The Conversation with Gorgias

Arrival, and Polus Praises without Defining

Callicles

They say this is the way to join a war or a battle, Socrates.

Socrates

But have we really come, as the saying goes, after the feast, and are we too late?

Callicles

And a very elegant feast indeed; Gorgias just now gave us a display of many fine things.

Socrates

Well, Callicles, Chaerephon here is to blame for that — he made us waste time in the marketplace.

Chaerephon

No trouble, Socrates; I'll set it right myself. Gorgias is a friend of mine, so he'll perform for us — now, if he likes, or later, if you'd rather.

Callicles

What is it, Chaerephon? Does Socrates want to hear Gorgias?

Chaerephon

That's exactly what we're here for.

Callicles

Well then, come to my house whenever you like — Gorgias is staying with me and will give you all a display.

Socrates

Good, Callicles. But would he be willing to talk with us? I want to find out from him what the power of the man's craft is, and what it is that he professes and teaches; the rest of his display he can give some other time, as you say.

Callicles

There's nothing like asking him yourself, Socrates. In fact this was itself part of his display — he was just now urging anyone inside to ask whatever they wanted, and said he would answer everything.

Socrates

Well said. Chaerephon, ask him.

Chaerephon

Ask him what?

Socrates

Who he is.

Chaerephon

What do you mean?

Socrates

Say he happened to be a maker of sandals — he'd surely answer you that he's a cobbler; or don't you follow what I mean?

Chaerephon

I understand, and I'll ask. Tell me, Gorgias, is Callicles here telling the truth, that you profess to answer whatever anyone asks you?

Gorgias

It's true, Chaerephon — I was just now professing this very thing, and I say that no one has asked me anything new in many years.

Chaerephon

Then you must find it easy to answer, Gorgias.

Gorgias

You're welcome to put that to the test, Chaerephon.

Polus

By Zeus — or if you'd rather, Chaerephon, test me. Gorgias seems to me worn out, in fact — he's just been through a great deal.

Chaerephon

What is it, Polus? Do you think you'd answer better than Gorgias?

Polus

What does that matter, if it's enough for you?

Chaerephon

Nothing — but since you want to, go ahead and answer.

Polus

Ask.

Chaerephon

All right, I'm asking. If Gorgias happened to know the same craft as his brother Herodicus, what would we rightly call him? Wouldn't it be what we call him?

Polus

Certainly.

Chaerephon

Then we'd be right to call him a doctor.

Polus

Yes.

Chaerephon

And if he had the skill of Aristophon son of Aglaophon, or of his brother, what would we rightly call him?

Polus

Clearly a painter.

Chaerephon

But as it is, since he's knowledgeable in some craft, what would we call him, to name him rightly?

Polus

Chaerephon, there are many crafts among men, worked out from experience, in an experienced way — for knack makes our lifetime proceed by craft, while lack of experience makes it proceed by chance. Different people share in each of these in different ways, and the best people share in the best of them; and Gorgias here is one of these, and has a share in the finest of the crafts.

Socrates

Polus certainly seems well prepared for speeches, Gorgias — but he isn't doing what he promised Chaerephon.

Gorgias

What do you mean exactly, Socrates?

Socrates

He doesn't seem to me to be answering the question he's been asked at all.

Gorgias

Well, ask him yourself, if you like.

Socrates

No — not if you're willing to answer yourself; I'd much rather it were you. Because it's clear to me from what Polus has said that he's practiced what's called rhetoric more than he's practiced conversation.

Polus

Why do you say that, Socrates?

Socrates

Because, Polus, when Chaerephon asked what craft Gorgias has knowledge of, you praised his craft as though someone were finding fault with it, but you didn't answer what it actually is.

Polus

Didn't I answer that it's the finest one?

Socrates

You certainly did. But no one is asking what kind of craft Gorgias's craft is, but what it is, and what we ought to call Gorgias — just as Chaerephon put it to you before, and you answered him well and briefly, so now tell me the same way: what is the craft, and what must we call Gorgias? Or rather, Gorgias, tell us yourself what we should call you, as someone with knowledge of what craft.

Gorgias

Of rhetoric, Socrates.

Socrates

Then we should call you an orator?

Gorgias

A good one, Socrates, if you want to call me what I pray to be, as Homer put it.

Socrates

Well, I do want to.

Gorgias

Then call me that.

Rhetoric Defined, and Tested Against the Other Crafts

Socrates

And should we say you're able to make others so too?

Gorgias

Yes, that's exactly what I profess — not only here, but elsewhere too.

Socrates

Would you be willing, Gorgias, to keep going the way we're talking now, one of us asking and the other answering, and set aside for another time that lengthy kind of speech Polus started with? But don't break your promise — be willing to answer briefly, whatever you're asked.

Gorgias

Some answers, Socrates, do need to be given at length; all the same, I'll try to be as brief as I can. In fact this is itself one of the things I claim — that no one could say the same things in fewer words than I can.

Socrates

That's exactly what's needed, Gorgias — give me a display of this very thing, brevity of speech, and save length for another time.

Gorgias

I will — and you'll say you've never heard anyone briefer.

Socrates

Come, then — you say you have knowledge of the craft of rhetoric and could make another person an orator too; what thing among the things there are does rhetoric turn out to be concerned with? The way weaving is concerned with the working of cloth — isn't that right?

Gorgias

Yes.

Socrates

And music is concerned with the composing of tunes?

Gorgias

Yes.

Socrates

By Hera, Gorgias, I do admire your answers — you answer as briefly as anyone could.

Gorgias

Yes, I think I do that reasonably well, Socrates.

Socrates

Good. Now answer me the same way about rhetoric: what among the things there are is it knowledge of?

Gorgias

Of speeches.

Socrates

What sort of speeches, Gorgias? The ones that show the sick how they might get well by following a regimen?

Gorgias

No.

Socrates

Then rhetoric isn't concerned with all speeches.

Gorgias

No, certainly not.

Socrates

But it does make people capable of speaking.

Gorgias

Yes.

Socrates

And also capable of understanding the very things they speak about?

Gorgias

Of course.

Socrates

Now does the craft we just mentioned — medicine — make people able to understand and speak about the sick?

Gorgias

It must.

Socrates

So medicine too, it seems, is concerned with speeches.

Gorgias

Yes.

Socrates

The ones about diseases?

Gorgias

Exactly.

Socrates

And physical training too is concerned with speeches about the good and bad condition of bodies?

Gorgias

Certainly.

Socrates

And indeed the other crafts too, Gorgias, are like this — each of them is concerned with the speeches that happen to be about the very subject matter of that craft.

Gorgias

So it appears.

Socrates

Then why in the world don't you call the other crafts forms of rhetoric too, since they're concerned with speeches, if you call this one rhetoric just because it's concerned with speeches?

Gorgias

Because, Socrates, the knowledge involved in the other crafts is, so to speak, entirely about manual work and actions of that kind, but rhetoric has no such manual work at all — its whole action and effect comes through speech. That's why I hold that the craft of rhetoric is concerned with speeches — and I'm speaking correctly, or so I claim.

Socrates

So do I understand what you want to call it? I'll soon know more clearly. But answer me: we have crafts. Isn't that so?

Gorgias

Yes.

Socrates

Of all the crafts, I think, some are mostly manual work and need little speech, while some need none at all — the work of the craft could be carried out even in silence, like painting and sculpture and many others. It's crafts like these you seem to me to mean, the ones you say rhetoric isn't concerned with — or not?

Gorgias

You've understood me very well indeed, Socrates.

Socrates

But there are other crafts that accomplish everything through speech, and need, so to speak, either no work at all or very little — arithmetic, calculation, geometry, and board games too, and many other crafts — some of which have speeches roughly equal to their actions, most have more, and in general their whole action and effect comes through speech. It's one of these that you seem to me to mean by rhetoric.

Gorgias

That's true.

Socrates

But I do not think you actually want to call any of these rhetoric — not that you did not say, in those very words, that whatever has its effect through speech is rhetoric, so that someone could object, wanting to be difficult in argument, then you call arithmetic rhetoric too, Gorgias? No, I don't think you mean to call either arithmetic or geometry rhetoric.

Gorgias

You're right to think so, Socrates, and fair to take it that way.

Socrates

Now you too, go ahead and complete the answer I asked for. Since rhetoric happens to be one of these crafts that rely mostly on speech, and other crafts happen to be like this too, try to say what rhetoric is, the one whose effect in speech is concerned with what. Just as if someone asked me, about any of the crafts I just mentioned: Socrates, what is the craft of arithmetic? I would tell him, as you just did, that it is one of those whose effect comes through speech. And if he asked me further: concerned with what? I would say it is concerned with the odd and the even — [a knowledge of] however many each of them turns out to be. And if he asked again: and what craft do you call calculation? I would say that this one too is among those whose whole effect is settled by speech, and if he asked further: concerned with what? I would say, like the men who draft decrees in the assembly, that calculation is like arithmetic in other respects, since it is concerned with the same thing, the odd and the even, but differs this much: it also examines how much the odd and the even amount to, both in themselves and against each other. And if someone asked about astronomy, when I said that it too has everything settled by speech, and he then said: and what are the speeches of astronomy about, Socrates? I would say they are about the motion of the stars and the sun and the moon, and how their speeds compare to one another.

Gorgias

You're right, Socrates.

Socrates

Now it's your turn, Gorgias. Rhetoric, as it happens, is one of the crafts that accomplish and settle everything through speech — isn't that so?

Gorgias

That's so.

Socrates

Tell me, then: concerned with what? ⟨What⟩ is this thing, among the things there are, that these speeches rhetoric uses are about?

Gorgias

The greatest and best of human affairs, Socrates.

Socrates

But, Gorgias, that's still disputable, and not at all clear yet. I think you've heard, at drinking parties, men singing that drinking song in which they list, as they sing, that being healthy is best, being fine second, and third, as the poet of the song says, being rich without deceit.

Gorgias

I have heard it — but why do you say this?

