Chapter XII: Part 12

Yes, replied Socrates, and yet all men will agree that God,
and the essential form of life, and the immortal in general,
will never perish.

Yes, all men, he said—that is true; and what is more,
gods, if I am not mistaken, as well as men.

Seeing then that the immortal is indestructible, must not
the soul, if she is immortal, be also imperishable?

Most certainly.

Then when death attacks a man, the mortal portion of him
may be supposed to die, but the immortal retires at the
approach of death and is preserved safe and sound?

True.

[Sidenote: At death the soul retires into another world.]

Then, Cebes, beyond question, the soul is immortal and
imperishable, and our souls will truly exist in another 107
world!

[Sidenote: _Revelation in a myth._]

I am convinced, Socrates, said Cebes, and have nothing
more to object; but if my friend Simmias, or any one else,
has any further objection to make, he had better speak out,
and not keep silence, since I do not know to what other
season he can defer the discussion, if there is anything which
he wants to say or to have said.

But I have nothing more to say, replied Simmias; nor can
I see any reason for doubt after what has been said. But I
still feel and cannot help feeling uncertain in my own mind,
when I think of the greatness of the subject and the feebleness
of man.

Yes, Simmias, replied Socrates, that is well said: and I
may add that first principles, even if they appear certain,
should be carefully considered; and when they are satisfactorily
ascertained, then, with a sort of hesitating confidence
in human reason, you may, I think, follow the course of the
argument; and if that be plain and clear, there will be no
need for any further enquiry.

Very true.

[Sidenote: ‘Wherefore, seeing all these things, what manner of persons ought we to be?’]

But then, O my friends, he said, if the soul is really immortal,
what care should be taken of her, not only in respect
of the portion of time which is called life, but of eternity!
And the danger of neglecting her from this point of view does
indeed appear to be awful. If death had only been the end
of all, the wicked would have had a good bargain in dying,
for they would have been happily quit not only of their body,
but of their own evil together with their souls. But now,
inasmuch as the soul is manifestly immortal, there is no
release or salvation from evil except the attainment of the
highest virtue and wisdom. For the soul when on her progress
to the world below takes nothing with her but nurture
and education; and these are said greatly to benefit or
greatly to injure the departed, at the very beginning of his
journey thither.

[Sidenote: The attendant genius of each brings him after death to the judgment.]

[Sidenote: _The purgation of souls._]

[Sidenote: The different destinies of pure and impure souls.]

For after death, as they say, the genius of each individual,
to whom he belonged in life, leads him to a certain place in
which the dead are gathered together, whence after judgment
has been given they pass into the world below, following
the guide, who is appointed to conduct them from this
world to the other: and when they have there received their
due and remained their time, another guide brings them back
again after many revolutions of ages. Now this way to the
other world is not, as Æschylus says in the Telephus, a 108
single and straight path—if that were so no guide would be
needed, for no one could miss it; but there are many partings
of the road, and windings, as I infer from the rites and
sacrifices which are offered to the gods below in places where
three ways meet on earth. The wise and orderly soul follows
in the straight path and is conscious of her surroundings;
but the soul which desires the body, and which, as I was
relating before, has long been fluttering about the lifeless
frame and the world of sight, is after many struggles and
many sufferings hardly and with violence carried away by
her attendant genius; and when she arrives at the place
where the other souls are gathered, if she be impure and
have done impure deeds, whether foul murders or other
crimes which are the brothers of these, and the works of
brothers in crime—from that soul every one flees and turns
away; no one will be her companion, no one her guide, but
alone she wanders in extremity of evil until certain times are
fulfilled, and when they are fulfilled, she is borne irresistibly
to her own fitting habitation; as every pure and just soul
which has passed through life in the company and under the
guidance of the gods has also her own proper home.

[Sidenote: Description of the divers regions of earth.]

Now the earth has divers wonderful regions, and is indeed
in nature and extent very unlike the notions of geographers,
as I believe on the authority of one who shall be nameless.

What do you mean, Socrates? said Simmias. I have
myself heard many descriptions of the earth, but I do not
know, and I should very much like to know, in which of these
you put faith.

And I, Simmias, replied Socrates, if I had the art of
Glaucus would tell you; although I know not that the art of
Glaucus could prove the truth of my tale, which I myself
should never be able to prove, and even if I could, I fear,
Simmias, that my life would come to an end before the argument
was completed. I may describe to you, however, the
form and regions of the earth according to my conception of
them.

That, said Simmias, will be enough.

[Sidenote: _The lower regions of earth._]

[Sidenote: The earth is a round body kept in her place by equipoise and the equability of the surrounding element.]

Well then, he said, my conviction is, that the earth is a
round body in the centre of the heavens, and therefore has
no need of air or of any similar force to be a support, but is 109
kept there and hindered from falling or inclining any way by
the equability of the surrounding heaven and by her own
equipoise. For that which, being in equipoise, is in the
centre of that which is equably diffused, will not incline any
way in any degree, but will always remain in the same state
and not deviate. And this is my first notion.

