Gorgias
when generals have to be chosen and an order of battle arranged, or a
position taken, then the military will advise and not the rhetoricians:
what do you say, Gorgias? Since you profess to be a rhetorician and a
maker of rhetoricians, I cannot do better than learn the nature of your
art from you. And here let me assure you that I have your interest in
view as well as my own. For likely enough some one or other of the
young men present might desire to become your pupil, and in fact I see
some, and a good many too, who have this wish, but they would be too
modest to question you. And therefore when you are interrogated by me,
I would have you imagine that you are interrogated by them. “What is
the use of coming to you, Gorgias?” they will say—“about what will you
teach us to advise the state?—about the just and unjust only, or about
those other things also which Socrates has just mentioned?” How will
you answer them?
GORGIAS: I like your way of leading us on, Socrates, and I will
endeavour to reveal to you the whole nature of rhetoric. You must have
heard, I think, that the docks and the walls of the Athenians and the
plan of the harbour were devised in accordance with the counsels,
partly of Themistocles, and partly of Pericles, and not at the
suggestion of the builders.
SOCRATES: Such is the tradition, Gorgias, about Themistocles; and I
myself heard the speech of Pericles when he advised us about the middle
wall.
GORGIAS: And you will observe, Socrates, that when a decision has to be
given in such matters the rhetoricians are the advisers; they are the
men who win their point.
SOCRATES: I had that in my admiring mind, Gorgias, when I asked what is
the nature of rhetoric, which always appears to me, when I look at the
matter in this way, to be a marvel of greatness.
GORGIAS: A marvel, indeed, Socrates, if you only knew how rhetoric
comprehends and holds under her sway all the inferior arts. Let me
offer you a striking example of this. On several occasions I have been
with my brother Herodicus or some other physician to see one of his
patients, who would not allow the physician to give him medicine, or
apply the knife or hot iron to him; and I have persuaded him to do for
me what he would not do for the physician just by the use of rhetoric.
And I say that if a rhetorician and a physician were to go to any city,
and had there to argue in the Ecclesia or any other assembly as to
which of them should be elected state-physician, the physician would
have no chance; but he who could speak would be chosen if he wished;
and in a contest with a man of any other profession the rhetorician
more than any one would have the power of getting himself chosen, for
he can speak more persuasively to the multitude than any of them, and
on any subject. Such is the nature and power of the art of rhetoric!
And yet, Socrates, rhetoric should be used like any other competitive
art, not against everybody,—the rhetorician ought not to abuse his
strength any more than a pugilist or pancratiast or other master of
fence;—because he has powers which are more than a match either for
friend or enemy, he ought not therefore to strike, stab, or slay his
friends. Suppose a man to have been trained in the palestra and to be a
skilful boxer,—he in the fulness of his strength goes and strikes his
father or mother or one of his familiars or friends; but that is no
reason why the trainers or fencing-masters should be held in
detestation or banished from the city;—surely not. For they taught
their art for a good purpose, to be used against enemies and
evil-doers, in self-defence not in aggression, and others have
perverted their instructions, and turned to a bad use their own
strength and skill. But not on this account are the teachers bad,
neither is the art in fault, or bad in itself; I should rather say that
those who make a bad use of the art are to blame. And the same argument
holds good of rhetoric; for the rhetorician can speak against all men
and upon any subject,—in short, he can persuade the multitude better
than any other man of anything which he pleases, but he should not
therefore seek to defraud the physician or any other artist of his
reputation merely because he has the power; he ought to use rhetoric
fairly, as he would also use his athletic powers. And if after having
become a rhetorician he makes a bad use of his strength and skill, his
instructor surely ought not on that account to be held in detestation
or banished. For he was intended by his teacher to make a good use of
his instructions, but he abuses them. And therefore he is the person
who ought to be held in detestation, banished, and put to death, and
not his instructor.
SOCRATES: You, Gorgias, like myself, have had great experience of
disputations, and you must have observed, I think, that they do not
always terminate in mutual edification, or in the definition by either
party of the subjects which they are discussing; but disagreements are
apt to arise—somebody says that another has not spoken truly or
clearly; and then they get into a passion and begin to quarrel, both
parties conceiving that their opponents are arguing from personal
feeling only and jealousy of themselves, not from any interest in the
question at issue. And sometimes they will go on abusing one another
until the company at last are quite vexed at themselves for ever
listening to such fellows. Why do I say this? Why, because I cannot
help feeling that you are now saying what is not quite consistent or
accordant with what you were saying at first about rhetoric. And I am
afraid to point this out to you, lest you should think that I have some
animosity against you, and that I speak, not for the sake of
discovering the truth, but from jealousy of you. Now if you are one of
my sort, I should like to cross-examine you, but if not I will let you
alone. And what is my sort? you will ask. I am one of those who are
very willing to be refuted if I say anything which is not true, and
very willing to refute any one else who says what is not true, and
quite as ready to be refuted as to refute; for I hold that this is the
greater gain of the two, just as the gain is greater of being cured of
a very great evil than of curing another. For I imagine that there is
no evil which a man can endure so great as an erroneous opinion about
the matters of which we are speaking; and if you claim to be one of my
sort, let us have the discussion out, but if you would rather have
done, no matter;—let us make an end of it.