Socrates

Suppose the craftsmen of what that drinking song praised stood right there before you — a doctor, a trainer, and a moneymaker — and the doctor spoke first: Socrates, Gorgias is deceiving you, since his craft is not concerned with the greatest good for human beings, but mine is — and suppose I then asked him: and who are you, to say this? He would probably say a doctor. So what are you saying? Is the product of your craft the greatest good? Of course, he'd probably say, Socrates — health. And what greater good is there for people than health? And if after him the trainer said: I would myself be surprised, Socrates, if Gorgias could show you a greater good from his own craft than I can from mine — I would say to him in turn: and who exactly are you, my friend, and what is your product? A trainer, he would say, and my product is making people's bodies fine and strong. After the trainer the moneymaker would speak up, looking down on absolutely everyone, I imagine: just consider, Socrates, whether any good greater than wealth turns up for you, from Gorgias or from anyone else at all. So we would say to him: well, what of it? Are you the craftsman of this? He would say so. Being who? A moneymaker. Well then? Do you judge wealth to be the greatest good for human beings? We shall ask him. Of course it is. He'll say so. And yet Gorgias here claims that his own craft is responsible for a greater good than yours, we would say. Clearly the next thing he would ask is: and what is this good? Let Gorgias answer. So, Gorgias, taking it that you're being asked both by them and by me, answer: what is this thing you say is the greatest good for human beings, of which you are the craftsman?

Gorgias

Exactly what is, in truth, the greatest good, Socrates, and the cause at once of freedom for people themselves, and of each of them ruling over others in his own city.

Socrates

Then what exactly do you mean by that?

Persuasion Is Belief, Not Knowledge

Gorgias

I mean the ability to persuade with speeches — jurors in a courtroom, councillors in a council-chamber, assemblymen in an assembly, and every other gathering there is, whatever kind of political gathering it turns out to be. And yet with that power you will have the doctor as your slave, and the trainer as your slave too; and as for that businessman, he will turn out to be making his money for someone else, not for himself — for you, the one able to speak and persuade the masses.

Socrates

Now, Gorgias, I think you've made fairly clear what kind of craft you take rhetoric to be — if I understand you, you're saying rhetoric is a producer of persuasion, and that its whole business and its sum total comes down to that; or can you say that rhetoric is able to do anything more than produce persuasion for the soul of the listener?

Gorgias

Not at all, Socrates — I think you've defined it well enough, since that is indeed its sum total.

Socrates

Listen, then, Gorgias. Be assured that, as I persuade myself, if anyone ever converses with anyone wanting truly to know the very thing the discussion is about, I am one of those people — and I expect the same of you.

Gorgias

What is it, then, Socrates?

Socrates

I'll tell you now. The persuasion that comes from rhetoric — whatever it is that you mean, and whatever sort of things it's persuasion about — I certainly don't know for sure, though I do have a guess as to what you mean and what it concerns; but I'll ask you all the same what you mean by the persuasion that comes from rhetoric, and what it's about. Now why am I asking you, when I have my own guess, instead of just saying it myself? Not for your sake, but for the sake of the argument, so that it proceeds in whatever way will make the subject clearest to us. Consider whether you think I'm right to press you this way — suppose I happened to be asking you who Zeuxis is among painters, and you told me he's the one who paints animals, wouldn't I be right to ask further which animals, and where?

Gorgias

Quite so.

Socrates

Is that because there are other painters too, painting many other animals?

Gorgias

Yes.

Socrates

But if no one painted except Zeuxis, would your answer have been a good one?

Gorgias

How could it not?

Socrates

Come now, tell me about rhetoric too: do you think persuasion is produced by rhetoric alone, or by other crafts as well? What I mean is this: whoever teaches any subject at all — does what he teaches persuade, or not?

Gorgias

Certainly it does, Socrates — more than anything.

Socrates

Let's go back, then, to the same crafts we just mentioned — doesn't arithmetic teach us how many things there are, in number, and the arithmetician too?

Gorgias

Certainly.

Socrates

And doesn't it also persuade?

Gorgias

Yes.

Socrates

So arithmetic too is a producer of persuasion?

Gorgias

So it appears.

Socrates

So if someone asks us what kind of persuasion, and about what, we'll answer him, I suppose, that it's the teaching kind, about how much odd and even there is; and we'll be able to show that all the other crafts we just mentioned are producers of persuasion too, and of what kind, and about what — isn't that so?

Gorgias

Yes.

Socrates

So rhetoric isn't the only producer of persuasion.

Gorgias

True.

Socrates

Since, then, it isn't the only thing that produces this effect, but other crafts do too, we would rightly ask the same further question we asked about the painter: rhetoric is a craft producing what kind of persuasion, and about what? Or don't you think it's right to ask that further?

Gorgias

I do.

Socrates

Answer, then, Gorgias, since that's how it seems to you too.

Gorgias

I mean that persuasion, Socrates — the kind used in courtrooms and other crowds, as I said just now — and it concerns what is just and unjust.

Socrates

I did suspect you meant that persuasion, Gorgias, and about those things; but so that you won't be surprised if I ask you something similar again shortly, something that seems obvious enough but which I nonetheless ask again — as I say, I ask it for the sake of carrying the argument through in order, not for your sake, but so that we don't get into the habit of guessing ahead and snatching the words out of each other's mouths; rather, you can carry through your own position however you like.

Gorgias

And I think you're right to do that, Socrates.

Socrates

Come, then, let's look at this too. Do you speak of having learned something?

Gorgias

I do.

Socrates

And what about this? Believing something?

Gorgias

I do.

Socrates

Do you think having learned and believing are the same thing, then, and learning and belief, or something different?

Gorgias

I think they're different myself, Socrates.

Socrates

You're right to think so; you'll see from this. If someone were to ask you: Gorgias, is there such a thing as a false belief and a true one? You'd say yes, I imagine.

Gorgias

Yes.

Socrates

And what about this? Is there a knowledge that's false and one that's true?

Gorgias

Not at all.

Socrates

So it's clear again that they're not the same thing.

Gorgias

True.

Socrates

But surely those who have learned have been convinced, and so have those who have merely come to believe.

Gorgias

That's so.

Socrates

Do you want us, then, to set down two kinds of persuasion — one that supplies belief without knowing, and one that supplies knowledge?

Gorgias

Certainly.

Socrates

So which kind of persuasion does rhetoric produce in courtrooms and other crowds, about what is just and unjust? The kind that gives rise to believing without knowing, or the kind that gives knowledge?

Gorgias

Clearly, Socrates, the kind that gives believing.

Socrates

So rhetoric, it seems, is a producer of persuasion that makes people believe, not one that teaches them, about the just and the unjust.

Gorgias

Yes.

Socrates

So the orator isn't a teacher of juries and the other crowds about what's just and unjust, only a producer of belief — since surely he couldn't teach a crowd that large such important matters in so short a time.

Gorgias

Not at all.

Socrates

Come, then, let's look at what we're actually saying about rhetoric — I myself still can't quite work out what I mean by it. When the city holds an assembly to choose doctors, or shipbuilders, or some other body of craftsmen, surely the orator won't be the one giving advice then? For clearly, in each such choice, it's the most skilled person who ought to be chosen. Nor when it's a matter of building walls, or constructing harbours or dockyards — there it's the engineers; nor again when the advice concerns choosing generals, or how to deploy against an enemy, or seizing ground — there it's the generals who will give the advice, and not the orators; or how do you account for such cases, Gorgias? Since you say yourself that you're an orator and that you make other men into orators, it's only right to find out the facts of your craft from you. And believe that right now I'm working for your interest as well as my own; because it may well be that one of the people here wants to become your student — I sense quite a few of them do, in fact — and they might well be too embarrassed to question you themselves. So when I question you, take it that they're questioning you too — Gorgias, what will we get out of it, if we study with you? On what matters will we be able to advise the city? Only about the just and the unjust, or about the other things Socrates just mentioned too? Try, then, to answer for their sake.

Gorgias

Well, I'll try to reveal the whole power of rhetoric to you clearly, Socrates — you yourself have led the way to it nicely. You surely know that these dockyards and the walls of Athens, and the construction of the harbours, came about through the advice of Themistocles, and some through that of Pericles — not through the craftsmen.

Socrates

That's what's said about Themistocles, Gorgias; and as for Pericles, I myself heard him when he advised us about the middle wall.

Gorgias Boasts of Rhetoric's Power, and Contradicts Himself

Gorgias

And whenever there's a choice to be made of the kind you were just talking about, Socrates, you'll see that it's the orators who give the advice, and who carry the vote on these matters.

Socrates

It's exactly because I find that astonishing, Gorgias, that I've been asking all along what the power of rhetoric actually is. Looking at it this way, its scale strikes me as something almost superhuman.

Gorgias

If you knew everything about it, Socrates, you'd see that it gathers up under itself, one might say, every other power there is. And I'll give you a striking proof of it: many times now I've gone in with my brother, or with other doctors, to see some patient who wouldn't drink his medicine, or let the doctor cut or cauterize him, and when the doctor couldn't persuade him, I did — by no other craft than rhetoric. And I say that if an orator and a doctor went to any city you like, and had to compete in speech before the assembly or some other gathering over which of them should be chosen as doctor, the doctor would be nowhere in the running, and the one able to speak would be chosen instead, if he wanted it. And if he competed against any other craftsman whatever, the orator would persuade them to choose him over anyone else; there's no subject on which the orator couldn't speak more persuasively than any other craftsman, before a crowd. So great and so remarkable, then, is the power of this craft; one must, however, Socrates, use rhetoric as one would any other competitive skill. For with any other competitive skill, too, one shouldn't use it against everyone just because one has learned boxing, or wrestling, or fighting in armour, so as to be stronger than both friends and enemies — that's no reason to strike one's friends, or stab and kill them. And by god, if someone goes to the wrestling school, gets his body into good shape, becomes a boxer, and then strikes his father and mother, or some other relative or friend, that's no reason to hate the trainers and the men who teach fighting in arms, and drive them out of their cities. Those men taught their skill so that it would be used justly, against enemies and wrongdoers, in self-defence, not as the aggressor; but the others turn it round and use their strength and their craft wrongly. So the teachers aren't wicked, and the craft is neither to blame nor wicked on that account — the ones not using it rightly are, I think. The same argument holds for rhetoric too. The orator is capable of speaking against everyone and about everything, so as to be more persuasive before a crowd, on virtually any subject he likes; but that's no more reason to strip the doctors of their reputation — just because he could do this — or the other craftsmen either; one ought to use rhetoric justly too, just like any competitive skill. And if, I suppose, someone becomes an orator and then uses this power and this craft to do wrong, that's no reason to hate his teacher and drive him out of the cities. For the teacher handed it over for just use, and the other man uses it the opposite way. So it's the one who misuses it who ought rightly to be hated, and driven out, and put to death — not the one who taught him.