Which is surely a correct one, said Simmias.

[Sidenote: _The earth seen from above._]

[Sidenote: Mankind lives only in a small portion of the earth at a distance from the surface.]

[Sidenote: If, like fishes who now and then put their heads out of the water, we could rise to the top of the atmosphere, we should behold the true heaven and the true earth.]

Also I believe that the earth is very vast, and that we who
dwell in the region extending from the river Phasis to the
Pillars of Heracles inhabit a small portion only about the sea,
like ants or frogs about a marsh, and that there are other inhabitants
of many other like places; for everywhere on the
face of the earth there are hollows of various forms and sizes,
into which the water and the mist and the lower air collect.
But the true earth is pure and situated in the pure heaven—there
are the stars also; and it is the heaven which is commonly
spoken of by us as the ether, and of which our own
earth is the sediment gathering in the hollows beneath. But
we who live in these hollows are deceived into the notion that
we are dwelling above on the surface of the earth; which is
just as if a creature who was at the bottom of the sea were to
fancy that he was on the surface of the water, and that the sea
was the heaven through which he saw the sun and the other
stars, he having never come to the surface by reason of his
feebleness and sluggishness, and having never lifted up his
head and seen, nor ever heard from one who had seen, how
much purer and fairer the world above is than his own. And
such is exactly our case: for we are dwelling in a hollow of
the earth, and fancy that we are on the surface; and the air
we call the heaven, in which we imagine that the stars move.
But the fact is, that owing to our feebleness and sluggishness
we are prevented from reaching the surface of the air: for if
any man could arrive at the exterior limit, or take the wings
of a bird and come to the top, then like a fish who puts his
head out of the water and sees this world, he would see a
world beyond; and, if the nature of man could sustain the
sight, he would acknowledge that this other world was the
place of the true heaven and the true light and the true earth.
For our earth, and the stones, and the entire region which 110
surrounds us, are spoilt and corroded, as in the sea all things
are corroded by the brine, neither is there any noble or
perfect growth, but caverns only, and sand, and an endless
slough of mud; and even the shore is not to be compared to
the fairer sights of this world. And still less is this our world
to be compared with the other. Of that upper earth which is
under the heaven, I can tell you a charming tale, Simmias,
which is well worth hearing.

And we, Socrates, replied Simmias, shall be charmed to
listen to you.

[Sidenote: The upper earth is in every respect far fairer than the lower. There is gold and purple, and pure light, and trees and flowers lovelier far than our own, and all the stones are more precious than our precious stones.]

[Sidenote: The blessed gods dwell there and hold converse with the inhabitants.]

The tale, my friend, he said, is as follows:—In the first
place, the earth, when looked at from above, is in appearance
streaked like one of those balls which have leather
coverings in twelve pieces, and is decked with various
colours, of which the colours used by painters on earth are
in a manner samples. But there the whole earth is made
up of them, and they are brighter far and clearer than ours:
there is a purple of wonderful lustre, also the radiance of
gold, and the white which is in the earth is whiter than any
chalk or snow. Of these and other colours the earth is
made up, and they are more in number and fairer than the
eye of man has ever seen; the very hollows (of which I was
speaking) filled with air and water have a colour of their
own, and are seen like light gleaming amid the diversity of
the other colours, so that the whole presents a single and
continuous appearance of variety in unity. And in this fair
region everything that grows—trees, and flowers, and fruits—are
in a like degree fairer than any here; and there are
hills, having stones in them in a like degree smoother, and
more transparent, and fairer in colour than our highly-valued
emeralds and sardonyxes and jaspers, and other
gems, which are but minute fragments of them: for there all
the stones are like our precious stones, and fairer still[28]. The
reason is, that they are pure, and not, like our precious
stones, infected or corroded by the corrupt briny elements
which coagulate among us, and which breed foulness and
disease both in earth and stones, as well as in animals and
plants. They are the jewels of the upper earth, which also
shines with gold and silver and the like, and they are set in 111
the light of day and are large and abundant and in all
places, making the earth a sight to gladden the beholder’s
eye. And there are animals and men, some in a middle
region, others dwelling about the air as we dwell about the
sea; others in islands which the air flows round, near the
continent; and in a word, the air is used by them as the
water and the sea are by us, and the ether is to them what
the air is to us. Moreover, the temperament of their
seasons is such that they have no disease, and live much
longer than we do, and have sight and hearing and smell,
and all the other senses, in far greater perfection, in the same
proportion that air is purer than water or the ether than
air. Also they have temples and sacred places in which the
gods really dwell, and they hear their voices and receive
their answers, and are conscious of them and hold converse
with them; and they see the sun, moon, and stars as they
truly are, and their other blessedness is of a piece with this.

[Sidenote: _The chasm of Tartarus._]

[Sidenote: Description of the interior of the earth and of the subterranean seas and rivers.]

