Chapter XIII: Part 13

Socrates, who is attended by his inseparable disciple, =Steph.= 447
Chaerephon, meets Callicles in the streets of Athens. He is
informed that he has just missed an exhibition of Gorgias, which he
regrets, because he was desirous, not of hearing Gorgias display
his rhetoric, but of interrogating him concerning the nature of his
art. Callicles proposes that they shall go with him to his own
house, where Gorgias is staying. There they find the great
rhetorician and his younger friend and disciple Polus. 448

_Soc._ Put the question to him, Chaerephon. _Ch._ What question?
_Soc._ Who is he?—such a question as would elicit from a man the
answer, ‘I am a cobbler.’ Polus suggests that Gorgias may be
tired, and desires to answer for him. ‘Who is Gorgias?’ asks
Chaerephon, imitating the manner of his master Socrates. ‘One of
the best of men, and a proficient in the best and noblest of
experimental arts,’ etc., replies Polus, in rhetorical and balanced
phrases. Socrates is dissatisfied at the length and unmeaningness of
the answer; he tells the disconcerted volunteer that he has mistaken
the quality for the nature of the art, and remarks to Gorgias, that
Polus has learnt how to make a speech, but not how to answer a
question. He wishes that Gorgias would answer him. Gorgias is
willing enough, and replies to the question asked by Chaerephon,—that
he is a rhetorician, and in Homeric language, ‘boasts
himself to be a good one.’ At the request of Socrates he promises 449
to be brief; for ‘he can be as long as he pleases, and as short as
he pleases.’ Socrates would have him bestow his length on
others, and proceeds to ask him a number of questions, which are
answered by him to his own great satisfaction, and with a brevity
which excites the admiration of Socrates. The result of the
discussion may be summed up as follows:—

[Sidenote: _Analysis 451-456._]

Rhetoric treats of discourse; but music and medicine, and 450
other particular arts, are also concerned with discourse; in what
way then does rhetoric differ from them? Gorgias draws a
distinction between the arts which deal with words, and the arts
which have to do with external actions. Socrates extends this
distinction further, and divides all productive arts into two
classes: (1) arts which may be carried on in silence; and (2) arts
which have to do with words, or in which words are coextensive
with action, such as arithmetic, geometry, rhetoric. But still
Gorgias could hardly have meant to say that arithmetic was the 451
same as rhetoric. Even in the arts which are concerned with
words there are differences. What then distinguishes rhetoric
from the other arts which have to do with words? ‘The words
which rhetoric uses relate to the best and greatest of human
things.’ But tell me, Gorgias, what are the best? ‘Health first,
beauty next, wealth third,’ in the words of the old song, or how
would you rank them? The arts will come to you in a body, each 452
claiming precedence and saying that her own good is superior to
that of the rest—How will you choose between them? ‘I should
say, Socrates, that the art of persuasion, which gives freedom to
all men, and to individuals power in the state, is the greatest 453
good.’ But what is the exact nature of this persuasion?—is the
persevering retort: You could not describe Zeuxis as a painter,
or even as a painter of figures, if there were other painters of
figures; neither can you define rhetoric simply as an art of
persuasion, because there are other arts which persuade, such as
arithmetic, which is an art of persuasion about odd and even
numbers. Gorgias is made to see the necessity of a further
limitation, and he now defines rhetoric as the art of persuading 454
in the law courts, and in the assembly, about the just and unjust.
But still there are two sorts of persuasion: one which gives
knowledge, and another which gives belief without knowledge;
and knowledge is always true, but belief may be either true or 455
false,—there is therefore a further question: which of the two
sorts of persuasion does rhetoric effect in courts of law and
assemblies? Plainly that which gives belief and not that which
gives knowledge; for no one can impart a real knowledge of such
matters to a crowd of persons in a few minutes. And there is
another point to be considered:—when the assembly meets to
advise about walls or docks or military expeditions, the rhetorician
is not taken into counsel, but the architect, or the general. How
would Gorgias explain this phenomenon? All who intend to
become disciples, of whom there are several in the company, and
not Socrates only, are eagerly asking:—About what then will
rhetoric teach us to persuade or advise the state?

[Sidenote: _Analysis 456-461._]

Gorgias illustrates the nature of rhetoric by adducing the
example of Themistocles, who persuaded the Athenians to build
their docks and walls, and of Pericles, whom Socrates himself has
heard speaking about the middle wall of the Piraeus. He adds 456
that he has exercised a similar power over the patients of his
brother Herodicus. He could be chosen a physician by the
assembly if he pleased, for no physician could compete with a
rhetorician in popularity and influence. He could persuade the
multitude of anything by the power of his rhetoric; not that the
rhetorician ought to abuse this power any more than a boxer
should abuse the art of self-defence. Rhetoric is a good thing, 457
but, like all good things, may be unlawfully used. Neither is the
teacher of the art to be deemed unjust because his pupils are
unjust and make a bad use of the lessons which they have learned
from him.

