Gorgias
SOCRATES: Yet, surely, Callicles, if you look you will find such a one.
Suppose that we just calmly consider whether any of these was such as I
have described. Will not the good man, who says whatever he says with a
view to the best, speak with a reference to some standard and not at
random; just as all other artists, whether the painter, the builder,
the shipwright, or any other look all of them to their own work, and do
not select and apply at random what they apply, but strive to give a
definite form to it? The artist disposes all things in order, and
compels the one part to harmonize and accord with the other part, until
he has constructed a regular and systematic whole; and this is true of
all artists, and in the same way the trainers and physicians, of whom
we spoke before, give order and regularity to the body: do you deny
this?
CALLICLES: No; I am ready to admit it.
SOCRATES: Then the house in which order and regularity prevail is good;
that in which there is disorder, evil?
CALLICLES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the same is true of a ship?
CALLICLES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the same may be said of the human body?
CALLICLES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And what would you say of the soul? Will the good soul be
that in which disorder is prevalent, or that in which there is harmony
and order?
CALLICLES: The latter follows from our previous admissions.
SOCRATES: What is the name which is given to the effect of harmony and
order in the body?
CALLICLES: I suppose that you mean health and strength?
SOCRATES: Yes, I do; and what is the name which you would give to the
effect of harmony and order in the soul? Try and discover a name for
this as well as for the other.
CALLICLES: Why not give the name yourself, Socrates?
SOCRATES: Well, if you had rather that I should, I will; and you shall
say whether you agree with me, and if not, you shall refute and answer
me. “Healthy,” as I conceive, is the name which is given to the regular
order of the body, whence comes health and every other bodily
excellence: is that true or not?
CALLICLES: True.
SOCRATES: And “lawful” and “law” are the names which are given to the
regular order and action of the soul, and these make men lawful and
orderly:—and so we have temperance and justice: have we not?
CALLICLES: Granted.
SOCRATES: And will not the true rhetorician who is honest and
understands his art have his eye fixed upon these, in all the words
which he addresses to the souls of men, and in all his actions, both in
what he gives and in what he takes away? Will not his aim be to implant
justice in the souls of his citizens and take away injustice, to
implant temperance and take away intemperance, to implant every virtue
and take away every vice? Do you not agree?
CALLICLES: I agree.
SOCRATES: For what use is there, Callicles, in giving to the body of a
sick man who is in a bad state of health a quantity of the most
delightful food or drink or any other pleasant thing, which may be
really as bad for him as if you gave him nothing, or even worse if
rightly estimated. Is not that true?
CALLICLES: I will not say No to it.
SOCRATES: For in my opinion there is no profit in a man’s life if his
body is in an evil plight—in that case his life also is evil: am I not
right?
CALLICLES: Yes.
SOCRATES: When a man is in health the physicians will generally allow
him to eat when he is hungry and drink when he is thirsty, and to
satisfy his desires as he likes, but when he is sick they hardly suffer
him to satisfy his desires at all: even you will admit that?
CALLICLES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And does not the same argument hold of the soul, my good sir?
While she is in a bad state and is senseless and intemperate and unjust
and unholy, her desires ought to be controlled, and she ought to be
prevented from doing anything which does not tend to her own
improvement.
CALLICLES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Such treatment will be better for the soul herself?
CALLICLES: To be sure.
SOCRATES: And to restrain her from her appetites is to chastise her?
CALLICLES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then restraint or chastisement is better for the soul than
intemperance or the absence of control, which you were just now
preferring?
CALLICLES: I do not understand you, Socrates, and I wish that you would
ask some one who does.
SOCRATES: Here is a gentleman who cannot endure to be improved or to
subject himself to that very chastisement of which the argument speaks!
CALLICLES: I do not heed a word of what you are saying, and have only
answered hitherto out of civility to Gorgias.
SOCRATES: What are we to do, then? Shall we break off in the middle?
CALLICLES: You shall judge for yourself.
SOCRATES: Well, but people say that “a tale should have a head and not
break off in the middle,” and I should not like to have the argument
going about without a head (compare Laws); please then to go on a
little longer, and put the head on.
CALLICLES: How tyrannical you are, Socrates! I wish that you and your
argument would rest, or that you would get some one else to argue with
you.
SOCRATES: But who else is willing?—I want to finish the argument.
CALLICLES: Cannot you finish without my help, either talking straight
on, or questioning and answering yourself?
SOCRATES: Must I then say with Epicharmus, “Two men spoke before, but
now one shall be enough”? I suppose that there is absolutely no help.
And if I am to carry on the enquiry by myself, I will first of all
remark that not only I but all of us should have an ambition to know
what is true and what is false in this matter, for the discovery of the
truth is a common good. And now I will proceed to argue according to my
own notion. But if any of you think that I arrive at conclusions which
are untrue you must interpose and refute me, for I do not speak from
any knowledge of what I am saying; I am an enquirer like yourselves,
and therefore, if my opponent says anything which is of force, I shall
be the first to agree with him. I am speaking on the supposition that
the argument ought to be completed; but if you think otherwise let us
leave off and go our ways.