Socrates

I think you too, Gorgias, are experienced in many discussions, and have noticed something about them: that the parties rarely manage to define their terms with each other, learn from each other, and teach each other, and so bring their meetings to a close that way; instead, if they disagree about something and one says the other isn't speaking correctly or clearly, they get annoyed, and think the other is speaking out of spite against them, competing to win rather than searching out the matter under discussion; and some of them end up parting in the most shameful way, having abused each other and said and heard such things about themselves that even the bystanders are distressed on their behalf, for having thought such people worth listening to. Why, then, am I saying this? Because right now you seem to me to be saying things that don't quite follow or agree with what you said at first about rhetoric; so I'm reluctant to press the argument against you, in case you take me to be speaking out of a wish to win against you personally, rather than to get the matter clear. Now, if you're the kind of man I am, I'd be glad to go on questioning you; if not, I'd let it drop. And what kind am I? The kind who would be glad to be refuted if I say something untrue, and glad to refute someone else if he says something untrue — no less glad, in fact, to be refuted than to refute; since I count being refuted the greater good, by as much as it's a greater good to be rid of the worst evil oneself than to rid someone else of it. For I don't think there's any evil for a man as great as a false opinion about the very things our discussion now happens to concern. So if you say you're that kind of man too, let's go on talking; but if you think we should drop it, let's say goodbye to it now and break off the discussion.

Gorgias

Well, I say that I myself am just the kind of man you describe, Socrates — though perhaps we ought to consider those present too. Even before you two arrived, I'd already given a long display to those here, and now we'll probably run on a good while, if we keep talking. So we ought to consider them as well, in case we're keeping some of them from something else they'd rather be doing.

Chaerephon

You can hear the commotion for yourselves, Gorgias and Socrates — these men want to hear whatever you say; and as for me, I hope I never get so busy that I'd give up a discussion like this, conducted this well, for something else that mattered more to do.

Callicles

By the gods, Chaerephon, I've been present at a great many discussions myself, and I don't know that I've ever enjoyed one as much as this; so as far as I'm concerned, you'll be doing me a favour even if you want to talk the whole day through.

Socrates

Well then, Callicles, nothing stands in my way, as far as I'm concerned, provided Gorgias is willing.

Gorgias

It would be shameful indeed, Socrates, for me now to refuse, after announcing myself that anyone could ask whatever he wanted. So if it suits these gentlemen, go ahead and talk, and ask whatever you want.

Socrates

Listen, then, Gorgias, to what puzzles me in what you've been saying; it may well be that you're speaking correctly and I'm the one misunderstanding. You say you're able to make someone into an orator, if he wants to learn from you?

Gorgias

Yes.

Socrates

So as to be persuasive before a crowd on every subject — not by teaching them, but by persuading them?

Gorgias

Exactly so.

Socrates

You were saying just now that the orator will even be more persuasive than the doctor on matters of health.

Gorgias

Yes, I did say that — before a crowd, that is.

Socrates

And doesn't that mean before people who don't know? Since surely he won't be more persuasive than the doctor among those who do know.

Gorgias

True.

Socrates

So if he's going to be more persuasive than the doctor, he becomes more persuasive than the one who knows?

Gorgias

Quite so.

Socrates

Without being a doctor himself — isn't that right?

Gorgias

Yes.

Socrates

And the one who isn't a doctor is presumably without the knowledge the doctor has.

Gorgias

Clearly.

Socrates

So the one who doesn't know will be more persuasive than the one who does, among people who don't know, whenever the orator is more persuasive than the doctor. Does that follow, or something else?

Gorgias

That's what follows, in this case.

Socrates

So the orator and rhetoric stand the same way toward all the other crafts too: rhetoric itself has no need to know how things actually stand, only to have discovered some device of persuasion so as to appear, to those who don't know, to know more than those who do.

Gorgias

So isn't it a great convenience, Socrates, not having to learn all the other crafts, only this one, and yet coming off no worse than the actual craftsmen?

Socrates

Whether the orator comes off worse than the others, or not, because of standing this way, we'll examine in a moment, if it's relevant to us; but first let's look at this: whether the orator is in fact related to the just and the unjust, the shameful and the fine, the good and the bad, the same way he's related to health and the other subjects of the other crafts — not knowing himself what's good or bad, or fine or shameful, or just or unjust, but having contrived some persuasion about them, so as to seem, among people who don't know, to know more than the one who actually knows? Or is it necessary to know, and must someone who's going to learn rhetoric from you already know these things beforehand? And if not, will you, the teacher of rhetoric, teach the one who comes to you none of this — since it isn't your business — but make him seem, before the crowd, to know these things when he doesn't, and seem to be good when he isn't? Or will you be altogether unable to teach him rhetoric at all, unless he already knows the truth about these matters beforehand? How do things stand here, Gorgias? And for god's sake, as you promised a moment ago, uncover it and tell me what the power of rhetoric actually is.

Gorgias

Well, Socrates, I suppose that if he happens not to know these things, he'll learn them from me too.

Socrates

Hold on there — that's well said. If you're going to make someone into an orator, then, he must know the just and the unjust — either beforehand, or having learned it from you afterward.

Gorgias

Quite so.

Socrates

Well, then? Is the one who's learned carpentry a carpenter, or not?

Gorgias

Yes.

Socrates

And the one who's learned music, musical?

Gorgias

Yes.

Socrates

And the one who's learned medicine, medical? And so with everything else, by the same reasoning — whoever has learned each thing becomes the sort of person that knowledge of it makes him?

Gorgias

Quite so.

Socrates

So by that same reasoning, isn't the one who's learned justice, just?

Gorgias

Absolutely, surely.

Socrates

And the just man does just things, presumably.

Gorgias

Yes.

Socrates

So must not the orator be just, and the just man want to do just things?

Gorgias

So it appears.

Socrates

So the just man will never want to do wrong.

Gorgias

He must not.

Socrates

And by our argument, the orator must be just.

Gorgias

Yes.

Socrates

So the orator will never want to do wrong.

Gorgias

So it appears not.

Socrates

Do you remember, then, saying a little earlier that we shouldn't blame the trainers, or drive them out of their cities, if a boxer uses his boxing unjustly and does wrong with it — and that, in just the same way, if an orator uses rhetoric unjustly, we shouldn't blame his teacher or expel him from the city, but rather the wrongdoer, the one misusing rhetoric? Was that said, or not?

Gorgias

It was said.

Socrates

But now this same man, the orator, turns out never to do wrong at all. Or not?

Gorgias

So it appears.

Socrates

And right at the start, Gorgias, it was said that rhetoric dealt not with arguments about odd and even, but with arguments about the just and the unjust — wasn't that so?

Gorgias

Yes.

Socrates

So when you said that at the time, I took it that rhetoric could never be an unjust thing, since it always deals in arguments about justice; but then, a little later, when you said that the orator could use rhetoric unjustly too, I was so struck by this, and thought what you were saying didn't hang together, that I said what I said — that if you counted being refuted a gain, as I do, it would be worth continuing the discussion, and if not, we should let it go. And now that we've examined it further, you see for yourself that it's agreed all over again that the orator is unable to use rhetoric unjustly, or to be willing to do wrong. So how all this actually stands, by the dog, Gorgias, is not a small matter to work out properly — it will take more than one sitting.

The Conversation with Polus

Rhetoric as Flattery, Not a Craft

Polus

What's this, Socrates? Do you actually believe about rhetoric what you're saying just now? Or do you think — because Gorgias was ashamed not to agree with you that the orator also knows what is just and fine and good, and that if someone came to him without knowing these things he would teach him himself, and then perhaps some contradiction turned up in the discussion out of that admission — this very thing ⟨which⟩ you're so pleased with, having led him into such questions yourself, since who do you think would deny knowing justice himself and being able to teach it to others? But it's real boorishness to drag arguments into that kind of place.

Socrates

My dear Polus, this is exactly why we acquire companions and sons — so that when we older men trip up, you younger ones will be there to set our lives straight, both in what we do and what we say. And now, if Gorgias and I are tripping up anywhere in this discussion , you're here — correct us, since you're a fair man — and I'm willing to take back anything from what's been agreed, if it seems to you not to have been agreed well, whatever you like, provided you guard just one thing for me.

Polus

What's that?

Socrates

Your long-windedness, Polus — rein it in, the kind you tried to use at first.

Polus

What? Won't I be allowed to say as much as I like?

Socrates

You'd be in real trouble, my excellent fellow, if you came all the way to Athens — where there's more freedom to speak than anywhere else in Greece — and then turned out to be the one man here denied it. But turn it around — if you go on talking at length and refuse to answer what you're asked, wouldn't I be the one in trouble, if I'm not allowed to get up and stop listening to you? But if you actually care about the argument we've been having and want to set it right, as I was just saying, take back whatever you like, and question and be questioned in turn, the way Gorgias and I did — test me, and let yourself be tested. You do say, I take it, that you know the same things Gorgias knows — or don't you?

Polus

I do.

Socrates

Then you're inviting people to ask you anything they want, whenever they want, on the assumption that you'll know how to answer?

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

Well then, do whichever one you like right now — ask, or answer.

Polus

All right, I'll do that. Answer me this, Socrates: since Gorgias seems to you to be at a loss about rhetoric, what do you say it is?

Socrates

Are you asking what craft I say it is?

Polus

I am.

Socrates

None at all, Polus — to tell you the truth.

Polus

Then what do you think rhetoric is?

Socrates

A thing that you claim, in the treatise I read recently, to have turned into a craft.

Polus

What do you mean by that?

Socrates

A kind of knack, I'd say.

Polus

So rhetoric seems to you to be a knack?

Socrates

Yes, unless you have something else to say.

Polus

A knack for what?

Socrates

For producing a kind of gratification and pleasure.

Polus

Then don't you think rhetoric is a fine thing — being able to gratify people?

