Gorgias
events which happened only a few days ago are enough to refute you, and
to prove that many men who do wrong are happy.
SOCRATES: What events?
POLUS: You see, I presume, that Archelaus the son of Perdiccas is now
the ruler of Macedonia?
SOCRATES: At any rate I hear that he is.
POLUS: And do you think that he is happy or miserable?
SOCRATES: I cannot say, Polus, for I have never had any acquaintance
with him.
POLUS: And cannot you tell at once, and without having an acquaintance
with him, whether a man is happy?
SOCRATES: Most certainly not.
POLUS: Then clearly, Socrates, you would say that you did not even know
whether the great king was a happy man?
SOCRATES: And I should speak the truth; for I do not know how he stands
in the matter of education and justice.
POLUS: What! and does all happiness consist in this?
SOCRATES: Yes, indeed, Polus, that is my doctrine; the men and women
who are gentle and good are also happy, as I maintain, and the unjust
and evil are miserable.
POLUS: Then, according to your doctrine, the said Archelaus is
miserable?
SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, if he is wicked.
POLUS: That he is wicked I cannot deny; for he had no title at all to
the throne which he now occupies, he being only the son of a woman who
was the slave of Alcetas the brother of Perdiccas; he himself therefore
in strict right was the slave of Alcetas; and if he had meant to do
rightly he would have remained his slave, and then, according to your
doctrine, he would have been happy. But now he is unspeakably
miserable, for he has been guilty of the greatest crimes: in the first
place he invited his uncle and master, Alcetas, to come to him, under
the pretence that he would restore to him the throne which Perdiccas
has usurped, and after entertaining him and his son Alexander, who was
his own cousin, and nearly of an age with him, and making them drunk,
he threw them into a waggon and carried them off by night, and slew
them, and got both of them out of the way; and when he had done all
this wickedness he never discovered that he was the most miserable of
all men, and was very far from repenting: shall I tell you how he
showed his remorse? he had a younger brother, a child of seven years
old, who was the legitimate son of Perdiccas, and to him of right the
kingdom belonged; Archelaus, however, had no mind to bring him up as he
ought and restore the kingdom to him; that was not his notion of
happiness; but not long afterwards he threw him into a well and drowned
him, and declared to his mother Cleopatra that he had fallen in while
running after a goose, and had been killed. And now as he is the
greatest criminal of all the Macedonians, he may be supposed to be the
most miserable and not the happiest of them, and I dare say that there
are many Athenians, and you would be at the head of them, who would
rather be any other Macedonian than Archelaus!
SOCRATES: I praised you at first, Polus, for being a rhetorician rather
than a reasoner. And this, as I suppose, is the sort of argument with
which you fancy that a child might refute me, and by which I stand
refuted when I say that the unjust man is not happy. But, my good
friend, where is the refutation? I cannot admit a word which you have
been saying.
POLUS: That is because you will not; for you surely must think as I do.
SOCRATES: Not so, my simple friend, but because you will refute me
after the manner which rhetoricians practise in courts of law. For
there the one party think that they refute the other when they bring
forward a number of witnesses of good repute in proof of their
allegations, and their adversary has only a single one or none at all.
But this kind of proof is of no value where truth is the aim; a man may
often be sworn down by a multitude of false witnesses who have a great
air of respectability. And in this argument nearly every one, Athenian
and stranger alike, would be on your side, if you should bring
witnesses in disproof of my statement;—you may, if you will, summon
Nicias the son of Niceratus, and let his brothers, who gave the row of
tripods which stand in the precincts of Dionysus, come with him; or you
may summon Aristocrates, the son of Scellius, who is the giver of that
famous offering which is at Delphi; summon, if you will, the whole
house of Pericles, or any other great Athenian family whom you
choose;—they will all agree with you: I only am left alone and cannot
agree, for you do not convince me; although you produce many false
witnesses against me, in the hope of depriving me of my inheritance,
which is the truth. But I consider that nothing worth speaking of will
have been effected by me unless I make you the one witness of my words;
nor by you, unless you make me the one witness of yours; no matter
about the rest of the world. For there are two ways of refutation, one
which is yours and that of the world in general; but mine is of another
sort—let us compare them, and see in what they differ. For, indeed, we
are at issue about matters which to know is honourable and not to know
disgraceful; to know or not to know happiness and misery—that is the
chief of them. And what knowledge can be nobler? or what ignorance more
disgraceful than this? And therefore I will begin by asking you whether
you do not think that a man who is unjust and doing injustice can be
happy, seeing that you think Archelaus unjust, and yet happy? May I
assume this to be your opinion?
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: But I say that this is an impossibility—here is one point
about which we are at issue:—very good. And do you mean to say also
that if he meets with retribution and punishment he will still be
happy?
POLUS: Certainly not; in that case he will be most miserable.
SOCRATES: On the other hand, if the unjust be not punished, then,
according to you, he will be happy?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: But in my opinion, Polus, the unjust or doer of unjust
actions is miserable in any case,—more miserable, however, if he be not
punished and does not meet with retribution, and less miserable if he
be punished and meets with retribution at the hands of gods and men.