Socrates would like to know before he replies, whether Gorgias
will quarrel with him if he points out a slight inconsistency into
which he has fallen, or whether he, like himself, is one who loves
to be refuted. Gorgias declares that he is quite one of his sort, 458
but fears that the argument may be tedious to the company. The
company cheer, and Chaerephon and Callicles exhort them to
proceed. Socrates gently points out the supposed inconsistency
into which Gorgias appears to have fallen, and which he is
inclined to think may arise out of a misapprehension of his own.
The rhetorician has been declared by Gorgias to be more persuasive 459
to the ignorant than the physician, or any other expert.
And he is said to be ignorant, and this ignorance of his is
regarded by Gorgias as a happy condition, for he has escaped the
trouble of learning. But is he as ignorant of just and unjust as he
is of medicine or building? Gorgias is compelled to admit that if 460
he did not know them previously he must learn them from his
teacher as a part of the art of rhetoric. But he who has learned
carpentry is a carpenter, and he who has learned music is a
musician, and he who has learned justice is just. The rhetorician
then must be a just man, and rhetoric is a just thing. But Gorgias
has already admitted the opposite of this, viz. that rhetoric may
be abused, and that the rhetorician may act unjustly. How is the
inconsistency to be explained? 461

[Sidenote: _Analysis 461-464._]

The fallacy of this argument is twofold; for in the first place,
a man may know justice and not be just—here is the old confusion
of the arts and the virtues;—nor can any teacher be
expected to counteract wholly the bent of natural character; and
secondly, a man may have a degree of justice, but not sufficient
to prevent him from ever doing wrong. Polus is naturally
exasperated at the sophism, which he is unable to detect; of
course, he says, the rhetorician, like every one else, will admit
that he knows justice (how can he do otherwise when pressed by
the interrogations of Socrates?), but he thinks that great want of
manners is shown in bringing the argument to such a pass.
Socrates ironically replies, that when old men trip, the young set 462
them on their legs again; and he is quite willing to retract, if he
can be shown to be in error, but upon one condition, which is
that Polus studies brevity. Polus is in great indignation at not
being allowed to use as many words as he pleases in the free
state of Athens. Socrates retorts, that yet harder will be his own
case, if he is compelled to stay and listen to them. After some
altercation they agree (cp. Protag. 338), that Polus shall ask and
Socrates answer.

[Sidenote: _Analysis 464-472._]

‘What is the art of Rhetoric?’ says Polus. Not an art at all,
replies Socrates, but a thing which in your book you affirm to
have created art. Polus asks, ‘What thing?’ and Socrates
answers, An experience or routine of making a sort of delight
or gratification. ‘But is not rhetoric a fine thing?’ I have not
yet told you what rhetoric is. Will you ask me another question—What
is cookery? ‘What is cookery?’ An experience or
routine of making a sort of delight or gratification. Then they
are the same, or rather fall under the same class, and rhetoric 463
has still to be distinguished from cookery. ‘What is rhetoric?’
asks Polus once more. A part of a not very creditable whole,
which may be termed flattery, is the reply. ‘But what part?’ A
shadow of a part of politics. This, as might be expected, is
wholly unintelligible, both to Gorgias and Polus; and, in order 464
to explain his meaning to them, Socrates draws a distinction
between shadows or appearances and realities; e. g. there is real
health of body or soul, and the appearance of them; real arts and
sciences, and the simulations of them. Now the soul and body
have two arts waiting upon them, first the art of politics, which
attends on the soul, having a legislative part and a judicial part;
and another art attending on the body, which has no generic
name, but may also be described as having two divisions, one of
which is medicine and the other gymnastic. Corresponding with
these four arts or sciences there are four shams or simulations of
them, mere experiences, as they may be termed, because they
give no reason of their own existence. The art of dressing up is
the sham or simulation of gymnastic, the art of cookery, of medicine;
rhetoric is the simulation of justice, and sophistic of 465
legislation. They may be summed up in an arithmetical formula:—

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

And,

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

And this is the true scheme of them, but when measured only by
the gratification which they procure, they become jumbled together
and return to their aboriginal chaos. Socrates apologizes for the
length of his speech, which was necessary to the explanation of 466
the subject, and begs Polus not unnecessarily to retaliate on him.

‘Do you mean to say that the rhetoricians are esteemed
flatterers?’ They are not esteemed at all. ‘Why, have they not
great power, and can they not do whatever they desire?’ They have 467
no power, and they only do what they think best, and never what
they desire; for they never attain the true object of desire, which
is the good. ‘As if you, Socrates, would not envy the possessor
of despotic power, who can imprison, exile, kill any one whom he
pleases.’ But Socrates replies that he has no wish to put any one -469
to death; he who kills another, even justly, is not to be envied,
and he who kills him unjustly is to be pitied; it is better to suffer
than to do injustice. He does not consider that going about with
a dagger and putting men out of the way, or setting a house on
fire, is real power. To this Polus assents, on the ground that 470
such acts would be punished, but he is still of opinion that
evil-doers, if they are unpunished, may be happy enough. He
instances Archelaus, son of Perdiccas, the usurper of Macedonia.
Does not Socrates think him happy?—Socrates would like to 471
know more about him; he cannot pronounce even the great king
to be happy, unless he knows his mental and moral condition.
Polus explains that Archelaus was a slave, being the son of a
woman who was the slave of Alcetas, brother of Perdiccas king
of Macedon—and he, by every species of crime, first murdering
his uncle and cousin and then his half-brother, obtained the
kingdom. This was very wicked, and yet all the world, including
Socrates, would like to have his place. Socrates dismisses the 472
appeal to numbers; Polus, if he will, may summon all the rich
men of Athens, Nicias and his brothers, Aristocrates, the house of
Pericles, or any other great family—this is the kind of evidence
which is adduced in courts of justice, where truth depends upon
numbers. But Socrates employs proof of another sort; his
appeal is to one witness only,—that is to say, the person with
whom he is speaking; him he will convict out of his own mouth.
And he is prepared to show, after his manner, that Archelaus
cannot be a wicked man and yet happy. 473