Socrates

What's this, Polus? Have you already heard from me what I say it is , that you're now asking on top of that whether I think it's fine?

Polus

Didn't I hear you say it's a kind of knack?

Socrates

Since you value gratifying people so much, would you like to do me a small favor?

Polus

I would.

Socrates

Ask me now what craft I think cookery is.

Polus

All right, I'm asking: what craft is cookery?

Socrates

None, Polus.

Polus

Then what is it? Say.

Socrates

I say a kind of knack.

Polus

What kind? Say.

Socrates

I say a knack for producing gratification and pleasure, Polus .

Polus

So cookery and rhetoric are the same thing?

Socrates

Not at all — but they're parts of the same pursuit.

Polus

What pursuit do you mean?

Socrates

I'm afraid saying the truth might come off as rather crude — I hesitate to say it for Gorgias's sake, in case he thinks I'm making fun of what he does for a living. As for whether this is the rhetoric Gorgias practices , I don't know — nothing in our conversation just now made clear what he actually thinks it is — but what I call rhetoric is a part of something that isn't fine at all.

Gorgias

A part of what, Socrates? Speak — don't feel embarrassed on my account.

Socrates

Well, it seems to me, Gorgias, that there's a certain practice that isn't a craft at all, but belongs to a soul that's good at guessing, bold, and naturally clever at dealing with people — and I call the general name for it flattery. This pursuit, it seems to me, has many other parts, and cookery is one of them — it looks like a craft, but by my account it isn't a craft at all, just a knack and a routine. I call rhetoric a part of this same thing, and cosmetics too, and sophistry — four parts over four things. So if Polus wants to ask about it, let him ask — because he hasn't yet learned what part of flattery I say rhetoric is ; it's escaped him that I haven't answered that yet, and instead he's asking me on top of it whether I think it's fine. I won't answer him whether I think rhetoric is fine or shameful until I first answer what it is. That wouldn't be fair, Polus — but if you really want to find out, ask what part of flattery I say rhetoric is.

Polus

All right, I'm asking — tell me what part.

Socrates

Would you actually understand it if I answered ? By my account, rhetoric is the image of a part of politics.

Polus

Well then? Do you say it's fine or shameful?

Socrates

Shameful, I'd say — I call bad things shameful — since I have to answer you as though you already know what I mean.

Gorgias

By Zeus, Socrates, I myself don't even understand what you mean.

Socrates

Naturally, Gorgias — I haven't said anything clear yet, and Polus here is young and sharp.

Gorgias

Well, never mind him — tell me how you mean that rhetoric is the image of a part of politics.

Socrates

I'll try to explain what rhetoric seems to me to be — and if it turns out not to be this, Polus here will refute me. You do speak of a body, and of a soul, don't you?

Gorgias

Of course.

Socrates

And you think each of these has a certain good condition?

Gorgias

I do.

Socrates

What about this? A good condition that only seems good, but isn't? Here's what I mean: many people appear to have bodies in good condition, and no one could easily tell they're not, except a doctor or someone skilled in physical training.

Gorgias

That's true.

Socrates

I'm saying the same thing exists in both body and soul — something that makes the body and the soul seem to be in good shape, without actually being any better off.

Gorgias

That's so.

Socrates

Come, let me try to show you more clearly what I mean, if I can. Since there are two things, I speak of two crafts: the one concerned with the soul I call politics; the one concerned with the body I can't give you a single name for that way, but since caring for the body is one thing, I name two parts of it, physical training and medicine; and within politics, corresponding to physical training, I put legislation, and corresponding to medicine, justice. These two pairs share something with each other , since they're concerned with the same subject — medicine with physical training, and justice with legislation — but all the same they differ somewhat from one another. Now, there being these four, all of them always tending toward what's best — some for the body, some for the soul — flattery notices this — not by knowing, I mean, but by guessing — and splits itself into four parts, and slips in under each of these, and pretends to be the very thing it has slipped under, caring nothing for what's best, and hunting after folly with whatever's most pleasant at the moment, and tricking it, so that it seems to be worth the most. So cookery has slipped in under medicine, and pretends to know the best foods for the body, so that if a cook and a doctor had to compete in front of children, or in front of grown men just as foolish as children, over which of the two understands good foods and bad, the doctor would die of hunger. This whole thing I call flattery, and I say it's shameful , Polus — this is what I'm saying to you — because it aims at what's pleasant without regard for what's best; and I say it isn't a craft but a knack, because it has no account to give of the nature of what it applies and why it applies it, so that it can't state the cause of anything. And I don't call a thing a craft when it's a reasonless business; if you dispute any of this, I'm willing to give my reasons.

So medicine, as I say, has cookery-flattery lying beneath it; and in the same way physical training has cosmetics beneath it — a mischievous, deceptive, low, and unfree thing, deceiving through shapes and colors and smooth finish and clothing, so that it makes people chase a borrowed beauty and neglect the true beauty that comes through physical training. So as not to go on too long, I want to put it to you the way geometers do — you'll probably follow now — that what cosmetics is to physical training, sophistry is to legislation, and what cookery is to medicine, rhetoric is to justice. This is what I mean: they're distinct by nature in this way, but because they're so close, sophists and orators get mixed up together over the same territory, and neither they themselves nor other people can tell what use to make of them. In fact, if the soul didn't govern the body, but the body governed itself, and cookery and medicine weren't observed and distinguished by the soul but the body itself judged them, weighing them by the gratification it got — dear Polus, you know Anaxagoras's saying well — everything would get mixed up together in one heap, with no way to tell apart what belongs to medicine, to health, and to cookery. So you've now heard what I say rhetoric is: the counterpart , in the soul, of cookery in the body. Maybe it's strange of me, forbidding you to make long speeches and then stringing out such a long one myself. But I deserve to be forgiven for it — when I spoke briefly you didn't follow, and you couldn't make any use of the answer I gave you, but needed a full explanation. So if I in turn can't make use of your answers when you answer , string out a speech yourself as well; but if I can make use of them, let me — that's only fair. And now, if there's anything in this answer you can use, use it.

Polus

Well then, what do you say? Does rhetoric seem to you to be flattery?

Socrates

I said a part of flattery. Don't you remember, at your age, Polus? What will you do later on?

Polus

So do you think good orators are looked down on in their cities as flatterers?

Tyrants and Orators Have the Least Power

Socrates

Is this a question you're asking, or are you stating the opening of some argument?

Polus

I'm asking, yes.

Socrates

It doesn't even seem to me that they're regarded as such.

Polus

What? Don't they have the greatest power in their cities?

Socrates

No — not if by "having power" you mean something good for the one who has it.

Polus

Well, that is what I mean.

Socrates

Then it seems to me that orators have the least power of anyone in the city.

Polus

What? Don't they, like tyrants, put to death anyone they want, and confiscate property and banish from their cities anyone they see fit?

Socrates

By the dog, Polus, I honestly can't tell, with each of these claims of yours, whether you're stating your own opinion, or asking me a question.

Polus

Well, I'm asking you.

Socrates

Very well, my friend — but then are you asking me two things at once?

Polus

How, two things?

Socrates

Didn't you just say something like this — that orators put to death anyone they want, just like tyrants, and confiscate property and drive out of their cities anyone they see fit?

Polus

I did.

Socrates

Well, I tell you these are two questions, and I'll answer you on both. Because I say, Polus, that both orators and tyrants have the least power of anyone in their cities, just as I was saying a moment ago — since they don't do, so to speak, anything they want, but only what seems best to them.

Polus

Well then, isn't that having great power?

Socrates

No — not according to Polus.

Polus

I don't say that? I certainly do.

Socrates

By the— no, not you, since you said having great power was a good thing for the one who has it.

Polus

Yes, I did say so.

Socrates

So you think it's a good thing, if someone does what seems best to him without having any sense? And you call that having great power?

Polus

No, I don't.

Socrates

Then will you prove that orators have sense, and that rhetoric is a craft and not flattery, by refuting me? But if you leave me unrefuted, the orators who do what seems best to them in their cities, and the tyrants too, will have gained nothing good by it — while power, as you say, is a good thing, and doing what seems best without sense you yourself agree is a bad thing — or don't you?

Polus

I do.

Socrates

So how could orators or tyrants have great power in their cities, unless Polus refutes Socrates and shows that they do what they want?

Polus

This man—

Socrates

I say they don't do what they want — so refute me.

Polus

Didn't you just agree, [earlier than this], that they do what seems best to them?

Socrates

Yes, and I still agree now.

Polus

Then don't they do what they want?

Socrates

I say they don't.

Polus

While doing what seems best to them?

Socrates

I do say that.

Polus

That's outrageous and absurd, Socrates.

Socrates

Don't speak ill of me, my excellent Polus — to greet you in your own style — but if you're in a position to question me, show that I'm lying; if not, answer the questions yourself.

Polus

Well, I'm willing to answer, so I can find out what you mean.

Socrates

Do you think people want the very thing they're doing at any given moment, or that other thing for the sake of which they do what they do? For instance, those who drink medicine prescribed by doctors — do you think they want the very thing they're doing, drinking the medicine and being in pain, or that other thing, being healthy, for the sake of which they drink it?

Polus

Clearly, being healthy.

Socrates

In the same way, people who sail the sea and carry on any other kind of business don't want the very thing they're doing at each moment — after all, who wants to sail, run risks, and have troubles — but rather, I think, the thing for the sake of which they sail: growing rich, since it's for wealth's sake that they sail.

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

So isn't it the same way with everything? If someone does something for the sake of something else, doesn't he want not the thing he's doing, but that other thing for the sake of which he's doing it?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

Now, is there anything among existing things that isn't either good, or bad, or in between the two — neither good nor bad?

Polus

That must be so, Socrates.

Socrates

And you'd say that wisdom, health, wealth, and other such things are good, and their opposites are bad?

Polus

I would.

Socrates

And by things that are neither good nor bad, do you mean things that sometimes share in the good, sometimes in the bad, and sometimes in neither — for instance, sitting, walking, running, and sailing, and again, stones and sticks and other such things? Isn't that what you mean? Or do you call something else neither good nor bad?

Polus

No, those are what I mean.

Socrates

Now, when people do these in-between things, do they do them for the sake of the good things, or the good things for the sake of the in-between ones?