POLUS: You are maintaining a strange doctrine, Socrates.
SOCRATES: I shall try to make you agree with me, O my friend, for as a
friend I regard you. Then these are the points at issue between us—are
they not? I was saying that to do is worse than to suffer injustice?
POLUS: Exactly so.
SOCRATES: And you said the opposite?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: I said also that the wicked are miserable, and you refuted
me?
POLUS: By Zeus, I did.
SOCRATES: In your own opinion, Polus.
POLUS: Yes, and I rather suspect that I was in the right.
SOCRATES: You further said that the wrong-doer is happy if he be
unpunished?
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And I affirm that he is most miserable, and that those who
are punished are less miserable—are you going to refute this
proposition also?
POLUS: A proposition which is harder of refutation than the other,
Socrates.
SOCRATES: Say rather, Polus, impossible; for who can refute the truth?
POLUS: What do you mean? If a man is detected in an unjust attempt to
make himself a tyrant, and when detected is racked, mutilated, has his
eyes burned out, and after having had all sorts of great injuries
inflicted on him, and having seen his wife and children suffer the
like, is at last impaled or tarred and burned alive, will he be happier
than if he escape and become a tyrant, and continue all through life
doing what he likes and holding the reins of government, the envy and
admiration both of citizens and strangers? Is that the paradox which,
as you say, cannot be refuted?
SOCRATES: There again, noble Polus, you are raising hobgoblins instead
of refuting me; just now you were calling witnesses against me. But
please to refresh my memory a little; did you say—“in an unjust attempt
to make himself a tyrant”?
POLUS: Yes, I did.
SOCRATES: Then I say that neither of them will be happier than the
other,—neither he who unjustly acquires a tyranny, nor he who suffers
in the attempt, for of two miserables one cannot be the happier, but
that he who escapes and becomes a tyrant is the more miserable of the
two. Do you laugh, Polus? Well, this is a new kind of refutation,—when
any one says anything, instead of refuting him to laugh at him.
POLUS: But do you not think, Socrates, that you have been sufficiently
refuted, when you say that which no human being will allow? Ask the
company.
SOCRATES: O Polus, I am not a public man, and only last year, when my
tribe were serving as Prytanes, and it became my duty as their
president to take the votes, there was a laugh at me, because I was
unable to take them. And as I failed then, you must not ask me to count
the suffrages of the company now; but if, as I was saying, you have no
better argument than numbers, let me have a turn, and do you make trial
of the sort of proof which, as I think, is required; for I shall
produce one witness only of the truth of my words, and he is the person
with whom I am arguing; his suffrage I know how to take; but with the
many I have nothing to do, and do not even address myself to them. May
I ask then whether you will answer in turn and have your words put to
the proof? For I certainly think that I and you and every man do really
believe, that to do is a greater evil than to suffer injustice: and not
to be punished than to be punished.
POLUS: And I should say neither I, nor any man: would you yourself, for
example, suffer rather than do injustice?
SOCRATES: Yes, and you, too; I or any man would.
POLUS: Quite the reverse; neither you, nor I, nor any man.
SOCRATES: But will you answer?
POLUS: To be sure, I will; for I am curious to hear what you can have
to say.
SOCRATES: Tell me, then, and you will know, and let us suppose that I
am beginning at the beginning: which of the two, Polus, in your
opinion, is the worst?—to do injustice or to suffer?
POLUS: I should say that suffering was worst.
SOCRATES: And which is the greater disgrace?—Answer.
POLUS: To do.
SOCRATES: And the greater disgrace is the greater evil?
POLUS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: I understand you to say, if I am not mistaken, that the
honourable is not the same as the good, or the disgraceful as the evil?
POLUS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Let me ask a question of you: When you speak of beautiful
things, such as bodies, colours, figures, sounds, institutions, do you
not call them beautiful in reference to some standard: bodies, for
example, are beautiful in proportion as they are useful, or as the
sight of them gives pleasure to the spectators; can you give any other
account of personal beauty?
POLUS: I cannot.
SOCRATES: And you would say of figures or colours generally that they
were beautiful, either by reason of the pleasure which they give, or of
their use, or of both?
POLUS: Yes, I should.
SOCRATES: And you would call sounds and music beautiful for the same
reason?
POLUS: I should.
SOCRATES: Laws and institutions also have no beauty in them except in
so far as they are useful or pleasant or both?
POLUS: I think not.
SOCRATES: And may not the same be said of the beauty of knowledge?
POLUS: To be sure, Socrates; and I very much approve of your measuring
beauty by the standard of pleasure and utility.
SOCRATES: And deformity or disgrace may be equally measured by the
opposite standard of pain and evil?
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then when of two beautiful things one exceeds in beauty, the
measure of the excess is to be taken in one or both of these; that is
to say, in pleasure or utility or both?
POLUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: And of two deformed things, that which exceeds in deformity