[Sidenote: _Analysis 472-475._]

The evil-doer is deemed happy if he escapes, and miserable if
he suffers punishment; but Socrates thinks him less miserable if
he suffers than if he escapes. Polus is of opinion that such a paradox
as this hardly deserves refutation, and is at any rate sufficiently
refuted by the fact. Socrates has only to compare the lot of the
successful tyrant who is the envy of the world, and of the wretch
who, having been detected in a criminal attempt against the state,
is crucified or burnt to death. Socrates replies, that if they are
both criminal they are both miserable, but that the unpunished is
the more miserable of the two. At this Polus laughs outright, which
leads Socrates to remark that laughter is a new species of refutation.
Polus replies, that he is already refuted; for if he will take the
votes of the company, he will find that no one agrees with him. 474
To this Socrates rejoins, that he is not a public man, and
(referring to his own conduct at the trial of the generals after the
battle of Arginusae) is unable to take the suffrages of any company,
as he had shown on a recent occasion; he can only deal with one
witness at a time, and that is the person with whom he is arguing.
But he is certain that in the opinion of any man to do is worse
than to suffer evil.

Polus, though he will not admit this, is ready to acknowledge
that to do evil is considered the more foul or dishonourable of the
two. But what is fair and what is foul; whether the terms are
applied to bodies, colours, figures, laws, habits, studies, must
they not be defined with reference to pleasure and utility? Polus 475
assents to this latter doctrine, and is easily persuaded that the
fouler of two things must exceed either in pain or in hurt. But the
doing cannot exceed the suffering of evil in pain, and therefore
must exceed in hurt. Thus doing is proved by the testimony of
Polus himself to be worse or more hurtful than suffering.

[Sidenote: _Analysis 476-482._]

There remains the other question: Is a guilty man better off
when he is punished or when he is unpunished? Socrates replies, 476
that what is done justly is suffered justly: if the act is just, the
effect is just; if to punish is just, to be punished is just, and
therefore fair, and therefore beneficent; and the benefit is that the
soul is improved. There are three evils from which a man may 477
suffer, and which affect him in estate, body, and soul;—these are,
poverty, disease, injustice; and the foulest of these is injustice, the
evil of the soul, because that brings the greatest hurt. And there are
three arts which heal these evils—trading, medicine, justice—and 478
the fairest of these is justice. Happy is he who has never committed
injustice, and happy in the second degree he who has been 479
healed by punishment. And therefore the criminal should himself
go to the judge as he would to the physician, and purge away his 480
crime. Rhetoric will enable him to display his guilt in proper
colours, and to sustain himself and others in enduring the necessary
penalty. And similarly if a man has an enemy, he will desire not 481
to punish him, but that he shall go unpunished and become worse
and worse, taking care only that he does no injury to himself.
These are at least conceivable uses of the art, and no others have
been discovered by us.

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

[Sidenote: _Analysis 482-486._]

Socrates replies in a style of playful irony, that before men can
understand one another they must have some common feeling.
And such a community of feeling exists between himself and
Callicles, for both of them are lovers, and they have both a pair of
loves; the beloved of Callicles are the Athenian Demos and Demos 482
the son of Pyrilampes; the beloved of Socrates are Alcibiades
and philosophy. The peculiarity of Callicles is that he can never
contradict his loves; he changes as his Demos changes in all his
opinions; he watches the countenance of both his loves, and
repeats their sentiments, and if any one is surprised at his sayings
and doings, the explanation of them is, that he is not a free agent,
but must always be imitating his two loves. And this is the
explanation of Socrates’ peculiarities also. He is always repeating
what his mistress, Philosophy, is saying to him, who, unlike his
other love, Alcibiades, is ever the same, ever true. Callicles must
refute her, or he will never be at unity with himself; and discord
in life is far worse than the discord of musical sounds.

