Gorgias
through his life, to which he conforms all his words and actions; he
desires to implant justice and eradicate injustice, to implant all
virtue and eradicate all vice in the minds of his citizens. He is the
physician who will not allow the sick man to indulge his appetites with
a variety of meats and drinks, but insists on his exercising
self-restraint. And this is good for the soul, and better than the
unrestrained indulgence which Callicles was recently approving.
Here Callicles, who had been with difficulty brought to this point,
turns restive, and suggests that Socrates shall answer his own
questions. “Then,” says Socrates, “one man must do for two;” and though
he had hoped to have given Callicles an “Amphion” in return for his
“Zethus,” he is willing to proceed; at the same time, he hopes that
Callicles will correct him, if he falls into error. He recapitulates
the advantages which he has already won:—
The pleasant is not the same as the good—Callicles and I are agreed
about that,—but pleasure is to be pursued for the sake of the good, and
the good is that of which the presence makes us good; we and all things
good have acquired some virtue or other. And virtue, whether of body or
soul, of things or persons, is not attained by accident, but is due to
order and harmonious arrangement. And the soul which has order is
better than the soul which is without order, and is therefore temperate
and is therefore good, and the intemperate is bad. And he who is
temperate is also just and brave and pious, and has attained the
perfection of goodness and therefore of happiness, and the intemperate
whom you approve is the opposite of all this and is wretched. He
therefore who would be happy must pursue temperance and avoid
intemperance, and if possible escape the necessity of punishment, but
if he have done wrong he must endure punishment. In this way states and
individuals should seek to attain harmony, which, as the wise tell us,
is the bond of heaven and earth, of gods and men. Callicles has never
discovered the power of geometrical proportion in both worlds; he would
have men aim at disproportion and excess. But if he be wrong in this,
and if self-control is the true secret of happiness, then the paradox
is true that the only use of rhetoric is in self-accusation, and Polus
was right in saying that to do wrong is worse than to suffer wrong, and
Gorgias was right in saying that the rhetorician must be a just man.
And you were wrong in taunting me with my defenceless condition, and in
saying that I might be accused or put to death or boxed on the ears
with impunity. For I may repeat once more, that to strike is worse than
to be stricken—to do than to suffer. What I said then is now made fast
in adamantine bonds. I myself know not the true nature of these things,
but I know that no one can deny my words and not be ridiculous. To do
wrong is the greatest of evils, and to suffer wrong is the next
greatest evil. He who would avoid the last must be a ruler, or the
friend of a ruler; and to be the friend he must be the equal of the
ruler, and must also resemble him. Under his protection he will suffer
no evil, but will he also do no evil? Nay, will he not rather do all
the evil which he can and escape? And in this way the greatest of all
evils will befall him. “But this imitator of the tyrant,” rejoins
Callicles, “will kill any one who does not similarly imitate him.”
Socrates replies that he is not deaf, and that he has heard that
repeated many times, and can only reply, that a bad man will kill a
good one. “Yes, and that is the provoking thing.” Not provoking to a
man of sense who is not studying the arts which will preserve him from
danger; and this, as you say, is the use of rhetoric in courts of
justice. But how many other arts are there which also save men from
death, and are yet quite humble in their pretensions—such as the art of
swimming, or the art of the pilot? Does not the pilot do men at least
as much service as the rhetorician, and yet for the voyage from Aegina
to Athens he does not charge more than two obols, and when he
disembarks is quite unassuming in his demeanour? The reason is that he
is not certain whether he has done his passengers any good in saving
them from death, if one of them is diseased in body, and still more if
he is diseased in mind—who can say? The engineer too will often save
whole cities, and yet you despise him, and would not allow your son to
marry his daughter, or his son to marry yours. But what reason is there
in this? For if virtue only means the saving of life, whether your own
or another’s, you have no right to despise him or any practiser of
saving arts. But is not virtue something different from saving and
being saved? I would have you rather consider whether you ought not to
disregard length of life, and think only how you can live best, leaving
all besides to the will of Heaven. For you must not expect to have
influence either with the Athenian Demos or with Demos the son of
Pyrilampes, unless you become like them. What do you say to this?
“There is some truth in what you are saying, but I do not entirely
believe you.”
That is because you are in love with Demos. But let us have a little
more conversation. You remember the two processes—one which was
directed to pleasure, the other which was directed to making men as
good as possible. And those who have the care of the city should make
the citizens as good as possible. But who would undertake a public
building, if he had never had a teacher of the art of building, and had
never constructed a building before? or who would undertake the duty of
state-physician, if he had never cured either himself or any one else?
Should we not examine him before we entrusted him with the office? And
as Callicles is about to enter public life, should we not examine him?