Such is the nature of the whole earth, and of the things
which are around the earth; and there are divers regions in
the hollows on the face of the globe everywhere, some of
them deeper and more extended than that which we inhabit,
others deeper but with a narrower opening than ours, and
some are shallower and also wider. All have numerous
perforations, and there are passages broad and narrow in
the interior of the earth, connecting them with one another;
and there flows out of and into them, as into basins, a vast
tide of water, and huge subterranean streams of perennial
rivers, and springs hot and cold, and a great fire, and great
rivers of fire, and streams of liquid mud, thin or thick (like
the rivers of mud in Sicily, and the lava streams which
follow them), and the regions about which they happen to
flow are filled up with them. And there is a swinging or
see-saw in the interior of the earth which moves all this up
and down, and is due to the following cause:—There is
a chasm which is the vastest of them all, and pierces right
through the whole earth; this is that chasm which Homer 112
describes in the words,—

‘Far off, where is the inmost depth beneath the earth;’

[Sidenote: _The four rivers of the world below._]

and which he in other places, and many other poets, have
called Tartarus. And the see-saw is caused by the streams
flowing into and out of this chasm, and they each have the
nature of the soil through which they flow. And the reason
why the streams are always flowing in and out, is that the
watery element has no bed or bottom, but is swinging and
surging up and down, and the surrounding wind and air do
the same; they follow the water up and down, hither and
thither, over the earth—just as in the act of respiration the
air is always in process of inhalation and exhalation;—and
the wind swinging with the water in and out produces
fearful and irresistible blasts: when the waters retire with a
rush into the lower parts of the earth, as they are called,
they flow through the earth in those regions, and fill them
up like water raised by a pump, and then when they leave
those regions and rush back hither, they again fill the
hollows here, and when these are filled, flow through subterranean
channels and find their way to their several
places, forming seas, and lakes, and rivers, and springs.
Thence they again enter the earth, some of them making a
long circuit into many lands, others going to a few places
and not so distant; and again fall into Tartarus, some at a
point a good deal lower than that at which they rose, and
others not much lower, but all in some degree lower than
the point from which they came. And some burst forth
again on the opposite side, and some on the same side, and
some wind round the earth with one or many folds like the
coils of a serpent, and descend as far as they can, but always
return and fall into the chasm. The rivers flowing in either
direction can descend only to the centre and no further, for
opposite to the rivers is a precipice.

[Sidenote: Oceanus, Acheron, Pyriphlegethon, and Styx (or Cocytus).]

[Sidenote: _The geography of the world below._]

Now these rivers are many, and mighty, and diverse, and
there are four principal ones, of which the greatest and outermost
is that called Oceanus, which flows round the earth in
a circle; and in the opposite direction flows Acheron, which
passes under the earth through desert places into the 113
Acherusian lake: this is the lake to the shores of which the
souls of the many go when they are dead, and after waiting
an appointed time, which is to some a longer and to some a
shorter time, they are sent back to be born again as animals.
The third river passes out between the two, and near the place
of outlet pours into a vast region of fire, and forms a lake
larger than the Mediterranean Sea, boiling with water and
mud; and proceeding muddy and turbid, and winding about
the earth, comes, among other places, to the extremities of
the Acherusian lake, but mingles not with the waters of the
lake, and after making many coils about the earth plunges
into Tartarus at a deeper level. This is that Pyriphlegethon,
as the stream is called, which throws up jets of fire in
different parts of the earth. The fourth river goes out on
the opposite side, and falls first of all into a wild and savage
region, which is all of a dark blue colour, like lapis lazuli;
and this is that river which is called the Stygian river, and
falls into and forms the Lake Styx, and after falling into the
lake and receiving strange powers in the waters, passes
under the earth, winding round in the opposite direction, and
comes near the Acherusian lake from the opposite side to
Pyriphlegethon. And the water of this river too mingles
with no other, but flows round in a circle and falls into
Tartarus over against Pyriphlegethon; and the name of the
river, as the poets say, is Cocytus.

[Sidenote: The judgment of the dead.]

[Sidenote: _The mansions of the blessed._]

Such is the nature of the other world; and when the dead
arrive at the place to which the genius of each severally
guides them, first of all, they have sentence passed upon
them, as they have lived well and piously or not. And
those who appear to have lived neither well nor ill, go to
the river Acheron, and embarking in any vessels which
they may find, are carried in them to the lake, and there
they dwell and are purified of their evil deeds, and having
suffered the penalty of the wrongs which they have done to
others, they are absolved, and receive the rewards of their
good deeds, each of them according to his deserts. But
those who appear to be incurable by reason of the greatness
of their crimes—who have committed many and terrible
deeds of sacrilege, murders foul and violent, or the like—such
are hurled into Tartarus which is their suitable
destiny, and they never come out. Those again who have
committed crimes, which, although great, are not irremediable—who
in a moment of anger, for example, have
done some violence to a father or a mother, and have
repented for the remainder of their lives, or, who have taken 114
the life of another under the like extenuating circumstances—these
are plunged into Tartarus, the pains of which they
are compelled to undergo for a year, but at the end of the
year the wave casts them forth—mere homicides by way of
Cocytus, parricides and matricides by Pyriphlegethon—and
they are borne to the Acherusian lake, and there they lift up
their voices and call upon the victims whom they have slain
or wronged, to have pity on them, and to be kind to them,
and let them come out into the lake. And if they prevail,
then they come forth and cease from their troubles; but if
not, they are carried back again into Tartarus and from
thence into the rivers unceasingly, until they obtain mercy
from those whom they have wronged: for that is the sentence
inflicted upon them by their judges. Those too who
have been pre-eminent for holiness of life are released from
this earthly prison, and go to their pure home which is
above, and dwell in the purer earth; and of these, such as
have duly purified themselves with philosophy live henceforth
altogether without the body, in mansions fairer still,
which may not be described, and of which the time would
fail me to tell.