Callicles answers, that Gorgias was overthrown because, as Polus
said, in compliance with popular prejudice he had admitted that if
his pupil did not know justice the rhetorician must teach him; and
Polus has been similarly entangled, because his modesty led him
to admit that to suffer is more honourable than to do injustice. By
custom ‘yes,’ but not by nature, says Callicles. And Socrates is 483
always playing between the two points of view, and putting one in
the place of the other. In this very argument, what Polus only
meant in a conventional sense has been affirmed by him to be a
law of nature. For convention says that ‘injustice is dishonourable,’
but nature says that ‘might is right.’ And we are always
taming down the nobler spirits among us to the conventional level.
But sometimes a great man will rise up and reassert his original
rights, trampling under foot all our formularies, and then the 484
light of natural justice shines forth. Pindar says, ‘Law, the king
of all, does violence with high hand;’ as is indeed proved by the
example of Heracles, who drove off the oxen of Geryon and never
paid for them.

This is the truth, Socrates, as you will be convinced, if you leave
philosophy and pass on to the real business of life. A little
philosophy is an excellent thing; too much is the ruin of a man. He
who has not ‘passed his metaphysics’ before he has grown up to
manhood will never know the world. Philosophers are ridiculous
when they take to politics, and I dare say that politicians are
equally ridiculous when they take to philosophy: ‘Every man,’ as
Euripides says, ‘is fondest of that in which he is best.’ 485
Philosophy is graceful in youth, like the lisp of infancy, and
should be cultivated as a part of education; but when a grown-up
man lisps or studies philosophy, I should like to beat him. None
of those over-refined natures ever come to any good; they avoid
the busy haunts of men, and skulk in corners, whispering to a few
admiring youths, and never giving utterance to any noble sentiments.

[Sidenote: _Analysis 486-491._]

For you, Socrates, I have a regard, and therefore I say to you,
as Zethus says to Amphion in the play, that you have ‘a noble soul 486
disguised in a puerile exterior.’ And I would have you consider
the danger which you and other philosophers incur. For you
would not know how to defend yourself if any one accused you in
a law-court,—there you would stand, with gaping mouth and dizzy
brain, and might be murdered, robbed, boxed on the ears with
impunity. Take my advice, then, and get a little common sense;
leave to others these frivolities; walk in the ways of the wealthy
and be wise.

Socrates professes to have found in Callicles the philosopher’s
touchstone; and he is certain that any opinion in which they both
agree must be the very truth. Callicles has all the three qualities
which are needed in a critic—knowledge, good-will, frankness; 487
Gorgias and Polus, although learned men, were too modest, and
their modesty made them contradict themselves. But Callicles is
well-educated; and he is not too modest to speak out (of this he
has already given proof), and his good-will is shown both by his
own profession and by his giving the same caution against philosophy
to Socrates, which Socrates remembers hearing him give
long ago to his own clique of friends. He will pledge himself to 488
retract any error into which he may have fallen, and which Callicles
may point out. But he would like to know first of all what he and
Pindar mean by natural justice. Do they suppose that the rule of
justice is the rule of the stronger or of the better? ‘There is no
difference.’ Then are not the many superior to the one, and the
opinions of the many better? And their opinion is that justice is
equality, and that to do is more dishonourable than to suffer wrong.
And as they are the superior or stronger, this opinion of theirs 489
must be in accordance with natural as well as conventional justice.
‘Why will you continue splitting words? Have I not told you that
the superior is the better?’ But what do you mean by the better?
Tell me that, and please to be a little milder in your language, if
you do not wish to drive me away. ‘I mean the worthier, the 490
wiser.’ You mean to say that one man of sense ought to rule
over ten thousand fools? ‘Yes, that is my meaning.’ Ought the
physician then to have a larger share of meats and drinks? or
the weaver to have more coats, or the cobbler larger shoes, or the
farmer more seed? ‘You are always saying the same things, 491
Socrates.’ Yes, and on the same subjects too; but you are never
saying the same things. For, first, you defined the superior to be
the stronger, and then the wiser, and now something else;—what
_do_ you mean? ‘I mean men of political ability, who ought to
govern and to have more than the governed.’ Than themselves?
‘What do you mean?’ I mean to say that every man is his own
governor. ‘I see that you mean those dolts, the temperate. But
my doctrine is, that a man should let his desires grow, and take
the means of satisfying them. To the many this is impossible, 492
and therefore they combine to prevent him. But if he is a king,
and has power, how base would he be in submitting to them! To
invite the common herd to be lord over him, when he might have
the enjoyment of all things! For the truth is, Socrates, that
luxury and self-indulgence are virtue and happiness; all the rest
is mere talk.’

[Sidenote: _Analysis 491-494._]

