other side, which Plato affirms to be only guess work or groping, resting on empirical analogies. Aristeides says that [Greek: i)atrikê\] and [Greek: r(êtorikê\] are in this respect both on a par; that both are partly reducible to rule, but partly also driven by necessity to conjectures and analogies, and the physician not less than the rhetor (pp. 45-48-49); which the Platonic Sokrates himself affirms in another dialogue, Philêbus, p. 56 A.

The most curious part of the argument of Aristeides is where he disputes the prerogative which Plato had claimed for [Greek: i)atrikê/, gumnastikê/] &c., on the ground of their being arts or reducible to rules. The effects of human art (says Aristeides) are much inferior to those of [Greek: thei/a moi=ra] or divine inspiration. Many patients are cured of disease by human art; but many more are cured by the responses and directions of the Delphian oracle, by the suggestion of dreams, and by other varieties of the divine prompting, delivered through the Pythian priestess, a woman altogether ignorant (p. 11). [Greek: kai/toi mikra\ me\n ê( pa/ntas ei)dui=a lo/gous i)atrikê\ pro\s ta\s e)k Delphô=n du/natai lu/seis, o(/sai kai\ i)di/a| kai\ koinê=| kai\ no/sôn kai\ pathêma/tôn a(pantôn a)nthrôpi/nôn e)pha/nthêsan.] Patients who are cured in this way by the Gods without medical art, acquire a natural impulse which leads them to the appropriate remedy--[Greek: e)pithumi/a au)tou\s a)/gei e)pi\ to\ o)/nêson] (p. 20). Aristeides says that he can himself depose--from his own personal experience as a sick man seeking cure, and from personal knowledge of many other such--how much more efficacious in healing is aid from the Gods, given in dreams and other ways, than advice from physicians; who might well shudder when they heard the stories which he could tell (pp. 21-22). To undervalue science and art (he says) is the principle from which men start, when they flee to the Gods for help--[Greek: tou= kataphugei=n e)pi\ tou\s theou\s schedo\n a)rchê/, to\ tê=s te/chnês u(peridei=n e)/stin.]]

[Footnote 130: Nothing can be more at variance with the doctrine which Plato assigns to Kalliklês in the Gorgias, than the three memorable speeches of Perikles in Thucydides, i. 144, ii. 35, ii. 60, seq. All these speeches are penetrated with the deepest sense of that [Greek: koinôni/a] and [Greek: phili/a] which the Platonic Sokrates extols: not one of them countenances [Greek: pleonexi/an], which the Platonic Sokrates forbids (Gorg. 508 E). [Greek: To\ prostalaipôrei=n tô=| do/xanti kalô=|] (to use the expressive phrase of Thucydides, ii. 53) was a remarkable feature in the character of the Athenians of that day: it was subdued for the moment by the overwhelming misery of pestilence and war combined.]

[Side-note: Rhetoric was employed at Athens in appealing to all the various established sentiments and opinions. Erroneous inferences raised by the Kalliklês of Plato.]

Lastly, it is not merely the political power of the Athenians that Perikles employs his eloquence to uphold. He dwells also with emphasis on the elegance of taste, on the intellectual force and activity, which warranted him in decorating the city with the title of Preceptress of Hellas.[131] All this belongs, not to the pleasurable as distinguished from the good, but to good (whether immediately pleasurable or not) in its most comprehensive sense, embracing the improvement and refinement of the collective mind. If Perikles, in this remarkable funeral harangue, flattered the sentiments of the people--as he doubtless did--he flattered them by kindling their aspirations towards good. And Plato himself does the same (though less nobly and powerfully), adopting the received framework of Athenian sentiment, in his dialogue called Menexenus, which we shall come to in a future chapter.

[Footnote 131: Thucyd. ii. 41-42. [Greek: xunelô/n te le/gô tê/n te pa=san po/lin tê=s E(lla/dos pai/deusin ei)=nai], &c.]

[Side-note: The Platonic Idéal exacts, as good, some order, system, discipline. But order may be directed to bad ends as well as to good. Divergent ideas about virtue.]

The issue, therefore, which Plato here takes against Rhetoric, must stand or fall with the Platonic Idéal of Good and Evil. But when he thus denounces both the general public and the most patriotic rhetors, to ensure exclusive worship for his own Idéal of Good--we may at least require that he shall explain, wherein consists that Good--by what mark it is distinguishable--and on what authority pre-eminence is claimed for it. So far, indeed, we advance by the help of Plato's similes[132]--order, discipline, health and strength of body--that we are called upon to recognise, apart from all particular moments of enjoyment or suffering, of action or quiescence, a certain permanent mental condition and habit--a certain order, regulation, discipline--as an object of high importance to be attained. This (as I have before remarked) is a valuable idea which pervades, in one form or another, all the Hellenic social views, from Sokrates downward, and even before Sokrates; an idea, moreover, which was common to Peripatetics, Stoics, Epikureans. But mental order and discipline is not in itself an end: it may be differently cast, and may subserve many different purposes. The Pythagorean brotherhood was intensely restrictive in its canons. The Spartan system exhibited the strictest order and discipline--an assemblage of principles and habits predetermined by authority and enforced upon all--yet neither Plato nor Aristotle approve of its results. Order and discipline attained full perfection in the armies of Julius Caesar and the French Emperor Napoleon; in the middle ages, also, several of the monastic orders stood high in respect to finished discipline pervading the whole character: and the Jesuits stood higher than any. Each of these systems has included terms equivalent to justice, temperance, virtue, vice, &c., with sentiments associated therewith, yet very different from what Plato would have approved. The question--What is Virtue?--_Vir bonus est quis?_--will be answered differently in each. The Spartans--when they entrapped (by a delusive pretence of liberation and military decoration) two thousand of their bravest Helot warriors, and took them off by private assassinations,[133]--did not offend against their own idea of virtue, or against the Platonic exigency of Order--Measure--System.

[Footnote 132: Plat. Gorg. p. 504.]

[Footnote 133: Thucydid. iv. 80.]

[Side-note: How to discriminate the right order from the wrong. Plato does not advise us.]