Wherefore, Simmias, seeing all these things, what ought
not we to do that we may obtain virtue and wisdom in this
life? Fair is the prize, and the hope great!

[Sidenote: These descriptions are not true to the letter, but something like them is true.]

A man of sense ought not to say, nor will I be very confident,
that the description which I have given of the soul and
her mansions is exactly true. But I do say that, inasmuch
as the soul is shown to be immortal, he may venture to
think, not improperly or unworthily, that something of the
kind is true. The venture is a glorious one, and he ought to
comfort himself with words like these, which is the reason
why I lengthen out the tale. Wherefore, I say, let a man be
of good cheer about his soul, who having cast away the
pleasures and ornaments of the body as alien to him and
working harm rather than good, has sought after the pleasures
of knowledge; and has arrayed the soul, not in some foreign
attire, but in her own proper jewels, temperance, and justice,
and courage, and nobility, and truth—in these adorned she 115
is ready to go on her journey to the world below, when her
hour comes. You, Simmias and Cebes, and all other men,
will depart at some time or other. Me already, as a tragic
poet would say, the voice of fate calls. Soon I must drink
the poison; and I think that I had better repair to the bath
first, in order that the women may not have the trouble of
washing my body after I am dead.

[Sidenote: _The last words of Socrates and his friends._]

When he had done speaking, Crito said: And have you
any commands for us, Socrates—anything to say about your
children, or any other matter in which we can serve you?

Nothing particular, Crito, he replied: only, as I have
always told you, take care of yourselves; that is a service
which you may be ever rendering to me and mine and to
all of us, whether you promise to do so or not. But if you
have no thought for yourselves, and care not to walk according
to the rule which I have prescribed for you, not now for the
first time, however much you may profess or promise at the
moment, it will be of no avail.

We will do our best, said Crito: And in what way shall we
bury you?

[Sidenote: The dead body which remains is not the true Socrates.]

In any way that you like; but you must get hold of me,
and take care that I do not run away from you. Then he
turned to us, and added with a smile:—I cannot make Crito
believe that I am the same Socrates who have been talking
and conducting the argument; he fancies that I am the other
Socrates whom he will soon see, a dead body—and he asks,
How shall he bury me? And though I have spoken many
words in the endeavour to show that when I have drunk the
poison I shall leave you and go to the joys of the blessed,—these
words of mine, with which I was comforting you and
myself, have had, as I perceive, no effect upon Crito. And
therefore I want you to be surety for me to him now, as
at the trial he was surety to the judges for me: but let
the promise be of another sort; for he was surety for me
to the judges that I would remain, and you must be my
surety to him that I shall not remain, but go away and
depart; and then he will suffer less at my death, and not be
grieved when he sees my body being burned or buried. I
would not have him sorrow at my hard lot, or say at the
burial, Thus we lay out Socrates, or, Thus we follow him to
the grave or bury him; for false words are not only evil in
themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. Be of good
cheer then, my dear Crito, and say that you are burying my
body only, and do with that whatever is usual, and what you 116
think best.

[Sidenote: _Socrates is ready to depart._]

[Sidenote: He takes leave of his family.]

When he had spoken these words, he arose and went
into a chamber to bathe; Crito followed him and told us to
wait. So we remained behind, talking and thinking of the
subject of discourse, and also of the greatness of our sorrow;
he was like a father of whom we were being bereaved, and
we were about to pass the rest of our lives as orphans.
When he had taken the bath his children were brought to
him—(he had two young sons and an elder one); and the
women of his family also came, and he talked to them and
gave them a few directions in the presence of Crito; then
he dismissed them and returned to us.

[Sidenote: The humanity of the jailer.]

Now the hour of sunset was near, for a good deal of time
had passed while he was within. When he came out, he sat
down with us again after his bath, but not much was said.
Soon the jailer, who was the servant of the Eleven, entered
and stood by him, saying:—To you, Socrates, whom I know
to be the noblest and gentlest and best of all who ever came
to this place, I will not impute the angry feelings of other
men, who rage and swear at me, when, in obedience to the
authorities, I bid them drink the poison—indeed, I am sure
that you will not be angry with me; for others, as you are
aware, and not I, are to blame. And so fare you well, and
try to bear lightly what must needs be—you know my
errand. Then bursting into tears he turned away and
went out.

