Gorgias
example, the arts of arithmetic, of calculation, of geometry, and of
playing draughts; in some of these speech is pretty nearly co-extensive
with action, but in most of them the verbal element is greater—they
depend wholly on words for their efficacy and power: and I take your
meaning to be that rhetoric is an art of this latter sort?
GORGIAS: Exactly.
SOCRATES: And yet I do not believe that you really mean to call any of
these arts rhetoric; although the precise expression which you used
was, that rhetoric is an art which works and takes effect only through
the medium of discourse; and an adversary who wished to be captious
might say, “And so, Gorgias, you call arithmetic rhetoric.” But I do
not think that you really call arithmetic rhetoric any more than
geometry would be so called by you.
GORGIAS: You are quite right, Socrates, in your apprehension of my
meaning.
SOCRATES: Well, then, let me now have the rest of my answer:—seeing
that rhetoric is one of those arts which works mainly by the use of
words, and there are other arts which also use words, tell me what is
that quality in words with which rhetoric is concerned:—Suppose that a
person asks me about some of the arts which I was mentioning just now;
he might say, “Socrates, what is arithmetic?” and I should reply to
him, as you replied to me, that arithmetic is one of those arts which
take effect through words. And then he would proceed to ask: “Words
about what?” and I should reply, Words about odd and even numbers, and
how many there are of each. And if he asked again: “What is the art of
calculation?” I should say, That also is one of the arts which is
concerned wholly with words. And if he further said, “Concerned with
what?” I should say, like the clerks in the assembly, “as aforesaid” of
arithmetic, but with a difference, the difference being that the art of
calculation considers not only the quantities of odd and even numbers,
but also their numerical relations to themselves and to one another.
And suppose, again, I were to say that astronomy is only words—he would
ask, “Words about what, Socrates?” and I should answer, that astronomy
tells us about the motions of the stars and sun and moon, and their
relative swiftness.
GORGIAS: You would be quite right, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And now let us have from you, Gorgias, the truth about
rhetoric: which you would admit (would you not?) to be one of those
arts which act always and fulfil all their ends through the medium of
words?
GORGIAS: True.
SOCRATES: Words which do what? I should ask. To what class of things do
the words which rhetoric uses relate?
GORGIAS: To the greatest, Socrates, and the best of human things.
SOCRATES: That again, Gorgias is ambiguous; I am still in the dark: for
which are the greatest and best of human things? I dare say that you
have heard men singing at feasts the old drinking song, in which the
singers enumerate the goods of life, first health, beauty next,
thirdly, as the writer of the song says, wealth honestly obtained.
GORGIAS: Yes, I know the song; but what is your drift?
SOCRATES: I mean to say, that the producers of those things which the
author of the song praises, that is to say, the physician, the trainer,
the money-maker, will at once come to you, and first the physician will
say: “O Socrates, Gorgias is deceiving you, for my art is concerned
with the greatest good of men and not his.” And when I ask, Who are
you? he will reply, “I am a physician.” What do you mean? I shall say.
Do you mean that your art produces the greatest good? “Certainly,” he
will answer, “for is not health the greatest good? What greater good
can men have, Socrates?” And after him the trainer will come and say,
“I too, Socrates, shall be greatly surprised if Gorgias can show more
good of his art than I can show of mine.” To him again I shall say, Who
are you, honest friend, and what is your business? “I am a trainer,” he
will reply, “and my business is to make men beautiful and strong in
body.” When I have done with the trainer, there arrives the
money-maker, and he, as I expect, will utterly despise them all.
“Consider Socrates,” he will say, “whether Gorgias or any one else can
produce any greater good than wealth.” Well, you and I say to him, and
are you a creator of wealth? “Yes,” he replies. And who are you? “A
money-maker.” And do you consider wealth to be the greatest good of
man? “Of course,” will be his reply. And we shall rejoin: Yes; but our
friend Gorgias contends that his art produces a greater good than
yours. And then he will be sure to go on and ask, “What good? Let
Gorgias answer.” Now I want you, Gorgias, to imagine that this question
is asked of you by them and by me; What is that which, as you say, is
the greatest good of man, and of which you are the creator? Answer us.
GORGIAS: That good, Socrates, which is truly the greatest, being that
which gives to men freedom in their own persons, and to individuals the
power of ruling over others in their several states.
SOCRATES: And what would you consider this to be?
GORGIAS: What is there greater than the word which persuades the judges
in the courts, or the senators in the council, or the citizens in the
assembly, or at any other political meeting?—if you have the power of
uttering this word, you will have the physician your slave, and the
trainer your slave, and the money-maker of whom you talk will be found
to gather treasures, not for himself, but for you who are able to speak
and to persuade the multitude.
SOCRATES: Now I think, Gorgias, that you have very accurately explained
what you conceive to be the art of rhetoric; and you mean to say, if I
am not mistaken, that rhetoric is the artificer of persuasion, having
this and no other business, and that this is her crown and end. Do you
know any other effect of rhetoric over and above that of producing
persuasion?