GORGIAS: I think, Socrates, that we should not go our ways until you
have completed the argument; and this appears to me to be the wish of
the rest of the company; I myself should very much like to hear what
more you have to say.
SOCRATES: I too, Gorgias, should have liked to continue the argument
with Callicles, and then I might have given him an “Amphion” in return
for his “Zethus”; but since you, Callicles, are unwilling to continue,
I hope that you will listen, and interrupt me if I seem to you to be in
error. And if you refute me, I shall not be angry with you as you are
with me, but I shall inscribe you as the greatest of benefactors on the
tablets of my soul.
CALLICLES: My good fellow, never mind me, but get on.
SOCRATES: Listen to me, then, while I recapitulate the argument:—Is the
pleasant the same as the good? Not the same. Callicles and I are agreed
about that. And is the pleasant to be pursued for the sake of the good?
or the good for the sake of the pleasant? The pleasant is to be pursued
for the sake of the good. And that is pleasant at the presence of which
we are pleased, and that is good at the presence of which we are good?
To be sure. And we are good, and all good things whatever are good when
some virtue is present in us or them? That, Callicles, is my
conviction. But the virtue of each thing, whether body or soul,
instrument or creature, when given to them in the best way comes to
them not by chance but as the result of the order and truth and art
which are imparted to them: Am I not right? I maintain that I am. And
is not the virtue of each thing dependent on order or arrangement? Yes,
I say. And that which makes a thing good is the proper order inhering
in each thing? Such is my view. And is not the soul which has an order
of her own better than that which has no order? Certainly. And the soul
which has order is orderly? Of course. And that which is orderly is
temperate? Assuredly. And the temperate soul is good? No other answer
can I give, Callicles dear; have you any?
CALLICLES: Go on, my good fellow.
SOCRATES: Then I shall proceed to add, that if the temperate soul is
the good soul, the soul which is in the opposite condition, that is,
the foolish and intemperate, is the bad soul. Very true.
And will not the temperate man do what is proper, both in relation to
the gods and to men;—for he would not be temperate if he did not?
Certainly he will do what is proper. In his relation to other men he
will do what is just; and in his relation to the gods he will do what
is holy; and he who does what is just and holy must be just and holy?
Very true. And must he not be courageous? for the duty of a temperate
man is not to follow or to avoid what he ought not, but what he ought,
whether things or men or pleasures or pains, and patiently to endure
when he ought; and therefore, Callicles, the temperate man, being, as
we have described, also just and courageous and holy, cannot be other
than a perfectly good man, nor can the good man do otherwise than well
and perfectly whatever he does; and he who does well must of necessity
be happy and blessed, and the evil man who does evil, miserable: now
this latter is he whom you were applauding—the intemperate who is the
opposite of the temperate. Such is my position, and these things I
affirm to be true. And if they are true, then I further affirm that he
who desires to be happy must pursue and practise temperance and run
away from intemperance as fast as his legs will carry him: he had
better order his life so as not to need punishment; but if either he or
any of his friends, whether private individual or city, are in need of
punishment, then justice must be done and he must suffer punishment, if
he would be happy. This appears to me to be the aim which a man ought
to have, and towards which he ought to direct all the energies both of
himself and of the state, acting so that he may have temperance and
justice present with him and be happy, not suffering his lusts to be
unrestrained, and in the never-ending desire satisfy them leading a
robber’s life. Such a one is the friend neither of God nor man, for he
is incapable of communion, and he who is incapable of communion is also
incapable of friendship. And philosophers tell us, Callicles, that
communion and friendship and orderliness and temperance and justice
bind together heaven and earth and gods and men, and that this universe
is therefore called Cosmos or order, not disorder or misrule, my
friend. But although you are a philosopher you seem to me never to have
observed that geometrical equality is mighty, both among gods and men;
you think that you ought to cultivate inequality or excess, and do not
care about geometry.—Well, then, either the principle that the happy
are made happy by the possession of justice and temperance, and the
miserable miserable by the possession of vice, must be refuted, or, if
it is granted, what will be the consequences? All the consequences
which I drew before, Callicles, and about which you asked me whether I
was in earnest when I said that a man ought to accuse himself and his
son and his friend if he did anything wrong, and that to this end he
should use his rhetoric—all those consequences are true. And that which
you thought that Polus was led to admit out of modesty is true, viz.,
that, to do injustice, if more disgraceful than to suffer, is in that
degree worse; and the other position, which, according to Polus,
Gorgias admitted out of modesty, that he who would truly be a
rhetorician ought to be just and have a knowledge of justice, has also
turned out to be true.