Socrates looked at him and said: I return your good
wishes, and will do as you bid. Then turning to us, he said,
How charming the man is: since I have been in prison he
has always been coming to see me, and at times he would
talk to me, and was as good to me as could be, and now see
how generously he sorrows on my account. We must do as
he says, Crito; and therefore let the cup be brought, if the
poison is prepared: if not, let the attendant prepare some.

[Sidenote: Crito would detain Socrates a little while.]

Yet, said Crito, the sun is still upon the hill-tops, and I
know that many a one has taken the draught late, and after
the announcement has been made to him, he has eaten and
drunk, and enjoyed the society of his beloved; do not hurry—there
is time enough.

[Sidenote: _The closing scene._]

[Sidenote: Socrates thinks that there is nothing to be gained by delay.]

Socrates said: Yes, Crito, and they of whom you speak
are right in so acting, for they think that they will be
gainers by the delay; but I am right in not following their
example, for I do not think that I should gain anything by
drinking the poison a little later; I should only be ridiculous 117
in my own eyes for sparing and saving a life which is already
forfeit. Please then to do as I say, and not to refuse me.

[Sidenote: The poison is brought.]

[Sidenote: He drinks the poison.]

[Sidenote: The company of friends are unable to control themselves.]

Crito made a sign to the servant, who was standing by;
and he went out, and having been absent for some time,
returned with the jailer carrying the cup of poison. Socrates
said: You, my good friend, who are experienced in these
matters, shall give me directions how I am to proceed. The
man answered: You have only to walk about until your legs
are heavy, and then to lie down, and the poison will act. At
the same time he handed the cup to Socrates, who in the
easiest and gentlest manner, without the least fear or change
of colour or feature, looking at the man with all his eyes,
Echecrates, as his manner was, took the cup and said: What
do you say about making a libation out of this cup to any
god? May I, or not? The man answered: We only prepare,
Socrates, just so much as we deem enough. I understand,
he said: but I may and must ask the gods to prosper
my journey from this to the other world—even so—and so be
it according to my prayer. Then raising the cup to his lips,
quite readily and cheerfully he drank off the poison. And
hitherto most of us had been able to control our sorrow; but
now when we saw him drinking, and saw too that he had
finished the draught, we could no longer forbear, and in spite
of myself my own tears were flowing fast; so that I covered
my face and wept, not for him, but at the thought of my own
calamity in having to part from such a friend. Nor was I the
first; for Crito, when he found himself unable to restrain his
tears, had got up, and I followed; and at that moment,
Apollodorus, who had been weeping all the time, broke out in
a loud and passionate cry which made cowards of us all.

[Sidenote: Says Socrates, ‘A man should die in peace.’]

[Sidenote: The debt to Asclepius.]

Socrates alone retained his calmness: What is this strange
outcry? he said. I sent away the women mainly in order
that they might not misbehave in this way, for I have been
told that a man should die in peace. Be quiet then, and
have patience. When we heard his words we were ashamed,
and refrained our tears; and he walked about until, as he
said, his legs began to fail, and then he lay on his back,
according to the directions, and the man who gave him the
poison now and then looked at his feet and legs; and after a
while he pressed his foot hard, and asked him if he could
feel; and he said, No; and then his leg, and so upwards and 118
upwards, and showed us that he was cold and stiff. And he
felt them himself, and said: When the poison reaches the
heart, that will be the end. He was beginning to grow cold
about the groin, when he uncovered his face, for he had
covered himself up, and said—they were his last words—he
said: Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember
to pay the debt? The debt shall be paid, said Crito; is
there anything else? There was no answer to this question;
but in a minute or two a movement was heard, and the
attendants uncovered him; his eyes were set, and Crito
closed his eyes and mouth.

[Sidenote: _The end._]

Such was the end, Echecrates, of our friend; concerning
whom I may truly say, that of all the men of his time whom I
have known, he was the wisest and justest and best.

FOOTNOTES

[23] But cp. Rep. x. 611 A.

[24] Cp. Meno 83 ff.

[25] Cp. Apol. 40 E.

[26] Compare Milton, Comus, 463 foll.:—

‘But when lust,
By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,
But most by lewd and lavish act of sin,
Lets in defilement to the inward parts,
The soul grows clotted by contagion,
Imbodies, and imbrutes, till she quite lose,
The divine property of her first being.
Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp
Oft seen in charnel vaults and sepulchres,
Lingering, and sitting by a new made grave,
As loath to leave the body that it lov’d,
And linked itself by carnal sensuality
To a degenerate and degraded state.’

[27] Cp. Rep. x. 619 C.

[28] Cp. Rev., esp. c. xxi. v. 18 ff.

GORGIAS.

INTRODUCTION.

[Sidenote: _Gorgias._]

[Sidenote: INTRODUCTION.]