GORGIAS: I should say, Socrates, that I am quite the man whom you
indicate; but, perhaps, we ought to consider the audience, for, before
you came, I had already given a long exhibition, and if we proceed the
argument may run on to a great length. And therefore I think that we
should consider whether we may not be detaining some part of the
company when they are wanting to do something else.
CHAEREPHON: You hear the audience cheering, Gorgias and Socrates, which
shows their desire to listen to you; and for myself, Heaven forbid that
I should have any business on hand which would take me away from a
discussion so interesting and so ably maintained.
CALLICLES: By the gods, Chaerephon, although I have been present at
many discussions, I doubt whether I was ever so much delighted before,
and therefore if you go on discoursing all day I shall be the better
pleased.
SOCRATES: I may truly say, Callicles, that I am willing, if Gorgias is.
GORGIAS: After all this, Socrates, I should be disgraced if I refused,
especially as I have promised to answer all comers; in accordance with
the wishes of the company, then, do you begin, and ask of me any
question which you like.
SOCRATES: Let me tell you then, Gorgias, what surprises me in your
words; though I dare say that you may be right, and I may have
misunderstood your meaning. You say that you can make any man, who will
learn of you, a rhetorician?
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Do you mean that you will teach him to gain the ears of the
multitude on any subject, and this not by instruction but by
persuasion?
GORGIAS: Quite so.
SOCRATES: You were saying, in fact, that the rhetorician will have
greater powers of persuasion than the physician even in a matter of
health?
GORGIAS: Yes, with the multitude,—that is.
SOCRATES: You mean to say, with the ignorant; for with those who know
he cannot be supposed to have greater powers of persuasion.
GORGIAS: Very true.
SOCRATES: But if he is to have more power of persuasion than the
physician, he will have greater power than he who knows?
GORGIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Although he is not a physician:—is he?
GORGIAS: No.
SOCRATES: And he who is not a physician must, obviously, be ignorant of
what the physician knows.
GORGIAS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: Then, when the rhetorician is more persuasive than the
physician, the ignorant is more persuasive with the ignorant than he
who has knowledge?—is not that the inference?
GORGIAS: In the case supposed:—yes.
SOCRATES: And the same holds of the relation of rhetoric to all the
other arts; the rhetorician need not know the truth about things; he
has only to discover some way of persuading the ignorant that he has
more knowledge than those who know?
GORGIAS: Yes, Socrates, and is not this a great comfort?—not to have
learned the other arts, but the art of rhetoric only, and yet to be in
no way inferior to the professors of them?
SOCRATES: Whether the rhetorician is or not inferior on this account is
a question which we will hereafter examine if the enquiry is likely to
be of any service to us; but I would rather begin by asking, whether he
is or is not as ignorant of the just and unjust, base and honourable,
good and evil, as he is of medicine and the other arts; I mean to say,
does he really know anything of what is good and evil, base or
honourable, just or unjust in them; or has he only a way with the
ignorant of persuading them that he not knowing is to be esteemed to
know more about these things than some one else who knows? Or must the
pupil know these things and come to you knowing them before he can
acquire the art of rhetoric? If he is ignorant, you who are the teacher
of rhetoric will not teach him—it is not your business; but you will
make him seem to the multitude to know them, when he does not know
them; and seem to be a good man, when he is not. Or will you be unable
to teach him rhetoric at all, unless he knows the truth of these things
first? What is to be said about all this? By heavens, Gorgias, I wish
that you would reveal to me the power of rhetoric, as you were saying
that you would.
GORGIAS: Well, Socrates, I suppose that if the pupil does chance not to
know them, he will have to learn of me these things as well.
SOCRATES: Say no more, for there you are right; and so he whom you make
a rhetorician must either know the nature of the just and unjust
already, or he must be taught by you.
GORGIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Well, and is not he who has learned carpentering a carpenter?
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And he who has learned music a musician?
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And he who has learned medicine is a physician, in like
manner? He who has learned anything whatever is that which his
knowledge makes him.
GORGIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And in the same way, he who has learned what is just is just?
GORGIAS: To be sure.
SOCRATES: And he who is just may be supposed to do what is just?
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And must not the just man always desire to do what is just?
GORGIAS: That is clearly the inference.
SOCRATES: Surely, then, the just man will never consent to do
injustice?
GORGIAS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: And according to the argument the rhetorician must be a just
man?