Gorgias (504)

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?