In several of the dialogues of Plato, doubts have arisen among his interpreters as to which of the various subjects discussed in them is the main thesis. The speakers have the freedom of conversation; no severe rules of art restrict them, and sometimes we are inclined to think, with one of the dramatis personae in the Theaetetus (177 C), that the digressions have the greater interest. Yet in the most irregular of the dialogues there is also a certain natural growth or unity; the beginning is not forgotten at the end, and numerous allusions and references are interspersed, which form the loose connecting links of the whole. We must not neglect this unity, but neither must we attempt to confine the Platonic dialogue on the Procrustean bed of a single idea. (Cp. Introduction to the Phaedrus.)

Two tendencies seem to have beset the interpreters of Plato in this matter. First, they have endeavoured to hang the dialogues upon one another by the slightest threads; and have thus been led to opposite and contradictory assertions respecting their order and sequence. The mantle of Schleiermacher has descended upon his successors, who have applied his method with the most various results. The value and use of the method has been hardly, if at all, examined either by him or them. Secondly, they have extended almost indefinitely the scope of each separate dialogue; in this way they think that they have escaped all difficulties, not seeing that what they have gained in generality they have lost in truth and distinctness. Metaphysical conceptions easily pass into one another; and the simpler notions of antiquity, which we can only realize by an effort, imperceptibly blend with the more familiar theories of modern philosophers. An eye for proportion is needed (his own art of measuring) in the study of Plato, as well as of other great artists. We may readily admit that the moral antithesis of good and pleasure, or the intellectual antithesis of knowledge and opinion, being an appearance, are never far off in a Platonic discussion. But because they are in the background, we should not bring them into the foreground, or expect to discern them equally in all the dialogues.

[Sidenote: _The subject of the Dialogue._]

There may be some advantage in drawing out a little the main outlines of the building; but the use of this is limited, and may be easily exaggerated. We may give Plato too much system, and alter the natural form and connection of his thoughts. Under the idea that his dialogues are finished works of art, we may find a reason for everything, and lose the highest characteristic of art, which is simplicity. Most great works receive a new light from a new and original mind. But whether these new lights are true or only suggestive, will depend on their agreement with the spirit of Plato, and the amount of direct evidence which can be urged in support of them. When a theory is running away with us, criticism does a friendly office in counselling moderation, and recalling us to the indications of the text.

Like the Phaedrus, the Gorgias has puzzled students of Plato by the appearance of two or more subjects. Under the cover of rhetoric higher themes are introduced; the argument expands into a general view of the good and evil of man. After making an ineffectual attempt to obtain a sound definition of his art from Gorgias, Socrates assumes the existence of a universal art of flattery or simulation having several branches;—this is the genus of which rhetoric is only one, and not the highest species. To flattery is opposed the true and noble art of life which he who possesses seeks always to impart to others, and which at last triumphs, if not here, at any rate in another world. These two aspects of life and knowledge appear to be the two leading ideas of the dialogue. The true and the false in individuals and states, in the treatment of the soul as well as of the body, are conceived under the forms of true and false art. In the development of this opposition there arise various other questions, such as the two famous paradoxes of Socrates (paradoxes as they are to the world in general, ideals as they may be more worthily called): (1) that to do is worse than to suffer evil; and (2) that when a man has done evil he had better be punished than unpunished; to which may be added (3) a third Socratic paradox or ideal, that bad men do what they think best, but not what they desire, for the desire of all is towards the good. That pleasure is to be distinguished from good is proved by the simultaneousness of pleasure and pain, and by the possibility of the bad having in certain cases pleasures as great as those of the good, or even greater. Not merely rhetoricians, but poets, musicians, and other artists, the whole tribe of statesmen, past as well as present, are included in the class of flatterers. The true and false finally appear before the judgment-seat of the gods below.

[Sidenote: _The character of the Dialogue._]

The dialogue naturally falls into three divisions, to which the three characters of Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles respectively correspond; and the form and manner change with the stages of the argument. Socrates is deferential towards Gorgias, playful and yet cutting in dealing with the youthful Polus, ironical and sarcastic in his encounter with Callicles. In the first division the question is asked—What is rhetoric? To this there is no answer given, for Gorgias is soon made to contradict himself by Socrates, and the argument is transferred to the hands of his disciple Polus, who rushes to the defence of his master. The answer has at last to be given by Socrates himself, but before he can even explain his meaning to Polus, he must enlighten him upon the great subject of shams or flatteries. When Polus finds his favourite art reduced to the level of cookery, he replies that at any rate rhetoricians, like despots, have great power. Socrates denies that they have any real power, and hence arise the three paradoxes already mentioned. Although they are strange to him, Polus is at last convinced of their truth; at least, they seem to him to follow legitimately from the premises. Thus the second act of the dialogue closes. Then Callicles appears on the scene, at first maintaining that pleasure is good, and that might is right, and that law is nothing but the combination of the many weak against the few strong. When he is confuted he withdraws from the argument, and leaves Socrates to arrive at the conclusion by himself. The conclusion is that there are two kinds of statesmanship, a higher and a lower—that which makes the people better, and that which only flatters them, and he exhorts Callicles to choose the higher. The dialogue terminates with a mythus of a final judgment, in which there will be no more flattery or disguise, and no further use for the teaching of rhetoric.

