Gorgias
CALLICLES: Somehow or other your words, Socrates, always appear to me
to be good words; and yet, like the rest of the world, I am not quite
convinced by them. (Compare Symp.: 1 Alcib.)
SOCRATES: The reason is, Callicles, that the love of Demus which abides
in your soul is an adversary to me; but I dare say that if we recur to
these same matters, and consider them more thoroughly, you may be
convinced for all that. Please, then, to remember that there are two
processes of training all things, including body and soul; in the one,
as we said, we treat them with a view to pleasure, and in the other
with a view to the highest good, and then we do not indulge but resist
them: was not that the distinction which we drew?
CALLICLES: Very true.
SOCRATES: And the one which had pleasure in view was just a vulgar
flattery:—was not that another of our conclusions?
CALLICLES: Be it so, if you will have it.
SOCRATES: And the other had in view the greatest improvement of that
which was ministered to, whether body or soul?
CALLICLES: Quite true.
SOCRATES: And must we not have the same end in view in the treatment of
our city and citizens? Must we not try and make them as good as
possible? For we have already discovered that there is no use in
imparting to them any other good, unless the mind of those who are to
have the good, whether money, or office, or any other sort of power, be
gentle and good. Shall we say that?
CALLICLES: Yes, certainly, if you like.
SOCRATES: Well, then, if you and I, Callicles, were intending to set
about some public business, and were advising one another to undertake
buildings, such as walls, docks or temples of the largest size, ought
we not to examine ourselves, first, as to whether we know or do not
know the art of building, and who taught us?—would not that be
necessary, Callicles?
CALLICLES: True.
SOCRATES: In the second place, we should have to consider whether we
had ever constructed any private house, either of our own or for our
friends, and whether this building of ours was a success or not; and if
upon consideration we found that we had had good and eminent masters,
and had been successful in constructing many fine buildings, not only
with their assistance, but without them, by our own unaided skill—in
that case prudence would not dissuade us from proceeding to the
construction of public works. But if we had no master to show, and only
a number of worthless buildings or none at all, then, surely, it would
be ridiculous in us to attempt public works, or to advise one another
to undertake them. Is not this true?
CALLICLES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And does not the same hold in all other cases? If you and I
were physicians, and were advising one another that we were competent
to practise as state-physicians, should I not ask about you, and would
you not ask about me, Well, but how about Socrates himself, has he good
health? and was any one else ever known to be cured by him, whether
slave or freeman? And I should make the same enquiries about you. And
if we arrived at the conclusion that no one, whether citizen or
stranger, man or woman, had ever been any the better for the medical
skill of either of us, then, by Heaven, Callicles, what an absurdity to
think that we or any human being should be so silly as to set up as
state-physicians and advise others like ourselves to do the same,
without having first practised in private, whether successfully or not,
and acquired experience of the art! Is not this, as they say, to begin
with the big jar when you are learning the potter’s art; which is a
foolish thing?
CALLICLES: True.
SOCRATES: And now, my friend, as you are already beginning to be a
public character, and are admonishing and reproaching me for not being
one, suppose that we ask a few questions of one another. Tell me, then,
Callicles, how about making any of the citizens better? Was there ever
a man who was once vicious, or unjust, or intemperate, or foolish, and
became by the help of Callicles good and noble? Was there ever such a
man, whether citizen or stranger, slave or freeman? Tell me, Callicles,
if a person were to ask these questions of you, what would you answer?
Whom would you say that you had improved by your conversation? There
may have been good deeds of this sort which were done by you as a
private person, before you came forward in public. Why will you not
answer?
CALLICLES: You are contentious, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Nay, I ask you, not from a love of contention, but because I
really want to know in what way you think that affairs should be
administered among us—whether, when you come to the administration of
them, you have any other aim but the improvement of the citizens? Have
we not already admitted many times over that such is the duty of a
public man? Nay, we have surely said so; for if you will not answer for
yourself I must answer for you. But if this is what the good man ought
to effect for the benefit of his own state, allow me to recall to you
the names of those whom you were just now mentioning, Pericles, and
Cimon, and Miltiades, and Themistocles, and ask whether you still think
that they were good citizens.
CALLICLES: I do.
SOCRATES: But if they were good, then clearly each of them must have
made the citizens better instead of worse?
CALLICLES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And, therefore, when Pericles first began to speak in the
assembly, the Athenians were not so good as when he spoke last?
CALLICLES: Very likely.
SOCRATES: Nay, my friend, “likely” is not the word; for if he was a
good citizen, the inference is certain.
CALLICLES: And what difference does that make?
SOCRATES: None; only I should like further to know whether the
Athenians are supposed to have been made better by Pericles, or, on the
contrary, to have been corrupted by him; for I hear that he was the
first who gave the people pay, and made them idle and cowardly, and
encouraged them in the love of talk and money.