Socrates compliments Callicles on his frankness in saying what
other men only think. According to his view, those who want
nothing are not happy. ‘Why,’ says Callicles, ‘if they were,
stones and the dead would be happy.’ Socrates in reply is led
into a half-serious, half-comic vein of reflection. ‘Who knows,’ as
Euripides says, ‘whether life may not be death, and death life?’
Nay, there are philosophers who maintain that even in life we are 493
dead, and that the body (σῶμα) is the tomb (σῆμα) of the soul. And
some ingenious Sicilian has made an allegory, in which he represents
fools as the uninitiated, who are supposed to be carrying
water to a vessel, which is full of holes, in a similarly holey sieve,
and this sieve is their own soul. The idea is fanciful, but
nevertheless is a figure of a truth which I want to make you
acknowledge, viz. that the life of contentment is better than the life
of indulgence. Are you disposed to admit that? ‘Far otherwise.’
Then hear another parable. The life of self-contentment and
self-indulgence may be represented respectively by two men, who are
filling jars with streams of wine, honey, milk,—the jars of the one
are sound, and the jars of the other leaky; the first fills his jars,
and has no more trouble with them; the second is always filling 494
them, and would suffer extreme misery if he desisted. Are you
of the same opinion still? ‘Yes, Socrates, and the figure expresses
what I mean. For true pleasure is a perpetual stream, flowing in
and flowing out. To be hungry and always eating, to be thirsty
and always drinking, and to have all the other desires and to
satisfy them, that, as I admit, is my idea of happiness.’ And to be
itching and always scratching? ‘I do not deny that there may be
happiness even in that.’ And to indulge unnatural desires, if they
are abundantly satisfied? Callicles is indignant at the introduction
of such topics. But he is reminded by Socrates that they are
introduced, not by him, but by the maintainer of the identity of 495
pleasure and good. Will Callicles still maintain this? ‘Yes, for
the sake of consistency, he will.’ The answer does not satisfy
Socrates, who fears that he is losing his touchstone. A profession
of seriousness on the part of Callicles reassures him, and they
proceed with the argument. Pleasure and good are the same,
but knowledge and courage are not the same either with pleasure
or good, or with one another. Socrates disproves the first of these
statements by showing that two opposites cannot co-exist, but must
alternate with one another—to be well and ill together is 496
impossible. But pleasure and pain are simultaneous, and the cessation
of them is simultaneous; e. g. in the case of drinking and thirsting,
whereas good and evil are not simultaneous, and do not cease 497
simultaneously, and therefore pleasure cannot be the same as
good.

[Sidenote: _Analysis 494-501._]

Callicles has already lost his temper, and can only be persuaded
to go on by the interposition of Gorgias. Socrates, having already
guarded against objections by distinguishing courage and knowledge
from pleasure and good, proceeds:—The good are good by
the presence of good, and the bad are bad by the presence of evil.
And the brave and wise are good, and the cowardly and foolish 498
are bad. And he who feels pleasure is good, and he who feels
pain is bad, and both feel pleasure and pain in nearly the same
degree, and sometimes the bad man or coward in a greater degree.
Therefore the bad man or coward is as good as the brave or may 499
be even better.

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

[Sidenote: _Analysis 501-506._]

Callicles assents to this, and Socrates, finding that they are 500
agreed in distinguishing pleasure from good, returns to his old
division of empirical habits, or shams, or flatteries, which study 501
pleasure only, and the arts which are concerned with the higher
interests of soul and body. Does Callicles agree to this division?
Callicles will agree to anything, in order that he may get through
the argument. Which of the arts then are flatteries? Flute-playing,
harp-playing, choral exhibitions, the dithyrambics of
Cinesias are all equally condemned on the ground that they give
pleasure only; and Meles the harp-player, who was the father of 502
Cinesias, failed even in that. The stately muse of Tragedy is bent
upon pleasure, and not upon improvement. Poetry in general is
only a rhetorical address to a mixed audience of men, women, and
children. And the orators are very far from speaking with a view
to what is best; their way is to humour the assembly as if they
were children.

Callicles replies, that this is only true of some of them; others
have a real regard for their fellow-citizens. Granted; then there
are two species of oratory; the one a flattery, another which has
a real regard for the citizens. But where are the orators among
whom you find the latter? Callicles admits that there are none 503
remaining, but there were such in the days when Themistocles,
Cimon, Miltiades, and the great Pericles were still alive. Socrates
replies that none of these were true artists, setting before
themselves the duty of bringing order out of disorder. The good 504
man and true orator has a settled design, running through his
life, to which he conforms all his words and actions; he desires
to implant justice and eradicate injustice, to implant all virtue
and eradicate all vice in the minds of his citizens. He is the 505
physician who will not allow the sick man to indulge his appetites
with a variety of meats and drinks, but insists on his exercising
self-restraint. And this is good for the soul, and better than the
unrestrained indulgence which Callicles was recently approving.

Here Callicles, who had been with difficulty brought to this
point, turns restive, and suggests that Socrates shall answer his
own questions. ‘Then,’ says Socrates, ‘one man must do for
two;’ and though he had hoped to have given Callicles an ‘Amphion’
in return for his ‘Zethus,’ he is willing to proceed; at the 506
same time, he hopes that Callicles will correct him, if he falls
into error. He recapitulates the advantages which he has already
won:—

[Sidenote: _Analysis 506-511._]

