Gorgias (502-506)

Soc.

And what of choral productions and dithyrambic compositions? Are they not manifestly, in your view, of the same kind? Or do you suppose Cinesias,[*] son of Meles, cares a jot about trying to say things of a sort that might be improving to his audience,

or only what is likely to gratify the crowd of spectators?

Call.

Clearly the latter is the case, Socrates, with Cinesias.

Soc.

And what of his father Meles? Did he ever strike you as looking to what was best in his minstrelsy? Or did he, perhaps, not even make the pleasantest his aim? For his singing used to be a pain to the audience. But consider now: do you not think that all minstrelsy and composing of dithyrambs have been invented for the sake of pleasure?

Call.

I do.

Soc.

Then what of the purpose that has inspired our stately and wonderful tragic poetry? Are her endeavor and purpose, to your mind, merely for the gratification of the spectators, or does she strive hard, if there be anything pleasant and gratifying, but bad for them, to leave that unsaid, and if there be anything unpleasant, but beneficial, both to speak and sing that, whether they enjoy it or not? To which of these two aims, think you, is tragic poetry devoted ?

Call.

It is quite obvious, in her case, Socrates, that

she is bent rather upon pleasure and the gratification of the spectators.

Soc.

Well now, that kind of thing, Callicles, did we say just now, is flattery ?

Call.

Certainly.

Soc.

Pray then, if we strip any kind of poetry of its melody, its rhythm and its meter, we get mere speeches as the residue, do we not?

Call.

That must be so.

Soc.

And those speeches are spoken to a great crowd of people?

Call.

Yes.

Soc.

Hence poetry is a kind of public speaking.

Call.

Apparently.

Soc.

Then it must be a rhetorical public speaking or do you not think that the poets use rhetoric in the theaters?

Call.

Yes, I do.

Soc.

So now we have found a kind of rhetoric addressed to such a public as is compounded of children and women and men, and slaves as well as free; an art that we do not quite approve of, since we call it a flattering one.

Call.

To be sure.

Soc.

Very well; but now, the rhetoric addressed to the Athenian people,

or to the other assemblies of freemen in the various cities—what can we make of that? Do the orators strike you as speaking always with a view to what is best, with the single aim of making the citizens as good as possible by their speeches, or are they, like the poets, set on gratifying the citizens, and do they, sacrificing the common weal to their own personal interest, behave to these assemblies as to children, trying merely to gratify them, nor care a jot whether they will be better or worse in consequence?

Call.

This question of yours is not quite so simple; for there are some who have a regard for the citizens in the words that they utter, while there are also others of the sort that you mention.

Soc.

That is enough for me. For if this thing also is twofold, one part of it, I presume, will be flattery and a base mob-oratory, while the other is noble—the endeavor, that is, to make the citizens’ souls as good as possible, and the persistent effort to say what is best, whether it prove more or less pleasant to one’s hearers.

But this is a rhetoric you never yet saw; or if you have any orator of this kind that you can mention, without more ado let me know who he is!

Call.

No, upon my word, I cannot tell you of anyone, at least among the orators of today.

Soc.

Well then, can you mention one among those of older times whom the Athenians have to thank for any betterment that started at the time of his first harangues, as a change from the worse state in which he originally found them? For my part, I have no idea who the man is.

Call.

Why, do you hear no mention of Themistocles and what a good man he was, and Cimon and Miltiades and the great Pericles, who has died recently,[*] and whom you have listened to yourself?

Soc.

Yes, Callicles, if that which you spoke of just now is true virtue—the satisfaction of one’s own and other men’s desires; but if that is not so, and the truth is—as we were compelled to admit in the subsequent discussion—that only those desires

which make man better by their satisfaction should be fulfilled, but those which make him worse should not, and that this is a special art, then I for one cannot tell you of any man so skilled having appeared among them.

Call.

Ah, but if you search properly you will find one.

Soc.

Then let us just consider the matter calmly, and see if any of them has appeared with that skill. Come now: the good man, who is intent on the best when he speaks, will surely not speak at random in whatever he says, but with a view to some object?

He is just like any other craftsman, who having his own particular work in view selects the things he applies to that work of his, not at random, but with the purpose of giving a certain form to whatever he is working upon.

Soc.

You have only to look, for example, at the painters, the builders, the shipwrights, or any of the other craftsmen, whichever you like, to see how each of them arranges everything according to a certain order, and forces one part to suit and fit with another, until he has combined

the whole into a regular and well-ordered production; and so of course with all the other craftsmen, and the people we mentioned just now, who have to do with the body—trainers and doctors; they too, I suppose, bring order and system into the body. Do we admit this to be the case, or not?

Call.

Let it be as you say.

Soc.

Then if regularity and order are found in a house, it will be a good one, and if irregularity, a bad one?

Call.

I agree.

Soc.

And it will be just the same with a ship?

Call.

Yes.

Soc.

And further, with our bodies also, can we say?

Call.

Certainly.

Soc.

And what of the soul? If it shows irregularity, will it be good, or if it has a certain regularity and order?

Call.

Our former statements oblige us to agree to this also.

Soc.

Then what name do we give to the effect of regularity and order in the body?

Call.

Health and strength, I suppose you mean.

Soc.

I do. And what, again, to the effect produced in the soul by regularity and order? Try to find the name here, and tell it me as before.

Call.

Why not name it yourself, Socrates ?

Soc.