Whom has he made better? For we have already admitted that this is the
statesman’s proper business. And we must ask the same question about
Pericles, and Cimon, and Miltiades, and Themistocles. Whom did they
make better? Nay, did not Pericles make the citizens worse? For he gave
them pay, and at first he was very popular with them, but at last they
condemned him to death. Yet surely he would be a bad tamer of animals
who, having received them gentle, taught them to kick and butt, and man
is an animal; and Pericles who had the charge of man only made him
wilder, and more savage and unjust, and therefore he could not have
been a good statesman. The same tale might be repeated about Cimon,
Themistocles, Miltiades. But the charioteer who keeps his seat at first
is not thrown out when he gains greater experience and skill. The
inference is, that the statesman of a past age were no better than
those of our own. They may have been cleverer constructors of docks and
harbours, but they did not improve the character of the citizens. I
have told you again and again (and I purposely use the same images)
that the soul, like the body, may be treated in two ways—there is the
meaner and the higher art. You seemed to understand what I said at the
time, but when I ask you who were the really good statesmen, you
answer—as if I asked you who were the good trainers, and you answered,
Thearion, the baker, Mithoecus, the author of the Sicilian
cookery-book, Sarambus, the vintner. And you would be affronted if I
told you that these are a parcel of cooks who make men fat only to make
them thin. And those whom they have fattened applaud them, instead of
finding fault with them, and lay the blame of their subsequent
disorders on their physicians. In this respect, Callicles, you are like
them; you applaud the statesmen of old, who pandered to the vices of
the citizens, and filled the city with docks and harbours, but
neglected virtue and justice. And when the fit of illness comes, the
citizens who in like manner applauded Themistocles, Pericles, and
others, will lay hold of you and my friend Alcibiades, and you will
suffer for the misdeeds of your predecessors. The old story is always
being repeated—“after all his services, the ungrateful city banished
him, or condemned him to death.” As if the statesman should not have
taught the city better! He surely cannot blame the state for having
unjustly used him, any more than the sophist or teacher can find fault
with his pupils if they cheat him. And the sophist and orator are in
the same case; although you admire rhetoric and despise sophistic,
whereas sophistic is really the higher of the two. The teacher of the
arts takes money, but the teacher of virtue or politics takes no money,
because this is the only kind of service which makes the disciple
desirous of requiting his teacher.
Socrates concludes by finally asking, to which of the two modes of
serving the state Callicles invites him:—“to the inferior and
ministerial one,” is the ingenuous reply. That is the only way of
avoiding death, replies Socrates; and he has heard often enough, and
would rather not hear again, that the bad man will kill the good. But
he thinks that such a fate is very likely reserved for him, because he
remarks that he is the only person who teaches the true art of
politics. And very probably, as in the case which he described to
Polus, he may be the physician who is tried by a jury of children. He
cannot say that he has procured the citizens any pleasure, and if any
one charges him with perplexing them, or with reviling their elders, he
will not be able to make them understand that he has only been actuated
by a desire for their good. And therefore there is no saying what his
fate may be. “And do you think that a man who is unable to help himself
is in a good condition?” Yes, Callicles, if he have the true self-help,
which is never to have said or done any wrong to himself or others. If
I had not this kind of self-help, I should be ashamed; but if I die for
want of your flattering rhetoric, I shall die in peace. For death is no
evil, but to go to the world below laden with offences is the worst of
evils. In proof of which I will tell you a tale:—
Under the rule of Cronos, men were judged on the day of their death,
and when judgment had been given upon them they departed—the good to
the islands of the blest, the bad to the house of vengeance. But as
they were still living, and had their clothes on at the time when they
were being judged, there was favouritism, and Zeus, when he came to the
throne, was obliged to alter the mode of procedure, and try them after
death, having first sent down Prometheus to take away from them the
foreknowledge of death. Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus were appointed
to be the judges; Rhadamanthus for Asia, Aeacus for Europe, and Minos
was to hold the court of appeal. Now death is the separation of soul
and body, but after death soul and body alike retain their
characteristics; the fat man, the dandy, the branded slave, are all
distinguishable. Some prince or potentate, perhaps even the great king
himself, appears before Rhadamanthus, and he instantly detects him,
though he knows not who he is; he sees the scars of perjury and
iniquity, and sends him away to the house of torment.
For there are two classes of souls who undergo punishment—the curable
and the incurable. The curable are those who are benefited by their
punishment; the incurable are such as Archelaus, who benefit others by
becoming a warning to them. The latter class are generally kings and
potentates; meaner persons, happily for themselves, have not the same
power of doing injustice. Sisyphus and Tityus, not Thersites, are
supposed by Homer to be undergoing everlasting punishment. Not that
there is anything to prevent a great man from being a good one, as is
shown by the famous example of Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus. But