The pleasant is not the same as the good—Callicles and I are
agreed about that,—but pleasure is to be pursued for the sake of
the good, and the good is that of which the presence makes us
good; we and all things good have acquired some virtue or other.
And virtue, whether of body or soul, of things or persons, is
not attained by accident, but is due to order and harmonious
arrangement. And the soul which has order is better than the soul 507
which is without order, and is therefore temperate and is therefore
good, and the intemperate is bad. And he who is temperate
is also just and brave and pious, and has attained the perfection of
goodness and therefore of happiness, and the intemperate whom
you approve is the opposite of all this and is wretched. He
therefore who would be happy must pursue temperance and avoid
intemperance, and if possible escape the necessity of punishment,
but if he have done wrong he must endure punishment. In this
way states and individuals should seek to attain harmony, which, 508
as the wise tell us, is the bond of heaven and earth, of gods and
men. Callicles has never discovered the power of geometrical
proportion in both worlds; he would have men aim at disproportion
and excess. But if he be wrong in this, and if self-control is the
true secret of happiness, then the paradox is true that the only
use of rhetoric is in self-accusation, and Polus was right in saying
that to do wrong is worse than to suffer wrong, and Gorgias was
right in saying that the rhetorician must be a just man. And you
were wrong in taunting me with my defenceless condition, and in
saying that I might be accused or put to death or boxed on the
ears with impunity. For I may repeat once more, that to strike is
worse than to be stricken—to do than to suffer. What I said then 509
is now made fast in adamantine bonds. I myself know not the
true nature of these things, but I know that no one can deny my
words and not be ridiculous. To do wrong is the greatest of evils,
and to suffer wrong is the next greatest evil. He who would 510
avoid the last must be a ruler, or the friend of a ruler; and to be
the friend he must be the equal of the ruler, and must also resemble
him. Under his protection he will suffer no evil, but will
he also do no evil? Nay, will he not rather do all the evil which
he can and escape? And in this way the greatest of all evils will 511
befall him. ‘But this imitator of the tyrant,’ rejoins Callicles,
‘will kill any one who does not similarly imitate him.’ Socrates
replies that he is not deaf, and that he has heard that repeated
many times, and can only reply, that a bad man will kill a good
one. ‘Yes, and that is the provoking thing.’ Not provoking to a
man of sense who is not studying the arts which will preserve
him from danger; and this, as you say, is the use of rhetoric in
courts of justice. But how many other arts are there which also
save men from death, and are yet quite humble in their
pretensions—such as the art of swimming, or the art of the pilot?
Does not the pilot do men at least as much service as the
rhetorician, and yet for the voyage from Aegina to Athens he does
not charge more than two obols, and when he disembarks is quite
unassuming in his demeanour? The reason is that he is not certain 512
whether he has done his passengers any good in saving them from
death, if one of them is diseased in body, and still more if he is
diseased in mind—who can say? The engineer too will often
save whole cities, and yet you despise him, and would not
allow your son to marry his daughter, or his son to marry yours.
But what reason is there in this? For if virtue only means the
saving of life, whether your own or another’s, you have no right to
despise him or any practiser of saving arts. But is not virtue
something different from saving and being saved? I would have 513
you rather consider whether you ought not to disregard length of
life, and think only how you can live best, leaving all besides to
the will of Heaven. For you must not expect to have influence
either with the Athenian Demos or with Demos the son of Pyrilampes,
unless you become like them. What do you say to this?

[Sidenote: _Analysis 511-515._]

‘There is some truth in what you are saying, but I do not
entirely believe you.’

[Sidenote: _Analysis 515-520._]

That is because you are in love with Demos. But let us have a
little more conversation. You remember the two processes—one
which was directed to pleasure, the other which was directed to
making men as good as possible. And those who have the care
of the city should make the citizens as good as possible. But who 514
would undertake a public building, if he had never had a teacher
of the art of building, and had never constructed a building before?
or who would undertake the duty of state-physician, if he had
never cured either himself or any one else? Should we not
examine him before we entrusted him with the office? And as
Callicles is about to enter public life, should we not examine
him? Whom has he made better? For we have already admitted that 515
this is the statesman’s proper business. And we must ask the
same question about Pericles, and Cimon, and Miltiades, and
Themistocles. Whom did they make better? Nay, did not Pericles
make the citizens worse? For he gave them pay, and at first he
was very popular with them, but at last they condemned him to
death. Yet surely he would be a bad tamer of animals who, 516
having received them gentle, taught them to kick and butt, and
man is an animal; and Pericles who had the charge of man only
made him wilder, and more savage and unjust, and therefore he
could not have been a good statesman. The same tale might
be repeated about Cimon, Themistocles, Miltiades. But the
charioteer who keeps his seat at first is not thrown out when he 517
gains greater experience and skill. The inference is, that the
statesmen of a past age were no better than those of our own.
They may have been cleverer constructors of docks and harbours,
but they did not improve the character of the citizens. I have
told you again and again (and I purposely use the same images)
that the soul, like the body, may be treated in two ways—there is
the meaner and the higher art. You seemed to understand what 518
I said at the time, but when I ask you who were the really good
statesmen, you answer—as if I asked you who were the good
trainers, and you answered, Thearion, the baker, Mithoecus, the
author of the Sicilian cookery-book, Sarambus, the vintner. And
you would be affronted if I told you that these are a parcel of
cooks who make men fat only to make them thin. And those
whom they have fattened applaud them, instead of finding fault
with them, and lay the blame of their subsequent disorders on
their physicians. In this respect, Callicles, you are like them;
you applaud the statesmen of old, who pandered to the vices of the
citizens, and filled the city with docks and harbours, but neglected
virtue and justice. And when the fit of illness comes, the 519
citizens who in like manner applauded Themistocles, Pericles, and
others, will lay hold of you and my friend Alcibiades, and you will
suffer for the misdeeds of your predecessors. The old story is always
being repeated—‘after all his services, the ungrateful city banished
him, or condemned him to death.’ As if the statesman should not
have taught the city better! He surely cannot blame the state for
having unjustly used him, any more than the sophist or teacher
can find fault with his pupils if they cheat him. And the sophist 520
and orator are in the same case; although you admire rhetoric
and despise sophistic, whereas sophistic is really the higher of the
two. The teacher of the arts takes money, but the teacher of
virtue or politics takes no money, because this is the only kind of
service which makes the disciple desirous of requiting his teacher.