GORGIAS: No: the definition seems to me very fair, Socrates; for
persuasion is the chief end of rhetoric.
SOCRATES: Then hear me, Gorgias, for I am quite sure that if there ever
was a man who entered on the discussion of a matter from a pure love of
knowing the truth, I am such a one, and I should say the same of you.
GORGIAS: What is coming, Socrates?
SOCRATES: I will tell you: I am very well aware that I do not know
what, according to you, is the exact nature, or what are the topics of
that persuasion of which you speak, and which is given by rhetoric;
although I have a suspicion about both the one and the other. And I am
going to ask—what is this power of persuasion which is given by
rhetoric, and about what? But why, if I have a suspicion, do I ask
instead of telling you? Not for your sake, but in order that the
argument may proceed in such a manner as is most likely to set forth
the truth. And I would have you observe, that I am right in asking this
further question: If I asked, “What sort of a painter is Zeuxis?” and
you said, “The painter of figures,” should I not be right in asking,
“What kind of figures, and where do you find them?”
GORGIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And the reason for asking this second question would be, that
there are other painters besides, who paint many other figures?
GORGIAS: True.
SOCRATES: But if there had been no one but Zeuxis who painted them,
then you would have answered very well?
GORGIAS: Quite so.
SOCRATES: Now I want to know about rhetoric in the same way;—is
rhetoric the only art which brings persuasion, or do other arts have
the same effect? I mean to say—Does he who teaches anything persuade
men of that which he teaches or not?
GORGIAS: He persuades, Socrates,—there can be no mistake about that.
SOCRATES: Again, if we take the arts of which we were just now
speaking:—do not arithmetic and the arithmeticians teach us the
properties of number?
GORGIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And therefore persuade us of them?
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then arithmetic as well as rhetoric is an artificer of
persuasion?
GORGIAS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: And if any one asks us what sort of persuasion, and about
what,—we shall answer, persuasion which teaches the quantity of odd and
even; and we shall be able to show that all the other arts of which we
were just now speaking are artificers of persuasion, and of what sort,
and about what.
GORGIAS: Very true.
SOCRATES: Then rhetoric is not the only artificer of persuasion?
GORGIAS: True.
SOCRATES: Seeing, then, that not only rhetoric works by persuasion, but
that other arts do the same, as in the case of the painter, a question
has arisen which is a very fair one: Of what persuasion is rhetoric the
artificer, and about what?—is not that a fair way of putting the
question?
GORGIAS: I think so.
SOCRATES: Then, if you approve the question, Gorgias, what is the
answer?
GORGIAS: I answer, Socrates, that rhetoric is the art of persuasion in
courts of law and other assemblies, as I was just now saying, and about
the just and unjust.
SOCRATES: And that, Gorgias, was what I was suspecting to be your
notion; yet I would not have you wonder if by-and-by I am found
repeating a seemingly plain question; for I ask not in order to confute
you, but as I was saying that the argument may proceed consecutively,
and that we may not get the habit of anticipating and suspecting the
meaning of one another’s words; I would have you develope your own
views in your own way, whatever may be your hypothesis.
GORGIAS: I think that you are quite right, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then let me raise another question; there is such a thing as
“having learned”?
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And there is also “having believed”?
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And is the “having learned” the same as “having believed,”
and are learning and belief the same things?
GORGIAS: In my judgment, Socrates, they are not the same.
SOCRATES: And your judgment is right, as you may ascertain in this
way:—If a person were to say to you, “Is there, Gorgias, a false belief
as well as a true?”—you would reply, if I am not mistaken, that there
is.
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Well, but is there a false knowledge as well as a true?
GORGIAS: No.
SOCRATES: No, indeed; and this again proves that knowledge and belief
differ.
GORGIAS: Very true.
SOCRATES: And yet those who have learned as well as those who have
believed are persuaded?
GORGIAS: Just so.
SOCRATES: Shall we then assume two sorts of persuasion,—one which is
the source of belief without knowledge, as the other is of knowledge?
GORGIAS: By all means.
SOCRATES: And which sort of persuasion does rhetoric create in courts
of law and other assemblies about the just and unjust, the sort of
persuasion which gives belief without knowledge, or that which gives
knowledge?
GORGIAS: Clearly, Socrates, that which only gives belief.
SOCRATES: Then rhetoric, as would appear, is the artificer of a
persuasion which creates belief about the just and unjust, but gives no
instruction about them?
GORGIAS: True.
SOCRATES: And the rhetorician does not instruct the courts of law or
other assemblies about things just and unjust, but he creates belief
about them; for no one can be supposed to instruct such a vast
multitude about such high matters in a short time?
GORGIAS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Come, then, and let us see what we really mean about
rhetoric; for I do not know what my own meaning is as yet. When the
assembly meets to elect a physician or a shipwright or any other
craftsman, will the rhetorician be taken into counsel? Surely not. For
at every election he ought to be chosen who is most skilled; and,
again, when walls have to be built or harbours or docks to be
constructed, not the rhetorician but the master workman will advise; or