Gorgias
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And will therefore never be willing to do injustice?
GORGIAS: Clearly not.
SOCRATES: But do you remember saying just now that the trainer is not
to be accused or banished if the pugilist makes a wrong use of his
pugilistic art; and in like manner, if the rhetorician makes a bad and
unjust use of his rhetoric, that is not to be laid to the charge of his
teacher, who is not to be banished, but the wrong-doer himself who made
a bad use of his rhetoric—he is to be banished—was not that said?
GORGIAS: Yes, it was.
SOCRATES: But now we are affirming that the aforesaid rhetorician will
never have done injustice at all?
GORGIAS: True.
SOCRATES: And at the very outset, Gorgias, it was said that rhetoric
treated of discourse, not (like arithmetic) about odd and even, but
about just and unjust? Was not this said?
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: I was thinking at the time, when I heard you saying so, that
rhetoric, which is always discoursing about justice, could not possibly
be an unjust thing. But when you added, shortly afterwards, that the
rhetorician might make a bad use of rhetoric I noted with surprise the
inconsistency into which you had fallen; and I said, that if you
thought, as I did, that there was a gain in being refuted, there would
be an advantage in going on with the question, but if not, I would
leave off. And in the course of our investigations, as you will see
yourself, the rhetorician has been acknowledged to be incapable of
making an unjust use of rhetoric, or of willingness to do injustice. By
the dog, Gorgias, there will be a great deal of discussion, before we
get at the truth of all this.
POLUS: And do even you, Socrates, seriously believe what you are now
saying about rhetoric? What! because Gorgias was ashamed to deny that
the rhetorician knew the just and the honourable and the good, and
admitted that to any one who came to him ignorant of them he could
teach them, and then out of this admission there arose a
contradiction—the thing which you dearly love, and to which not he, but
you, brought the argument by your captious questions—(do you seriously
believe that there is any truth in all this?) For will any one ever
acknowledge that he does not know, or cannot teach, the nature of
justice? The truth is, that there is great want of manners in bringing
the argument to such a pass.
SOCRATES: Illustrious Polus, the reason why we provide ourselves with
friends and children is, that when we get old and stumble, a younger
generation may be at hand to set us on our legs again in our words and
in our actions: and now, if I and Gorgias are stumbling, here are you
who should raise us up; and I for my part engage to retract any error
into which you may think that I have fallen-upon one condition:
POLUS: What condition?
SOCRATES: That you contract, Polus, the prolixity of speech in which
you indulged at first.
POLUS: What! do you mean that I may not use as many words as I please?
SOCRATES: Only to think, my friend, that having come on a visit to
Athens, which is the most free-spoken state in Hellas, you when you got
there, and you alone, should be deprived of the power of speech—that
would be hard indeed. But then consider my case:—shall not I be very
hardly used, if, when you are making a long oration, and refusing to
answer what you are asked, I am compelled to stay and listen to you,
and may not go away? I say rather, if you have a real interest in the
argument, or, to repeat my former expression, have any desire to set it
on its legs, take back any statement which you please; and in your turn
ask and answer, like myself and Gorgias—refute and be refuted: for I
suppose that you would claim to know what Gorgias knows—would you not?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And you, like him, invite any one to ask you about anything
which he pleases, and you will know how to answer him?
POLUS: To be sure.
SOCRATES: And now, which will you do, ask or answer?
POLUS: I will ask; and do you answer me, Socrates, the same question
which Gorgias, as you suppose, is unable to answer: What is rhetoric?
SOCRATES: Do you mean what sort of an art?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: To say the truth, Polus, it is not an art at all, in my
opinion.
POLUS: Then what, in your opinion, is rhetoric?
SOCRATES: A thing which, as I was lately reading in a book of yours,
you say that you have made an art.
POLUS: What thing?
SOCRATES: I should say a sort of experience.
POLUS: Does rhetoric seem to you to be an experience?
SOCRATES: That is my view, but you may be of another mind.
POLUS: An experience in what?
SOCRATES: An experience in producing a sort of delight and
gratification.
POLUS: And if able to gratify others, must not rhetoric be a fine
thing?
SOCRATES: What are you saying, Polus? Why do you ask me whether
rhetoric is a fine thing or not, when I have not as yet told you what
rhetoric is?
POLUS: Did I not hear you say that rhetoric was a sort of experience?
SOCRATES: Will you, who are so desirous to gratify others, afford a
slight gratification to me?
POLUS: I will.
SOCRATES: Will you ask me, what sort of an art is cookery?
POLUS: What sort of an art is cookery?
SOCRATES: Not an art at all, Polus.
POLUS: What then?
SOCRATES: I should say an experience.
POLUS: In what? I wish that you would explain to me.
SOCRATES: An experience in producing a sort of delight and
gratification, Polus.
POLUS: Then are cookery and rhetoric the same?
SOCRATES: No, they are only different parts of the same profession.
POLUS: Of what profession?