Polus

The in-between things, surely, for the sake of the good ones.

Socrates

So it's in pursuit of the good that we walk, when we walk, thinking it's better to do so, and in pursuit of the same thing, the good, that we stand still, when we stand — or isn't that so?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

And so too, if we put someone to death, or banish someone, or confiscate property, we do it thinking it's better for us to do these things than not?

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

So it's for the sake of the good that people do all these things, when they do them.

Polus

I agree.

Socrates

And didn't we agree that whatever we do for the sake of something else, we don't want the things themselves, but that other thing for the sake of which we do them?

Polus

Absolutely.

Socrates

So we don't want to slaughter people, or banish them from their cities, or confiscate property, simply as such — rather, if these things are beneficial, we want to do them, but if they're harmful, we don't want to. For we want the good things, as you say, and we don't want the things that are neither good nor bad, nor the bad things either. Isn't that so? Do you think I'm telling the truth, Polus, or not? Why don't you answer?

Polus

The truth.

Socrates

Then if we agree on this, whenever someone puts a person to death, or banishes him from the city, or confiscates his property, whether he's a tyrant or an orator, thinking it's better for himself, though it actually turns out worse, that man, surely, is doing what seems best to him — isn't that so?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

Then is he also doing what he wants, if these things really turn out to be bad? Why don't you answer?

Polus

Well, I don't think he's doing what he wants.

Socrates

Then is there any way such a man has great power in that city, if having great power is something good, by your own admission?

Polus

There isn't.

Socrates

So what I was saying is true — that it's possible for a man doing what seems best to him in a city neither to have great power nor to do what he wants.

Polus

As if you, Socrates, wouldn't accept being free to do whatever seems good to you in the city rather than not, and as if you don't envy someone when you see him put to death whoever he pleased, or confiscate property, or throw someone in prison.

Socrates

Justly, or unjustly?

Polus

Whichever way he does it, isn't it enviable either way?

Socrates

Mind your words, Polus.

Polus

Why?

Socrates

Because you shouldn't envy people who aren't enviable, or the wretched — you should pity them.

Polus

What? Is that how you think it is with the men I'm talking about?

Socrates

Of course it is.

Polus

So a man who puts to death whomever he pleases, justly putting him to death, seems to you wretched and pitiable?

Socrates

Not to me — but not enviable either.

Polus

Didn't you just say he was wretched?

Socrates

The one who kills unjustly, my friend, is wretched, and pitiable besides — the one who kills justly, merely not enviable.

Polus

Surely the man who dies unjustly is pitiable and wretched.

Socrates

Less so than the one who kills him, Polus, and less so than the one who dies justly.

Polus

How can that be, Socrates?

Socrates

Like this — doing wrong happens to be the greatest of evils.

Polus

Is that really the greatest? Isn't suffering wrong greater?

Socrates

Not in the least.

Polus

So you would rather suffer wrong than do it.

Better to Suffer Than to Do Wrong: The Paradox and Archelaus

Socrates

For my part, I'd want neither — but if it were necessary to do wrong or to suffer wrong, I'd choose to suffer wrong rather than do it.

Polus

Then you wouldn't accept being a tyrant?

Socrates

No — not if by being a tyrant you mean what I mean.

Polus

Well, I mean exactly what I meant a moment ago — being free in the city to do whatever seems good to you, killing and banishing and doing everything according to your own judgment.

Socrates

My blessed friend, catch me up on the argument as I make it. For if I, in the crowded marketplace, taking a dagger under my arm, were to say to you, Polus — I've just now acquired a certain wonderful power, even a tyranny — since if it seems to me that one of these men you see here needs to die right away, this man will be dead, whoever I decide on; and if it seems to me that one of them needs his head broken, his head will be broken right away; and if I decide his cloak should be torn, it will be torn — that's how much power I have in this city — well, if I showed you the dagger when you doubted me, you'd probably say, on seeing it, Socrates, in that way everyone would have great power, since a house could be burned down that way, whichever one you liked, and the Athenians' dockyards too, and their triremes, and all their ships, public and private alike — but that isn't what having great power means, doing whatever seems good to you — or do you think it is?

Polus

No, certainly not that way.

Socrates

Can you say, then, why you criticize that kind of power?

Polus

I can.

Socrates

Why is that? Tell me.

Polus

Because a man who acts that way is bound to be punished.

Socrates

And being punished isn't a bad thing?

Polus

Certainly it is.

Socrates

So it turns out, my amazing friend, that [having great power] is a good thing after all, in your view, only if doing what seems best to him is also followed by acting beneficially — and that, it seems, is what having great power really is; if not, it's a bad thing, and no power at all. And let's consider this too — don't we agree that sometimes it's better to do the things we were just talking about, killing people and driving them out and confiscating property, but sometimes not?

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

This much, then, it seems, is agreed by both of us.

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

So when do you say it's better to do these things? Tell me, what boundary do you draw?

Polus

No, you answer that [same] question yourself, Socrates.

Socrates

Well, I say, Polus, if you'd rather hear it from me, that when someone does these things justly, it's better, and when unjustly, worse.

Polus

You're a hard man to refute, Socrates — but couldn't even a child refute you and show that you're not telling the truth?

Socrates

Then I'll be very grateful to the child, and just as grateful to you, if you refute me and free me from talking nonsense. But don't grow tired of doing a friend a favor — go on and refute me.

Polus

Well, Socrates, there's certainly no need for me to refute you with ancient history — recent events, things that happened just yesterday, are enough to refute you and show that many people who do wrong are happy.

Socrates

What events do you mean?

Polus

You do see this Archelaus, son of Perdiccas, ruling Macedonia?

Socrates

If not seeing him, at least I hear about him.

Polus

Does he seem to you happy, or wretched?

Socrates

I don't know, Polus — I've never met the man.

Polus

What? You'd know if you met him, but otherwise, on the spot, you can't tell that he's happy?

Socrates

No, by Zeus, certainly not.

Polus

Clearly then, Socrates, you'll say you don't even know whether the Great King is happy.

Socrates

And I'll be telling the truth — since I don't know how he stands with respect to education and justice.

Polus

What? Does all happiness depend on that?

Socrates

That's what I say, Polus — I say that a fine and good man or woman is happy, and an unjust and wicked one is wretched.

Polus

So by your account, this Archelaus is wretched?

Socrates

Yes, my friend — if he's unjust.

Polus

But how is he not unjust? He had no right at all to the rule he now holds, being born of a woman who was a slave to Alcetas, Perdiccas's brother — by justice he was Alcetas's slave, and if he'd wanted to do what's just, he'd still be serving Alcetas, and he'd be happy by your own account. But as it is, he's become wonderfully wretched, since he's committed the greatest wrongs — first, he summoned this very man, his own master and uncle, as if to give back the rule that Perdiccas had taken from him, made him and his son Alexander, his own cousin and nearly his own age, his guests, got them drunk, threw them into a wagon, led them out by night, cut their throats, and made them both disappear. After doing this wrong, he failed to notice that he'd become the most wretched of men, and felt no regret for it; but a little later, given the chance to become happy by justly raising his brother — Perdiccas's legitimate son, a boy of about seven, to whom the rule belonged by right — and giving him back the throne, he refused, and instead threw him into a well, drowned him, and told the boy's mother Cleopatra that he'd fallen in chasing a goose and died. So now, since he's committed the greatest wrongs of anyone in Macedonia, he's the most wretched of all Macedonians, not the happiest, and there's probably some Athenian — starting with you, — who'd rather become any other Macedonian whatsoever than become Archelaus.

Socrates

And right at the start of our conversation, Polus, I praised you for seeming to me well trained in rhetoric, but for having neglected the art of discussion — and now, is this really any different, the argument by which even a child could refute me, and by which you now think I've been refuted, when I say the wrongdoer isn't happy? Where does that follow, my good man? In fact I don't agree with you on any of this.

Polus

That's because you're not willing to, since it does seem to you the way I say.

Socrates

My blessed friend, you're trying to refute me the way rhetoricians do, like the men in the law courts who think that's how refutation works. There too, one side thinks it refutes the other whenever it produces many reputable witnesses for what it says, while the side arguing the opposite produces only one witness, or none at all. But this kind of refutation is worth nothing when it comes to the truth — sometimes a man can be falsely accused by many people who seem to be somebody. And right now, on the point you're making, nearly everyone will agree with you and say the same things, Athenians and foreigners alike, if you want to produce witnesses against me that I'm not telling the truth; you can call on, if you like, Nicias son of Niceratus and his brothers with him, whose tripods stand in a row in the Dionysium; or, if you like, Aristocrates son of Scellias, whose fine offering stands at the Pythian temple; or, if you like, the whole house of Pericles, or any other family here you care to choose. But I, being just one man, don't agree with you — you're not compelling me, but you're bringing forward many false witnesses against me and trying to drive me out of my property and out of the truth. But unless I can produce you yourself as a single witness agreeing with what I say, I don't think I've proved anything worth mentioning about the matters our argument concerns; and I don't think you have either, unless I testify for you being just one man alone, and you let all these others go their way. So this is one kind of refutation, as you and many others think it is; but there's another kind too, which I in turn believe in. Let's set them side by side and see whether they differ from each other at all. For in fact the matters we're disputing aren't at all small — they're pretty much the very things it's finest to know and most shameful not to know, since the heart of the matter is knowing or not knowing who is happy and who is not. To begin with the very point our argument is about right now: you think it's possible for a man doing wrong and being unjust to be happy, given that you consider Archelaus unjust yet happy. Should we take it that this is your view?

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

But I say it's impossible. That's one point we disagree on. Very well then — will the wrongdoer be happy if he actually meets with justice and punishment?

Polus

Not in the least — in that case he'd be the most wretched of all.

Proving Injustice Worse Than Suffering It

Socrates

But if the wrongdoer doesn't pay the penalty, will he be happy, on your account?

Polus

I do.

Socrates

But in my opinion, Polus, the wrongdoer — the unjust man — is wretched in every case, but more wretched if he doesn't pay the penalty and doesn't meet with punishment for his wrongdoing, and less wretched if he does pay the penalty and gets his due from gods and men.

Polus

That's a strange thing to try to say, Socrates.