CALLICLES: You heard that, Socrates, from the laconising set who bruise
their ears.
SOCRATES: But what I am going to tell you now is not mere hearsay, but
well known both to you and me: that at first, Pericles was glorious and
his character unimpeached by any verdict of the Athenians—this was
during the time when they were not so good—yet afterwards, when they
had been made good and gentle by him, at the very end of his life they
convicted him of theft, and almost put him to death, clearly under the
notion that he was a malefactor.
CALLICLES: Well, but how does that prove Pericles’ badness?
SOCRATES: Why, surely you would say that he was a bad manager of asses
or horses or oxen, who had received them originally neither kicking nor
butting nor biting him, and implanted in them all these savage tricks?
Would he not be a bad manager of any animals who received them gentle,
and made them fiercer than they were when he received them? What do you
say?
CALLICLES: I will do you the favour of saying “yes.”
SOCRATES: And will you also do me the favour of saying whether man is
an animal?
CALLICLES: Certainly he is.
SOCRATES: And was not Pericles a shepherd of men?
CALLICLES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And if he was a good political shepherd, ought not the
animals who were his subjects, as we were just now acknowledging, to
have become more just, and not more unjust?
CALLICLES: Quite true.
SOCRATES: And are not just men gentle, as Homer says?—or are you of
another mind?
CALLICLES: I agree.
SOCRATES: And yet he really did make them more savage than he received
them, and their savageness was shown towards himself; which he must
have been very far from desiring.
CALLICLES: Do you want me to agree with you?
SOCRATES: Yes, if I seem to you to speak the truth.
CALLICLES: Granted then.
SOCRATES: And if they were more savage, must they not have been more
unjust and inferior?
CALLICLES: Granted again.
SOCRATES: Then upon this view, Pericles was not a good statesman?
CALLICLES: That is, upon your view.
SOCRATES: Nay, the view is yours, after what you have admitted. Take
the case of Cimon again. Did not the very persons whom he was serving
ostracize him, in order that they might not hear his voice for ten
years? and they did just the same to Themistocles, adding the penalty
of exile; and they voted that Miltiades, the hero of Marathon, should
be thrown into the pit of death, and he was only saved by the Prytanis.
And yet, if they had been really good men, as you say, these things
would never have happened to them. For the good charioteers are not
those who at first keep their place, and then, when they have broken-in
their horses, and themselves become better charioteers, are thrown
out—that is not the way either in charioteering or in any
profession.—What do you think?
CALLICLES: I should think not.
SOCRATES: Well, but if so, the truth is as I have said already, that in
the Athenian State no one has ever shown himself to be a good
statesman—you admitted that this was true of our present statesmen, but
not true of former ones, and you preferred them to the others; yet they
have turned out to be no better than our present ones; and therefore,
if they were rhetoricians, they did not use the true art of rhetoric or
of flattery, or they would not have fallen out of favour.
CALLICLES: But surely, Socrates, no living man ever came near any one
of them in his performances.
SOCRATES: O, my dear friend, I say nothing against them regarded as the
serving-men of the State; and I do think that they were certainly more
serviceable than those who are living now, and better able to gratify
the wishes of the State; but as to transforming those desires and not
allowing them to have their way, and using the powers which they had,
whether of persuasion or of force, in the improvement of their fellow
citizens, which is the prime object of the truly good citizen, I do not
see that in these respects they were a whit superior to our present
statesmen, although I do admit that they were more clever at providing
ships and walls and docks, and all that. You and I have a ridiculous
way, for during the whole time that we are arguing, we are always going
round and round to the same point, and constantly misunderstanding one
another. If I am not mistaken, you have admitted and acknowledged more
than once, that there are two kinds of operations which have to do with
the body, and two which have to do with the soul: one of the two is
ministerial, and if our bodies are hungry provides food for them, and
if they are thirsty gives them drink, or if they are cold supplies them
with garments, blankets, shoes, and all that they crave. I use the same
images as before intentionally, in order that you may understand me the
better. The purveyor of the articles may provide them either wholesale
or retail, or he may be the maker of any of them,—the baker, or the
cook, or the weaver, or the shoemaker, or the currier; and in so doing,
being such as he is, he is naturally supposed by himself and every one
to minister to the body. For none of them know that there is another
art—an art of gymnastic and medicine which is the true minister of the
body, and ought to be the mistress of all the rest, and to use their
results according to the knowledge which she has and they have not, of
the real good or bad effects of meats and drinks on the body. All other
arts which have to do with the body are servile and menial and
illiberal; and gymnastic and medicine are, as they ought to be, their
mistresses. Now, when I say that all this is equally true of the soul,
you seem at first to know and understand and assent to my words, and
then a little while afterwards you come repeating, Has not the State
had good and noble citizens? and when I ask you who they are, you