[Sidenote: _Analysis 520-524._]

Socrates concludes by finally asking, to which of the two modes
of serving the state Callicles invites him:—‘to the inferior and
ministerial one,’ is the ingenuous reply. That is the only way of 521
avoiding death, replies Socrates; and he has heard often enough,
and would rather not hear again, that the bad man will kill the
good. But he thinks that such a fate is very likely reserved for
him, because he remarks that he is the only person who teaches
the true art of politics. And very probably, as in the case which 522
he described to Polus, he may be the physician who is tried by a
jury of children. He cannot say that he has procured the citizens
any pleasure, and if any one charges him with perplexing them, or
with reviling their elders, he will not be able to make them
understand that he has only been actuated by a desire for their
good. And therefore there is no saying what his fate may be. ‘And
do you think that a man who is unable to help himself is in a good
condition?’ Yes, Callicles, if he have the true self-help, which is
never to have said or done any wrong to himself or others. If I
had not this kind of self-help, I should be ashamed; but if I die
for want of your flattering rhetoric, I shall die in peace. For
death is no evil, but to go to the world below laden with offences
is the worst of evils. In proof of which I will tell you a tale:—

Under the rule of Cronos, men were judged on the day of their 523
death, and when judgment had been given upon them they departed—the
good to the islands of the blest, the bad to the house of vengeance.
But as they were still living, and had their clothes on at
the time when they were being judged, there was favouritism, and
Zeus, when he came to the throne, was obliged to alter the mode
of procedure, and try them after death, having first sent down
Prometheus to take away from them the foreknowledge of death.
Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus were appointed to be the 524
judges; Rhadamanthus for Asia, Aeacus for Europe, and Minos
was to hold the court of appeal. Now death is the separation of
soul and body, but after death soul and body alike retain their
characteristics; the fat man, the dandy, the branded slave, are all
distinguishable. Some prince or potentate, perhaps even the great
king himself, appears before Rhadamanthus, and he instantly
detects him, though he knows not who he is; he sees the scars of 525
perjury and iniquity, and sends him away to the house of torment.

[Sidenote: _Analysis 524-527._]

For there are two classes of souls who undergo punishment—the
curable and the incurable. The curable are those who are
benefited by their punishment; the incurable are such as Archelaus,
who benefit others by becoming a warning to them. The
latter class are generally kings and potentates; meaner persons,
happily for themselves, have not the same power of doing injustice.
Sisyphus and Tityus, not Thersites, are supposed by
Homer to be undergoing everlasting punishment. Not that there
is anything to prevent a great man from being a good one, as is
shown by the famous example of Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus. 526
But to Rhadamanthus the souls are only known as good or
bad; they are stripped of their dignities and preferments; he
despatches the bad to Tartarus, labelled either as curable or
incurable, and looks with love and admiration on the soul of some
just one, whom he sends to the islands of the blest. Similar is
the practice of Aeacus; and Minos overlooks them, holding a
golden sceptre, as Odysseus in Homer saw him

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

My wish for myself and my fellow-men is, that we may present
our souls undefiled to the judge in that day; my desire in life is
to be able to meet death. And I exhort you, and retort upon you 527
the reproach which you cast upon me,—that you will stand before
the judge, gaping, and with dizzy brain, and any one may box you
on the ear, and do you all manner of evil.

Perhaps you think that this is an old wives’ fable. But you,
who are the three wisest men in Hellas, have nothing better to
say, and no one will ever show that to do is better than to suffer
evil. A man should study to be, and not merely to seem. If he
is bad, he should become good, and avoid all flattery, whether of
the many or of the few.

Follow me, then; and if you are looked down upon, that will do
you no harm. And when we have practised virtue, we will betake
ourselves to politics, but not until we are delivered from the
shameful state of ignorance and uncertainty in which we are at
present. Let us follow in the way of virtue and justice, and not in
the way to which you, Callicles, invite us; for that way is nothing
worth.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _The logic and dialectic of the Dialogue._]

[Sidenote: INTRODUCTION.]

We will now consider in order some of the principal points of the dialogue. Having regard (1) to the age of Plato and the ironical character of his writings, we may compare him with himself and with other great teachers, and we may note in passing the objections of his critics. And then (2) casting one eye upon him, we may cast another upon ourselves, and endeavour to draw out the great lessons which he teaches for all time, stripped of the accidental form in which they are enveloped.