Socrates

I'll try to make you say the same as I do, my friend; after all, I consider you a friend. Right now, this is what we disagree about — you take a look too. I said earlier that doing wrong is worse than suffering it.

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

Whereas you say suffering it is.

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

And I said that wrongdoers are wretched, and you refuted me.

Polus

Yes, by Zeus.

Socrates

So you think, Polus.

Polus

And I think truly.

Socrates

Perhaps. And you, in turn, say wrongdoers are happy, if they don't pay the penalty.

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

But I say they're the most wretched, and those who pay the penalty less so. Do you want to refute this too?

Polus

But that's even harder to refute than the last one, Socrates.

Socrates

Not at all, Polus — impossible, in fact; the truth is never refuted.

Polus

What do you mean? If a man doing wrong is caught plotting to set himself up as tyrant, and once caught is racked and mutilated and has his eyes burned out, and after suffering many other great torments of every kind himself, and watching his own children and wife suffer them too, is finally crucified or coated in pitch and burned — will this man be happier than if he escapes, sets himself up as tyrant, and lives out his life as ruler in the city doing whatever he wants, envied and counted happy by the citizens and by other foreigners too? Is that what you're saying is impossible to refute?

Socrates

You're just trying to scare me again, noble Polus, and that's not refuting — a moment ago you were just calling witnesses. Still, remind me of one small thing. Did you say plotting unjustly to become tyrant?

Polus

I did.

Socrates

Well then, neither of them will ever be happier than the other — neither the one who's gotten hold of the tyranny unjustly nor the one who pays the penalty — since, between two wretched men, neither could be happier — but the one who escapes and becomes tyrant is the more wretched of the two. What's this, Polus? Are you laughing? Is this some other kind of refutation, laughing whenever someone says something, instead of refuting it?

Polus

Don't you think you've been refuted, Socrates, when you say things no human being would agree to? Go ahead, ask any of these men here.

Socrates

Polus, I'm not one of the politicians — last year, when I was chosen by lot to sit on the council, and my tribe held the presidency and I had to put a matter to the vote, I made a fool of myself, because I didn't know how to conduct a vote. So don't tell me now either to put these men here to the vote, but if you have no better refutation than that, hand the argument over to me in my turn, as I was just saying, and try the kind of refutation I think is needed. For when I make a claim, I know how to produce just one witness — the very man I'm arguing with — and I let the majority go hang, and I know how to put it to the vote of just one man, but with the majority I don't even hold a discussion. So see whether you're willing, in your turn, to submit to a refutation by answering what you're asked. For I do think that I myself, and you, and everyone else, believe that doing wrong is worse than suffering it, and not paying the penalty worse than paying it.

Polus

But I don't think that — not about myself, and not about anyone else. Would you actually choose to suffer wrong rather than do it?

Socrates

So would you, and so would everyone else.

Polus

Far from it — neither I nor you nor anyone else would.

Socrates

Then won't you answer?

Polus

Certainly; in fact I'm eager to hear what you'll say.

Socrates

So tell me, so you'll know, just as if I were asking you from the beginning — which do you think is worse, Polus, doing wrong or suffering it?

Polus

Suffering it, in my view.

Socrates

And what about this? Which is more shameful, doing wrong or suffering it? Answer.

Polus

Doing wrong.

Socrates

Then it's also worse, if it's more shameful.

Polus

Not in the least.

Socrates

I see; apparently you don't think fine and good are the same thing, or bad and shameful.

Polus

No, I don't.

Socrates

And what about this? Do you call all fine things fine — bodies, colors, shapes, sounds, and practices — every time, without looking to anything? Take fine bodies first — don't you call them fine either in view of their use, whatever each is useful for, or in view of some pleasure, if they make the people looking at them enjoy the sight? Can you name anything about physical beauty outside these two?

Polus

I can't.

Socrates

Then don't you call everything else fine the same way too — shapes and colors — either because of some pleasure, or because of benefit, or both?

Polus

I do.

Socrates

And sounds too, and everything in music, the same way?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

And surely fine things in the realm of laws and practices are no exception either — they're fine by being beneficial or pleasant or both.

Polus

No, they aren't.

Socrates

Then the beauty of studies is the same way too?

Polus

Certainly; and you're defining it well now, Socrates, defining the fine by pleasure and good.

Socrates

Then the shameful is the opposite — by pain and bad?

Polus

It must be.

Socrates

So whenever, of two fine things, one is finer than the other, it's finer by exceeding in one of these two, or in both — either in pleasure or in benefit or in both.

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

And when, of two shameful things, one is more shameful than the other, it will be more shameful by exceeding in pain or in bad — or isn't that necessary?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

Come now, what did we just say about doing wrong and suffering it? Didn't you say that suffering wrong is worse, and doing wrong more shameful?

Polus

I did.

Socrates

So if doing wrong is more shameful than suffering it, then it must either be more painful — more shameful by exceeding in pain — or in bad, or in both? Isn't that necessary too?

Polus

How could it not be?

Socrates

First, then, let's consider whether doing wrong exceeds suffering it in pain, and whether wrongdoers feel more pain than those who are wronged.

Polus

Not at all, Socrates, not that.

Socrates

Then it doesn't exceed it in pain.

Polus

No, it doesn't.

Socrates

Then if not in pain, it can't exceed in both any longer.

Polus

It doesn't appear so.

Socrates

So it's left with the other.

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

In bad.

Polus

So it seems.

Socrates

Then, exceeding in bad, doing wrong would be worse than suffering it.

Polus

Clearly so.

Socrates

Now wasn't it agreed by most people, and by you, earlier on, that doing wrong is more shameful than suffering it?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

But now it's turned out to be worse.

Polus

So it seems.

Socrates

So would you actually choose the worse and more shameful thing over the lesser? Don't hesitate to answer, Polus; you won't be harmed at all; just answer bravely, submitting to the argument the way you'd submit to a doctor, and either say yes or no to what I ask.

Polus

No, I wouldn't choose it, Socrates.

Socrates

Would anyone else?

Polus

Not, I think, on this argument.

Socrates

So I was telling the truth, that neither I, nor you, nor anyone else on earth would choose to do wrong rather than suffer it; because it happens to be worse.

Polus

So it appears.

Socrates

So you see, Polus, when one refutation is set beside the other, they're nothing alike — everyone else agrees with you except me, but you alone are enough for me, agreeing and testifying by yourself, and I put it to the vote of you alone and let the rest go hang. Let's leave that as settled between us, then; and next let's consider the second point we disputed — whether the wrongdoer's paying the penalty is the greatest of evils, as you thought, or whether not paying it is greater, as I, in turn, thought.

Let's look at it this way; do you call paying the penalty and being justly corrected for doing wrong the same thing?

Polus

I do.

Punishment as Medicine for the Soul

Socrates

Can you say that just things aren't all fine, insofar as they're just? Think it over and tell me.

Polus

Yes, I think they are, Socrates.

Socrates

Now look at this too; if someone does something, must there also be something that's affected by the one doing it?

Polus

I think so.

Socrates

And does it suffer whatever the doer does, and in just the way the doer does it? Here's what I mean; if someone strikes, must something be struck?

Polus

It must.

Socrates

And if the one striking, strikes hard or fast, must the thing struck be struck in that same way?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

So the thing struck undergoes just the kind of experience the striker produces?

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

Then if someone burns something, must something be burned?

Polus

How could it not?

Socrates

And if someone burns it intensely or painfully, must the thing burned be burned just as the burner burns it?

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

Then if something cuts, isn't it the same account? Because something is cut.

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

And if the cut is large or deep or painful, does the thing cut get just that kind of cut the cutter makes?

Polus

It appears so.

Socrates

So in short, see whether you agree with what I just said, about everything — that whatever the doer does, the sufferer suffers just that.

Polus

Yes, I agree.

Socrates

Now that this is agreed, is paying the penalty a matter of suffering something or doing something?

Polus

It has to be suffering, Socrates.

Socrates

At the hands of someone doing it, then?

Polus

How could it not be? At the hands of the one correcting him.

Socrates

And does the one who corrects rightly correct justly?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

Doing just things, or not?

Polus

Just things.

Socrates

Then the one being corrected, in paying the penalty, suffers just things?

Polus

It appears so.

Socrates

And just things have been agreed to be fine, haven't they?

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

So of these two, one does fine things, and the other — the one being corrected — suffers them.

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

Then if they're fine, are they also good? Because they're either pleasant or beneficial.

Polus

It must be.

Socrates

So the one paying the penalty suffers good things?

Polus

So it seems.

Socrates

So he's benefited?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

The benefit I have in mind? Does he become better in his soul, if he's justly corrected?

Polus

Likely so.

Socrates

So the one paying the penalty is rid of a badness of soul?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

So is he rid of the greatest evil? Look at it this way; in a man's property, do you see any badness other than poverty?

Polus

No, just poverty.

Socrates

And in the body's condition? Would you say weakness and disease and ugliness and things like that are its badness?

Polus

I would.

Socrates

Then you think there's a corresponding badness in the soul too?

Polus

How could there not be?

Socrates

And don't you call this injustice, and ignorance, and cowardice, and things like that?

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

So, since there are three things — property, body, and soul — you've named three corresponding kinds of badness: poverty, disease, injustice?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

Which of these kinds of badness is the most shameful? Isn't it injustice, and in a word, the badness of the soul?

Polus

By far.

Socrates

And if it's the most shameful, is it also the worst?

Polus

What do you mean, Socrates?

Socrates

Like this; from what's been agreed before, the most shameful thing is always most shameful by producing the greatest pain, or harm, or both.

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

And haven't we just agreed that injustice, and the soul's badness taken as a whole, is the most shameful?

Polus

Yes, it's been agreed.

Socrates

Then either it's the most distressing, and is the most shameful by exceeding in distress, or in harm, or in both?

Polus

It must be.

Socrates

So is being unjust and unrestrained and cowardly and ignorant more painful than being poor or sick?

Polus

I don't think so, Socrates, not judging by that.

Socrates

So it must be by some extraordinary, tremendous harm and astonishing badness, exceeding everything else, that the soul's badness is the most shameful of all — since it's not by pain, on your own account.

Polus

So it appears.

Socrates

But surely whatever exceeds in the greatest harm would be the greatest evil there is.