[Sidenote: _Contrast of Gorgias and Polus._]

The characters of the three interlocutors also correspond to the parts which are assigned to them. Gorgias is the great rhetorician, now advanced in years, who goes from city to city displaying his talents, and is celebrated throughout Greece. Like all the Sophists in the dialogues of Plato, he is vain and boastful, yet he has also a certain dignity, and is treated by Socrates with considerable respect. But he is no match for him in dialectics. Although he has been teaching rhetoric all his life, he is still incapable of defining his own art. When his ideas begin to clear up, he is unwilling to admit that rhetoric can be wholly separated from justice and injustice, and this lingering sentiment of morality, or regard for public opinion, enables Socrates to detect him in a contradiction. Like Protagoras, he is described as of a generous nature; he expresses his approbation of Socrates’ manner of approaching a question; he is quite ‘one of Socrates’ sort, ready to be refuted as well as to refute,’ and very eager that Callicles and Socrates should have the game out. He knows by experience that rhetoric exercises great influence over other men, but he is unable to explain the puzzle how rhetoric can teach everything and know nothing.

Polus is an impetuous youth, a runaway ‘colt,’ as Socrates describes him, who wanted originally to have taken the place of Gorgias under the pretext that the old man was tired, and now avails himself of the earliest opportunity to enter the lists. He is said to be the author of a work on rhetoric (462 C), and is again mentioned in the Phaedrus (267 B), as the inventor of balanced or double forms of speech (cp. Gorg. 448 C, 467 C; Symp. 185 C). At first he is violent and ill-mannered, and is angry at seeing his master overthrown. But in the judicious hands of Socrates he is soon restored to good-humour, and compelled to assent to the required conclusion. Like Gorgias, he is overthrown because he compromises; he is unwilling to say that to do is fairer or more honourable than to suffer injustice. Though he is fascinated by the power of rhetoric, and dazzled by the splendour of success, he is not insensible to higher arguments. Plato may have felt that there would be an incongruity in a youth maintaining the cause of injustice against the world. He has never heard the other side of the question, and he listens to the paradoxes, as they appear to him, of Socrates with evident astonishment. He can hardly understand the meaning of Archelaus being miserable, or of rhetoric being only useful in self-accusation. When the argument with him has fairly run out,

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

Callicles, in whose house they are assembled, is introduced on the stage: he is with difficulty convinced that Socrates is in earnest; for if these things are true, then, as he says with real emotion, the foundations of society are upside down. In him another type of character is represented; he is neither sophist nor philosopher, but man of the world, and an accomplished Athenian gentleman. He might be described in modern language as a cynic or materialist, a lover of power and also of pleasure, and unscrupulous in his means of attaining both. There is no desire on his part to offer any compromise in the interests of morality; nor is any concession made by him. Like Thrasymachus in the Republic, though he is not of the same weak and vulgar class, he consistently maintains that might is right. His great motive of action is political ambition; in this he is characteristically Greek. Like Anytus in the Meno, he is the enemy of the Sophists; but favours the new art of rhetoric, which he regards as an excellent weapon of attack and defence. He is a despiser of mankind as he is of philosophy, and sees in the laws of the state only a violation of the order of nature, which intended that the stronger should govern the weaker (cp. Rep. ii. 358-360). Like other men of the world who are of a speculative turn of mind, he generalizes the bad side of human nature, and has easily brought down his principles to his practice. Philosophy and poetry alike supply him with distinctions suited to his view of human life. He has a good will to Socrates, whose talents he evidently admires, while he censures the puerile use which he makes of them. He expresses a keen intellectual interest in the argument. Like Anytus, again, he has a sympathy with other men of the world; the Athenian statesmen of a former generation, who showed no weakness and made no mistakes, such as Miltiades, Themistocles, Pericles, are his favourites. His ideal of human character is a man of great passions and great powers, which he has developed to the utmost, and which he uses in his own enjoyment and in the government of others. Had Critias been the name instead of Callicles, about whom we know nothing from other sources, the opinions of the man would have seemed to reflect the history of his life.

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

And now the combat deepens. In Callicles, far more than in any sophist or rhetorician, is concentrated the spirit of evil against which Socrates is contending, the spirit of the world, the spirit of the many contending against the one wise man, of which the Sophists, as he describes them in the Republic, are the imitators rather than the authors, being themselves carried away by the great tide of public opinion. Socrates approaches his antagonist warily from a distance, with a sort of irony which touches with a light hand both his personal vices (probably in allusion to some scandal of the day) and his servility to the populace. At the same time, he is in most profound earnest, as Chaerephon remarks. Callicles soon loses his temper, but the more he is irritated, the more provoking and matter of fact does Socrates become. A repartee of his which appears to have been really made to the ‘omniscient’ Hippias, according to the testimony of Xenophon (Mem. iv. 4, 6, 10), is introduced (490 E). He is called by Callicles a popular declaimer, and certainly shows that he has the power, in the words of Gorgias, of being ‘as long as he pleases,’ or ‘as short as he pleases’ (cp. Protag. 336 D). Callicles exhibits great ability in defending himself and attacking Socrates, whom he accuses of trifling and word-splitting; he is scandalized (p. 494) that the legitimate consequences of his own argument should be stated in plain terms; after the manner of men of the world, he wishes to preserve the decencies of life. But he cannot consistently maintain the bad sense of words; and getting confused between the abstract notions of better, superior, stronger, he is easily turned round by Socrates, and only induced to continue the argument by the authority of Gorgias. Once, when Socrates is describing the manner in which the ambitious citizen has to identify himself with the people, he partially recognizes the truth of his words.