(1) In the Gorgias, as in nearly all the other dialogues of Plato, we are made aware that formal logic has as yet no existence. The old difficulty of framing a definition recurs. The illusive analogy of the arts and the virtues also continues. The ambiguity of several words, such as nature, custom, the honourable, the good, is not cleared up. The Sophists are still floundering about the distinction of the real and seeming. Figures of speech are made the basis of arguments. The possibility of conceiving a universal art or science, which admits of application to a particular subject-matter, is a difficulty which remains unsolved, and has not altogether ceased to haunt the world at the present day (cp. Charmides, 166 ff.). The defect of clearness is also apparent in Socrates himself, unless we suppose him to be practising on the simplicity of his opponent, or rather perhaps trying an experiment in dialectics. Nothing can be more fallacious than the contradiction which he pretends to have discovered in the answers of Gorgias (see Analysis). The advantages which he gains over Polus are also due to a false antithesis of pleasure and good, and to an erroneous assertion that an agent and a patient may be described by similar predicates;—a mistake which Aristotle partly shares and partly corrects in the Nicomachean Ethics, V. i. 4; xi. 2. Traces of a ‘robust sophistry’ are likewise discernible in his argument with Callicles (pp. 490, 496, 516).

[Sidenote: _The ideal of suffering virtue._]

(2) Although Socrates professes to be convinced by reason only, yet the argument is often a sort of dialectical fiction, by which he conducts himself and others to his own ideal of life and action. And we may sometimes wish that we could have suggested answers to his antagonists, or pointed out to them the rocks which lay concealed under the ambiguous terms good, pleasure, and the like. But it would be as useless to examine his arguments by the requirements of modern logic, as to criticise this ideal from a merely utilitarian point of view. If we say that the ideal is generally regarded as unattainable, and that mankind will by no means agree in thinking that the criminal is happier when punished than when unpunished, any more than they would agree to the stoical paradox that a man may be happy on the rack, Plato has already admitted that the world is against him. Neither does he mean to say that Archelaus is tormented by the stings of conscience; or that the sensations of the impaled criminal are more agreeable than those of the tyrant drowned in luxurious enjoyment. Neither is he speaking, as in the Protagoras, of virtue as a calculation of pleasure, an opinion which he afterwards repudiates in the Phaedo. What then is his meaning? His meaning we shall be able to illustrate best by parallel notions, which, whether justifiable by logic or not, have always existed among mankind. We must remind the reader that Socrates himself implies that he will be understood or appreciated by very few.

He is speaking not of the consciousness of happiness, but of the idea of happiness. When a martyr dies in a good cause, when a soldier falls in battle, we do not suppose that death or wounds are without pain, or that their physical suffering is always compensated by a mental satisfaction. Still we regard them as happy, and we would a thousand times rather have their death than a shameful life. Nor is this only because we believe that they will obtain an immortality of fame, or that they will have crowns of glory in another world, when their enemies and persecutors will be proportionably tormented. Men are found in a few instances to do what is right, without reference to public opinion or to consequences. And we regard them as happy on this ground only, much as Socrates’ friends in the opening of the Phaedo are described as regarding him; or as was said of another, ‘they looked upon his face as upon the face of an angel.’ We are not concerned to justify this idealism by the standard of utility or public opinion, but merely to point out the existence of such a sentiment in the better part of human nature.

[Sidenote: _Plato’s theory of punishment._]

The idealism of Plato is founded upon this sentiment. He would maintain that in some sense or other truth and right are alone to be sought, and that all other goods are only desirable as means towards these. He is thought to have erred in ‘considering the agent only, and making no reference to the happiness of others, as affected by him.’ But the happiness of others or of mankind, if regarded as an end, is really quite as ideal and almost as paradoxical to the common understanding as Plato’s conception of happiness. For the greatest happiness of the greatest number may mean also the greatest pain of the individual which will procure the greatest pleasure of the greatest number. Ideas of utility, like those of duty and right, may be pushed to unpleasant consequences. Nor can Plato in the Gorgias be deemed purely self-regarding, considering that Socrates expressly mentions the duty of imparting the truth when discovered to others. Nor must we forget that the side of ethics which regards others is by the ancients merged in politics. Both in Plato and Aristotle, as well as in the Stoics, the social principle, though taking another form, is really far more prominent than in most modern treatises on ethics.

The idealizing of suffering is one of the conceptions which have exercised the greatest influence on mankind. Into the theological import of this, or into the consideration of the errors to which the idea may have given rise, we need not now enter. All will agree that the ideal of the Divine Sufferer, whose words the world would not receive, the man of sorrows of whom the Hebrew prophets spoke, has sunk deep into the heart of the human race. It is a similar picture of suffering goodness which Plato desires to pourtray, not without an allusion to the fate of his master Socrates. He is convinced that, somehow or other, such an one must be happy in life or after death. In the Republic, he endeavours to show that his happiness would be assured here in a well-ordered state. But in the actual condition of human things the wise and good are weak and miserable; such an one is like a man fallen among wild beasts, exposed to every sort of wrong and obloquy.

[Sidenote: _Plato’s theory of punishment._]