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

So injustice, and lack of restraint, and the soul's other badness, are the greatest evil there is?

Polus

So it appears.

Socrates

So what craft rids someone of poverty? Isn't it moneymaking?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

And of disease? Isn't it medicine?

Polus

It must be.

Socrates

And of badness and injustice? If you're not so ready with that, look at it this way; where, and to whom, do we take people whose bodies are sick?

Polus

To the doctors, Socrates.

Socrates

And where do we take wrongdoers and the unrestrained?

Polus

To the judges, you mean?

Socrates

To pay the penalty, isn't that right?

Polus

I do.

Socrates

So don't those who correct rightly correct by making use of a kind of justice?

Polus

Clearly so.

Socrates

So moneymaking rids us of poverty, medicine of disease, and justice of lack of restraint and injustice.

Polus

So it appears.

Socrates

So which of these [that you mention] is the finest?

Polus

Which ones do you mean?

Socrates

Moneymaking, medicine, justice.

Polus

Justice is far superior, Socrates.

Socrates

Then, in turn, it must produce the most pleasure or the most benefit, or both, if it's the finest?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

So is being treated by a doctor pleasant, and do people being treated enjoy it?

Polus

I don't think so.

Socrates

But it is beneficial. Isn't it?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

Because he's rid of a great evil, so it's worth enduring the pain in order to be healthy.

Polus

How could it not be?

Socrates

So would a person be happiest in body this way — being treated — or by never being sick in the first place?

Polus

Clearly, by never being sick.

Socrates

So happiness, it seems, wasn't ridding oneself of an evil, but never having acquired it in the first place.

Polus

That's so.

Socrates

And what about this? Of two people who have an evil, either in body or in soul, which is more wretched — the one being treated and getting rid of the evil, or the one not being treated, but keeping it?

Polus

The one not being treated, it seems to me.

Socrates

Then wasn't paying the penalty a ridding of the greatest evil, badness?

Polus

Yes, it was.

Socrates

Because it chastens them, and makes them more just, and judicial correction becomes a kind of medicine for badness.

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

So the happiest person is the one who has no badness in his soul, since that turned out to be the greatest of evils.

Polus

Clearly so.

Socrates

And second, presumably, the one who's rid of it.

Polus

So it seems.

Socrates

And that was the one being admonished, and reproved, and paying the penalty.

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

So the one living worst is the one who has [injustice] and isn't rid of it.

Polus

So it appears.

Socrates

And isn't this the very man who, doing the greatest wrongs and making use of the greatest injustice, manages things so that he's neither admonished nor corrected nor made to pay the penalty — the way you say Archelaus and the other tyrants and orators and men of power have arranged things for themselves?

Polus

So it seems.

Socrates

Because these men, my excellent fellow, have managed just about the same thing as if someone gripped by the worst diseases managed to avoid paying his doctors the penalty for what's wrong with his body, and refused treatment, fearing like a child the burning and the cutting, because it's painful. Or don't you think so too?

Polus

I do.

Socrates

Not knowing, it seems, what health and the excellence of the body actually are. Because, based on what we've just agreed, Polus, those who run from paying the penalty are probably doing something like this too — seeing only the pain of it, but being blind to the benefit, and not knowing how much more wretched it is to live with an unhealthy soul than with an unhealthy body — a soul that's rotten and unjust and unholy — which is why they do everything they can to avoid paying the penalty and being rid of the greatest evil, arranging money and friends and making themselves as persuasive as possible; and if what we've agreed is true, Polus, do you notice what follows from the argument? Or would you like us to work it out together?

Polus

If you think we should.

Socrates

So does it follow that injustice, and doing wrong, are the greatest evil?

Polus

So it appears.

Socrates

And surely paying the penalty turned out to be a ridding of this evil?

Polus

It seems so.

Socrates

And not paying it is a persistence of the evil?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

So doing wrong is second in magnitude among evils; but the wrongdoer's not paying the penalty is by nature the greatest and first of all evils.

Polus

So it seems.

Socrates

So wasn't this, my friend, what we disputed — you counting Archelaus happy, the man doing the greatest wrongs and paying no penalty at all, while I believed the opposite: that whoever it is, Archelaus or anyone else on earth, who does wrong and doesn't pay the penalty, deserves to be wretched beyond all other men, and that the wrongdoer is always more wretched than the one wronged, and the one who doesn't pay the penalty more wretched than the one who does? Wasn't that what I was saying?

Polus

Yes.

Socrates

Then hasn't it been proved that it was true?

Polus

So it appears.

Socrates

Well then; if this is true, Polus, what great use is rhetoric? From what we've just agreed, a man must above all guard himself against doing wrong, on the grounds that he'd have evil enough on his hands. Isn't that so?

Polus

Certainly.

Socrates

But if he does wrong, either himself or someone else he cares about, he should go there of his own accord, as fast as he can, to pay the penalty, to the judge just as he'd go to a doctor, hurrying so that the disease of injustice doesn't sit there festering and turn the soul incurable — or how should we put it, Polus, if the earlier agreements still hold for us? Mustn't this agree with what came before, exactly this way and no other?

Polus

Well, what else are we to say, Socrates?

Socrates

So when it comes to defending his own injustice, or that of his parents, or his friends, or his children, or a wrongdoing country, rhetoric is of no use to us at all, Polus — unless someone should suppose the opposite : that a man ought to accuse himself most of all, and then his own household, and anyone else among his friends who happens to be doing wrong at any given time, and not hide the wrongdoing but bring it out into the open, so that he pays the penalty and becomes healthy, forcing himself and others not to shrink back but to offer himself up, shutting his eyes and bravely, the way one offers oneself to a doctor for cutting and burning, pursuing what's good and fine and not counting the pain — if he's done something deserving a beating, offering himself to be beaten, if deserving imprisonment, to be bound, if a fine, paying it, if exile, going into exile, if death, dying — being himself the first accuser, both of himself and of the rest of his household, and using rhetoric for this very purpose, so that once the wrongdoings are made plain, they may be rid of the greatest evil, injustice. Shall we say this, or not, Polus?

Polus

It seems strange to me, Socrates, but I suppose it agrees with what came before.

Socrates

Then either those earlier points must be given up, or these must necessarily follow?

Polus

Yes, that's how it stands.

Socrates

But turning it around the other way — if one really must do harm to someone, whether an enemy or anyone else, provided he himself isn't wronged by the enemy, since that's what has to be guarded against — but if the enemy wrongs someone else, then every means must be prepared, in what one does and what one says, so that he doesn't pay the penalty and never comes before the judge; and if he does come, one must contrive a way for the enemy to escape and avoid paying the penalty — so that if he ⟨has⟩ stolen a great deal of gold, he keeps it instead of giving it back, and spends it on himself and his own people unjustly and godlessly, and if he's done things deserving death, that he not die — best of all, never, but remain immortal in his wickedness, and failing that, that he live for as long a time as possible in that condition. It's for purposes like these, Polus, that rhetoric seems useful to me, since for the man who isn't going to do wrong, I don't think its use amounts to much — if indeed it has any use at all, since in what came before it turned out to have none anywhere.

The Conversation with Callicles

Callicles Interrupts: Nature Against Convention

Callicles

Tell me, Chaerephon — is Socrates serious about this, or is he joking?

Chaerephon

To me, Callicles, he seems to be in dead earnest — but there's nothing like asking him yourself.

Callicles

By the gods, I do want to. Tell me, Socrates, should we take you right now to be serious, or joking? Because if you're serious, and what you're saying happens to be true, wouldn't human life be turned upside down, and aren't we doing, it seems, the exact opposite of everything we ought to?

Socrates

Callicles, if human beings didn't all share some feeling — one thing for some, another thing [or] the same for others — but each of us instead felt something private, unlike what anyone else feels, it wouldn't be easy to point out to another person one's own feeling. I say this because it occurs to me that you and I happen to be in the same condition right now — each of us in love with two things at once: I with Alcibiades, son of Cleinias, and with philosophy, you with two loves, the Athenian people and the son of Pyrilampes. So I notice that every time, clever as you are, whatever your darling says, and however he says things stand, you're unable to contradict him — you keep flipping this way and that; in the assembly, if you say something and the Athenian people deny that's how it is, you change your position and say what they want, and you go through the same thing with that handsome young son of Pyrilampes. You're incapable of opposing your darlings' wishes and words, so that if someone, hearing you say the things you say because of them, were amazed at how strange they are, you might tell him, if you wanted to speak the truth, that unless somebody stops your darlings from this kind of talk, you'll never stop saying it yourself either. So you should expect to hear the same sort of thing from me too, and don't be surprised that I say these things — instead, stop philosophy, my darling, from saying them. Because it's philosophy, my dear friend, that's saying what you're hearing from me now, and she's far less fickle than my other darling; that son of Cleinias says different things at different times, while philosophy always says the same, and what she's saying is exactly what you find so surprising — and you were there yourself when it was said. So either refute her — as I was just saying — and show that doing wrong, and doing wrong without paying the penalty for it, isn't the worst of all evils; or, if you leave that unrefuted, then by the dog, the god of the Egyptians, Callicles will not agree with Callicles, but will be out of tune with himself his whole life long. And yet, my excellent friend, I think it better for my own lyre to be out of tune and off pitch, and for a chorus I might direct — and for the vast majority of people to disagree with me and say the opposite — than for me, one single man, to be out of harmony with myself and contradict myself.