The Socrates of the Gorgias may be compared with the Socrates of the Protagoras and Meno. As in other dialogues, he is the enemy of the Sophists and rhetoricians; and also of the statesmen, whom he regards as another variety of the same species. His behaviour is governed by that of his opponents; the least forwardness or egotism on their part is met by a corresponding irony on the part of Socrates. He must speak, for philosophy will not allow him to be silent. He is indeed more ironical and provoking than in any other of Plato’s writings: for he is ‘fooled to the top of his bent’ by the worldliness of Callicles. But he is also more deeply in earnest. He rises higher than even in the Phaedo and Crito: at first enveloping his moral convictions in a cloud of dust and dialectics, he ends by losing his method, his life, himself, in them. As in the Protagoras and Phaedrus, throwing aside the veil of irony, he makes a speech, but, true to his character, not until his adversary has refused to answer any more questions. The presentiment of his own fate is hanging over him. He is aware that Socrates, the single real teacher of politics, as he ventures to call himself, cannot safely go to war with the whole world, and that in the courts of earth he will be condemned. But he will be justified in the world below. Then the position of Socrates and Callicles will be reversed; all those things ‘unfit for ears polite’ which Callicles has prophesied as likely to happen to him in this life, the insulting language, the box on the ears, will recoil upon his assailant. (Compare Rep. x. 613, D, E, and the similar reversal of the position of the lawyer and the philosopher in the Theaetetus, 173-176.)

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

There is an interesting allusion to his own behaviour at the trial of the generals after the battle of Arginusae, which he ironically attributes to his ignorance of the manner in which a vote of the assembly should be taken (473 E). This is said to have happened ‘last year’ (B. C. 406), and therefore the assumed date of the dialogue has been fixed at 405 B. C., when Socrates would already have been an old man. The date is clearly marked, but is scarcely reconcilable with another indication of time, viz. the ‘recent’ usurpation of Archelaus, which occurred in the year 413 (470 D); and still less with the ‘recent’ death (503 B) of Pericles, who really died twenty-four years previously (429 B. C.) and is afterwards reckoned among the statesmen of a past age (cp. 517 A); or with the mention of Nicias, who died in 413, and is nevertheless spoken of as a living witness (472 A, B). But we shall hereafter have reason to observe, that although there is a general consistency of times and persons in the Dialogues of Plato, a precise dramatic date is an invention of his commentators (Preface to Republic, p. ix).

[Sidenote: _Socrates the only true politician._]

The conclusion of the Dialogue is remarkable, (1) for the truly characteristic declaration of Socrates (p. 509 A) that he is ignorant of the true nature and bearing of these things, while he affirms at the same time that no one can maintain any other view without being ridiculous. The profession of ignorance reminds us of the earlier and more exclusively Socratic Dialogues. But neither in them, nor in the Apology, nor in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, does Socrates express any doubt of the fundamental truths of morality. He evidently regards this ‘among the multitude of questions’ which agitate human life ‘as the principle which alone remains unshaken’ (527 B). He does not insist here, any more than in the Phaedo, on the literal truth of the myth, but only on the soundness of the doctrine which is contained in it, that doing wrong is worse than suffering, and that a man should be rather than seem; for the next best thing to a man’s being just is that he should be corrected and become just; also that he should avoid all flattery, whether of himself or of others; and that rhetoric should be employed for the maintenance of the right only. The revelation of another life is a recapitulation of the argument in a figure.

(2) Socrates makes the singular remark, that he is himself the only true politician of his age. In other passages, especially in the Apology, he disclaims being a politician at all. There he is convinced that he or any other good man who attempted to resist the popular will would be put to death before he had done any good to himself or others. Here he anticipates such a fate for himself, from the fact that he is ‘the only man of the present day who performs his public duties at all’ (521 D). The two points of view are not really inconsistent, but the difference between them is worth noticing: Socrates is and is not a public man. Not in the ordinary sense, like Alcibiades or Pericles, but in a higher one; and this will sooner or later entail the same consequences on him. He cannot be a private man if he would; neither can he separate morals from politics. Nor is he unwilling to be a politician, although he foresees the dangers which await him; but he must first become a better and wiser man, for he as well as Callicles is in a state of perplexity and uncertainty (527 D, E). And yet there is an inconsistency: for should not Socrates too have taught the citizens better than to put him to death (519)?

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

* * * * *

[Sidenote: ANALYSIS.]

[Sidenote: _Analysis 447-451._]