Well, if you prefer it, I will; and do you, if I seem to you to name it rightly, say so; if not, you must refute me and not let me have my way. For it seems to me that any regularity of the body is called healthiness, and this leads to health being produced in it, and general bodily excellence. Is that so or not?

Call.

It is.

Soc.

And the regular and orderly states of the soul are called lawfulness and law, whereby men are similarly made law-abiding and orderly; and these states are justice and temperance. Do you agree or not?

Call.

Be it so.

Soc.

Then it is this that our orator, the man of art and virtue, will have in view, when he applies to our souls the words that he speaks, and also in all his actions, and in giving any gift he will give it, and in taking anything away he will take it, with this thought always before his mind—

how justice may be engendered in the souls of his fellow-citizens, and how injustice may be removed; how temperance may be bred in them and licentiousness cut off; and how virtue as a whole may be produced and vice expelled. Do you agree to this or not?

Call.

I agree.

Soc.

For what advantage is there, Callicles, in giving to a sick and ill-conditioned body a quantity of even the most agreeable things to eat and drink, or anything else whatever, if it is not going to profit thereby any more, let us say, than by the opposite treatment, on any fair reckoning, and may profit less? Is this so?

Call.

Be it so.

Soc.

Because, I imagine, it is no gain for a man to live in a depraved state of body, since in this case his life must be a depraved one also. Or is not that the case?

Call.

Yes.

Soc.

And so the satisfaction of one’s desires—if one is hungry, eating as much as one likes, or if thirsty, drinking—is generally allowed by doctors when one is in health; but they practically never allow one in sickness to take one’s fill of things that one desires: do you agree with me in this?

Call.

I do.

Soc.

And does not the same rule, my excellent friend, apply to the soul? So long as it is in a bad state—thoughtless, licentious, unjust and unholy—we must restrain its desires and not permit it to do anything except what will help it to be better: do you grant this, or not?

Call.

I do.

Soc.

For thus, I take it, the soul itself is better off?

Call.

To be sure.

Soc.

And is restraining a person from what he desires correcting him?

Call.

Yes.

Soc.

Then correction is better for the soul than uncorrected licence, as you were thinking just now.

Call.

I have no notion what you are referring to, Socrates; do ask some one else.

Soc.

Here is a fellow who cannot endure a kindness done him, or the experience in himself of what our talk is about—a correction!

Call.

Well, and not a jot do I care, either, for anything you say; I only gave you those answers to oblige Gorgias.

Soc.

Very good. So now, what shall we do? Break off our argument midway?

Call.

You must decide that for yourself.

Soc.

Why, they say one does wrong to leave off even stories in the middle; one should set a head on the thing, that it may not go about headless. So proceed with the rest of your answers, that our argument may pick up a head.

Call.

How overbearing you are, Socrates! Take my advice, and let this argument drop, or find some one else to argue with.

Soc.

Then who else is willing? Surely we must not leave the argument there, unfinished?

Call.

Could you not get through it yourself, either talking on by yourself or answering your own questions?

Soc.

So that, in Epicharmus’s phrase,[*]

what two men spake erewhile

I may prove I can manage single-handed. And indeed it looks as though it must of sheer necessity be so. Still, if we are to do this, for my part I think we ought all to vie with each other in attempting a knowledge of what is true and what false in the matter of our argument; for it is a benefit to all alike that it be revealed.

Soc.

Now I am going to pursue the argument

as my view of it may suggest; but if any of you think the admissions I am making to myself are not the truth, you must seize upon them and refute me. For I assure you I myself do not say what I say as knowing it, but as joining in the search with you; so that if anyone who disputes my statements is found to be on the right track, I shall be the first to agree with him. This, however, I say on the assumption that you think the argument should be carried through to a conclusion; but if you would rather it were not, let us have done with it now and go our ways.

Gorg.

Well, my opinion is, Socrates,

that we ought not to go away yet, but that you should go through with the argument; and I fancy the rest of them think the same. For I myself, in fact, desire to hear you going through the remainder by yourself.

Soc.

Why, to be sure, Gorgias, I myself should have liked to continue discussing with Callicles here until I had paid him an Amphion’s speech in return for his of Zethus.[*] But since you, Callicles, are unwilling to join me in finishing off the argument, you must at any rate pull me up, as you listen, if it seems to you that my statements are wrong.

And if you refute me, I shall not be vexed with you as you were with me; you will only be recorded in my mind as my greatest benefactor.

Call.

Proceed, good sir, by yourself, and finish it off.

Soc.

Give ear, then; but first I will resume our argument from the beginning. Are the pleasant and the good the same thing? Not the same, as Callicles and I agreed. Is the pleasant thing to be done for the sake of the good, or the good for the sake of the pleasant? The pleasant for the sake of the good.

And is that thing pleasant by whose advent we are pleased, and that thing good by whose presence we are good? Certainly. But further, both we and everything else that is good, are good by the advent of some virtue? In my view this must be so, Callicles. But surely the virtue of each thing, whether of an implement or of a body, or again of a soul or any live creature, does not arrive most properly by accident, but by an order or rightness or art that is apportioned to each. Is that so? I certainly agree. Then the virtue of each thing is a matter of regular and orderly arrangement? I at least should say so. Hence it is a certain order proper to each existent thing that by its advent in each makes it good? That is my view. So then a soul which has its own proper order is better than one which is unordered? Necessarily. But further, one that has order is orderly? Of course it will be.