SOCRATES: I am afraid that the truth may seem discourteous; and I
hesitate to answer, lest Gorgias should imagine that I am making fun of
his own profession. For whether or not this is that art of rhetoric
which Gorgias practises I really cannot tell:—from what he was just now
saying, nothing appeared of what he thought of his art, but the
rhetoric which I mean is a part of a not very creditable whole.
GORGIAS: A part of what, Socrates? Say what you mean, and never mind
me.
SOCRATES: In my opinion then, Gorgias, the whole of which rhetoric is a
part is not an art at all, but the habit of a bold and ready wit, which
knows how to manage mankind: this habit I sum up under the word
“flattery”; and it appears to me to have many other parts, one of which
is cookery, which may seem to be an art, but, as I maintain, is only an
experience or routine and not an art:—another part is rhetoric, and the
art of attiring and sophistry are two others: thus there are four
branches, and four different things answering to them. And Polus may
ask, if he likes, for he has not as yet been informed, what part of
flattery is rhetoric: he did not see that I had not yet answered him
when he proceeded to ask a further question: Whether I do not think
rhetoric a fine thing? But I shall not tell him whether rhetoric is a
fine thing or not, until I have first answered, “What is rhetoric?” For
that would not be right, Polus; but I shall be happy to answer, if you
will ask me, What part of flattery is rhetoric?
POLUS: I will ask and do you answer? What part of flattery is rhetoric?
SOCRATES: Will you understand my answer? Rhetoric, according to my
view, is the ghost or counterfeit of a part of politics.
POLUS: And noble or ignoble?
SOCRATES: Ignoble, I should say, if I am compelled to answer, for I
call what is bad ignoble: though I doubt whether you understand what I
was saying before.
GORGIAS: Indeed, Socrates, I cannot say that I understand myself.
SOCRATES: I do not wonder, Gorgias; for I have not as yet explained
myself, and our friend Polus, colt by name and colt by nature, is apt
to run away. (This is an untranslatable play on the name “Polus,” which
means “a colt.”)
GORGIAS: Never mind him, but explain to me what you mean by saying that
rhetoric is the counterfeit of a part of politics.
SOCRATES: I will try, then, to explain my notion of rhetoric, and if I
am mistaken, my friend Polus shall refute me. We may assume the
existence of bodies and of souls?
GORGIAS: Of course.
SOCRATES: You would further admit that there is a good condition of
either of them?
GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Which condition may not be really good, but good only in
appearance? I mean to say, that there are many persons who appear to be
in good health, and whom only a physician or trainer will discern at
first sight not to be in good health.
GORGIAS: True.
SOCRATES: And this applies not only to the body, but also to the soul:
in either there may be that which gives the appearance of health and
not the reality?
GORGIAS: Yes, certainly.
SOCRATES: And now I will endeavour to explain to you more clearly what
I mean: The soul and body being two, have two arts corresponding to
them: there is the art of politics attending on the soul; and another
art attending on the body, of which I know no single name, but which
may be described as having two divisions, one of them gymnastic, and
the other medicine. And in politics there is a legislative part, which
answers to gymnastic, as justice does to medicine; and the two parts
run into one another, justice having to do with the same subject as
legislation, and medicine with the same subject as gymnastic, but with
a difference. Now, seeing that there are these four arts, two attending
on the body and two on the soul for their highest good; flattery
knowing, or rather guessing their natures, has distributed herself into
four shams or simulations of them; she puts on the likeness of some one
or other of them, and pretends to be that which she simulates, and
having no regard for men’s highest interests, is ever making pleasure
the bait of the unwary, and deceiving them into the belief that she is
of the highest value to them. Cookery simulates the disguise of
medicine, and pretends to know what food is the best for the body; and
if the physician and the cook had to enter into a competition in which
children were the judges, or men who had no more sense than children,
as to which of them best understands the goodness or badness of food,
the physician would be starved to death. A flattery I deem this to be
and of an ignoble sort, Polus, for to you I am now addressing myself,
because it aims at pleasure without any thought of the best. An art I
do not call it, but only an experience, because it is unable to explain
or to give a reason of the nature of its own applications. And I do not
call any irrational thing an art; but if you dispute my words, I am
prepared to argue in defence of them.
Cookery, then, I maintain to be a flattery which takes the form of
medicine; and tiring, in like manner, is a flattery which takes the
form of gymnastic, and is knavish, false, ignoble, illiberal, working
deceitfully by the help of lines, and colours, and enamels, and
garments, and making men affect a spurious beauty to the neglect of the
true beauty which is given by gymnastic.
I would rather not be tedious, and therefore I will only say, after the
manner of the geometricians (for I think that by this time you will be
able to follow)
as tiring: gymnastic:: cookery: medicine;
or rather,
as tiring: gymnastic:: sophistry: legislation;
and
as cookery: medicine:: rhetoric: justice.
And this, I say, is the natural difference between the rhetorician and
the sophist, but by reason of their near connection, they are apt to be
jumbled up together; neither do they know what to make of themselves,
nor do other men know what to make of them. For if the body presided
over itself, and were not under the guidance of the soul, and the soul
did not discern and discriminate between cookery and medicine, but the
body was made the judge of them, and the rule of judgment was the