Callicles

Socrates, you seem to me to be showing off in argument like a true crowd-pleaser; and right now you're playing to the crowd because Polus suffered the very thing he accused Gorgias of suffering at your hands. He said, I gather, that when Gorgias was asked by you whether, if someone who wanted to learn rhetoric came to him not already knowing what's just, Gorgias would teach him, Gorgias grew ashamed and said he would teach him, because of people's custom of getting angry if you say no — that because of this admission he was forced to contradict himself, and that you were delighted with exactly that — and that he made fun of you, rightly, as it seemed to me at the time; but now Polus himself has suffered this very same thing all over again. And for that very reason I don't admire Polus, for conceding to you that doing wrong is more shameful than suffering wrong; because it was that very admission that got him tangled up by you in the argument and left with his mouth shut, too ashamed to say what he actually thought. Because in truth, Socrates, you lead people into this crude, crowd-pleasing stuff, all while claiming to be chasing the truth — things that aren't fine by nature at all, only by convention. And for the most part nature and convention are opposed to each other; so if a person feels ashamed and doesn't dare say what he actually thinks, he's forced to contradict himself. You've caught on to this clever trick, and you use it to cheat in argument: if someone speaks by convention, you press him with questions about nature, and if he speaks about nature, you switch to convention. Take, for instance, this business of doing wrong and suffering wrong — when Polus was speaking of what's more shameful by convention, you chased the argument down the line of nature. Because by nature, whatever is worse is also more shameful, and that's suffering wrong, while by convention it's doing wrong. For this experience — suffering wrong — isn't even something that happens to a real man; it happens to some slave, for whom it would be better to die than to live, since when he's wronged and trampled on he's unable to defend himself, or anyone else he cares about. No, I think the ones who make the laws are the weak and the many. So they make their laws with themselves and their own advantage in mind, and that's how they hand out their praise and their blame; they scare the stronger sort of men, the ones capable of getting more, so that these men won't get more than they do, and they say that getting more than one's share is shameful and unjust, and that this is what doing wrong means — seeking to have more than others; because, I think, being the lesser men themselves, they're content if they get an equal share. That's exactly why seeking to have more than the many is called unjust and shameful by convention, and they call it doing wrong; but nature herself, I think, reveals the opposite — that it's just for the better man to have more than the worse, and the more capable more than the less capable. This is shown to be so in many places — among the other animals, and among whole cities and races of men, where justice has been decided on exactly these terms: that the stronger should rule the weaker and have more. For by what justice did Xerxes march against Greece, or his father against the Scythians? Or one could mention countless other cases just like these. No, I think these men act according to the nature of what's just — yes, by god, according to the law of nature — though perhaps not according to the one we lay down among ourselves; we mold the best and strongest of our own kind, taking them while they're still young, like lion cubs, and by chanting spells and casting charms over them we enslave them, telling them they must have an equal share and that this is what's fine and just. But if, I think, a man is born with a nature strong enough for it, he shakes all this off, breaks through it, escapes it — he tramples our writings and our tricks and our incantations and all our laws that go against nature, rises up, and stands revealed as our master, the slave turned ruler, and right there the justice of nature bursts into the light. It seems to me that Pindar too shows exactly what I'm saying, in the song where he says—

and this, he says—

that's roughly how it goes — I don't know the song by heart — but it says that he drove off Geryon's cattle neither by paying for them nor by their owner giving them, on the ground that this is what's just by nature, and that cattle and all other possessions belong, by right, to the better and stronger man, and not to the worse and weaker.

So that's how the truth stands, and you'll come to know it if you finally leave philosophy behind and move on to greater things. Because philosophy, Socrates, is a charming thing if a person takes it up in moderation at the right age; but if he lingers in it longer than he should, it's the ruin of a man. Because even if someone is extremely gifted by nature, if he keeps doing philosophy well past the right age, he inevitably ends up without experience of everything a man needs experience of if he's going to turn out fine, good, and well regarded. Such men end up with no experience of the laws that govern the city, none of the language they need to deal with people in their private and public dealings, none of human pleasures and desires — in short, no experience of character at all. So whenever they enter into some private or public business, they become ridiculous — just as, I think, politicians become ridiculous whenever they turn to your kind of discussions and arguments. For what Euripides says turns out to be true — every man shines brightest in the thing he's good at, and hurries toward that,

but wherever he's weak, he runs from that and abuses it, while he praises the other, out of goodwill toward himself, thinking that in this way he's praising himself. No, I think the best course is to share in both. It's fine to take part in philosophy for the sake of education, up to a point, and there's nothing shameful in a young boy doing philosophy; but once a man is already older and still philosophizing, the whole business becomes ridiculous, Socrates, and I, for one, react to men who philosophize exactly the way I react to men who lisp and play childish games. Because when I see a small child, one for whom that kind of talk is still appropriate, lisping and playing, I'm delighted — it seems charming to me, free and fitting for the child's age; but when I hear a little boy speaking clearly and carefully, it strikes me as a harsh thing, it grates on my ears, and it seems to me somehow fit for a slave; and whenever someone hears a grown man lisp, or sees him playing games, it looks ridiculous, unmanly, and deserving of a beating. Well, I feel this exact same thing toward men who philosophize. When I see philosophy in a young boy, I admire it — it seems fitting to me, and I take that person to be a free man, while the one who doesn't philosophize is unfree and will never think himself worthy of anything fine or noble; but when I see an older man still doing philosophy, not putting it aside, that man, Socrates, already seems to me to need a beating. As I was just saying, this is what happens to such a man — even if he's remarkably gifted, he becomes unmanly, fleeing the center of the city and the marketplaces, where the poet says men become distinguished, and instead he ends up burrowing away, living out the rest of his life whispering in a corner with three or four boys, never once uttering anything free, grand, or worthwhile. Now, Socrates, I'm fairly well disposed toward you — I'm probably in the same position right now as Euripides' Zethus was toward Amphion, whom I mentioned a moment ago. Because things like this occur to me to say to you, just as they occurred to him to say to his brother — that you're neglecting, Socrates, what you ought to be taking care of, and that you're twisting a nature of soul as noble as yours into some boyish shape, and that you'd be unable to bring a properly framed argument to a courtroom debate, or grasp anything plausible and persuasive, or come up with a bold plan on someone else's behalf. And yet, my dear Socrates — and don't be annoyed with me over this; I'll speak out of goodwill toward you — don't you think it's a shameful condition to be in, the one I think you're in, and the one all the others are in who keep pushing on further and further into philosophy? Because right now, if someone grabbed hold of you, or of any other man of your sort, and dragged you off to prison, claiming you'd done wrong when you'd done no wrong, you know perfectly well you wouldn't have any idea what to do with yourself — you'd get dizzy and stand there gaping, with nothing to say, and if you went up before the court and happened to draw some thoroughly worthless and vicious prosecutor, you'd be put to death, if he wanted to press for the death penalty. And yet how is this wisdom, Socrates, when a craft takes a naturally gifted man and makes him worse — unable to help himself, unable to save himself or anyone else from the gravest dangers, stripped of his entire property by his enemies, and living in his own city, quite literally, without any honor at all? A man like that — if I may put it a bit crudely — can be slapped across the face and the one who hits him pays no penalty for it. So take my advice, my good man — give up your refutations, practice the fine art of practical affairs, and practice whatever will get you a reputation for good sense, leaving these clever little exercises to other people, whether we should call them nonsense or drivel, the kind of thing that will leave you living in an empty house; and stop admiring men who spend their time on these petty refutations, and admire instead the men who have a good life, a good reputation, and plenty of other good things.

The Many Prove Collectively Stronger Than the One

Socrates

If I happened to have a golden soul, Callicles, don't you think I'd be glad to find one of those touchstones people test gold with — the very best one — so that I could bring my soul up against it, and if it agreed that my soul had been properly cared for, I'd know for certain that I was in good shape and needed no other test?

Callicles

Why are you even asking that, Socrates?

Socrates

I'll tell you — I think that in running into you just now I've run into exactly that kind of stroke of luck.

Callicles

How so?

Socrates

I know perfectly well that if you agree with me about the things my soul holds an opinion on, those things are already the truth itself. Because I realize that anyone who's going to test properly whether a soul is living rightly or not needs three things, all of which you happen to have: knowledge, goodwill, and frankness. I run into plenty of people who aren't able to test me because they're not wise the way you are; others are wise, but they're unwilling to tell me the truth because they don't care about me the way you do; but these two strangers here, Gorgias and Polus, are wise and they're my friends, but they're rather short on frankness and more prone to embarrassment than they ought to be — how could they not be? Both of them have reached such a pitch of embarrassment that, out of sheer embarrassment, each of them dares to contradict himself in front of a great many people, and about the most important matters at that. But you have all these things that the others lack — you've been well enough educated, as plenty of Athenians would say, and you're well disposed toward me. What evidence am I using? I'll tell you. I know that the four of you, Callicles, have become partners in wisdom — you, Teisander of Aphidnae, Andron son of Androtion, and Nausicydes of Cholarges; and I once overheard you deliberating about how far one ought to pursue wisdom, and I know that the view that won out among you was not to be eager to philosophize down to the last precision, and you urged one another to be careful not to become wiser than you needed to be and ruin yourselves without noticing it. So when I hear you giving me the same advice you gave your closest companions, that's sufficient evidence to me that you're truly well disposed toward me. And as for being the kind of man who speaks frankly and isn't embarrassed, you say so yourself, and the speech you gave a little while ago backs you up on it. So this is clearly how things stand right now regarding these matters — if you agree with me on something in the argument, it will already have been sufficiently tested by both of us, and there will be no need to bring it before any further test. Because you'd never concede it either from lack of wisdom or from excess of embarrassment, and you wouldn't concede it to deceive me either — you're my friend, as you say yourself. So in truth, any agreement between you and me will already have reached the very end of the truth. And the finest inquiry of all, Callicles, concerns exactly what you criticized me over — what kind of man one ought to be, and what one ought to pursue, and up to what point, both as an older man and as a younger one. As for me, if I'm doing something wrong in my own life, you should know well that I'm not erring on purpose, but out of my own ignorance; so, since you've already begun to admonish me, don't stop now — show me clearly what it is I ought to be pursuing, and how I might acquire it, and if you ever catch me agreeing with you now, and then, later on, not doing the same things I agreed to, consider me a complete fool and never bother admonishing me again afterward, as being worth nothing at all. So tell me again, from the beginning — how do you and Pindar say the just thing stands, according to nature? That the stronger should take by force what belongs to the weaker, the better man should rule the worse, and the superior man should have more than the inferior one? Is that anything different from what you say justice is, or am I remembering correctly?

Callicles

Well, that's what I was saying then, and that's what I'm saying now.

Socrates

Do you call the same man better and stronger? Because even then I wasn't able to figure out what exactly you meant. Do you call the stronger men the better ones, and say the weaker must obey the stronger — which is what you seemed to me to be showing earlier too, when you said that big cities attack small ones according to what's just by nature, because they're stronger and more powerful, on the assumption that the stronger, the more powerful, and the better are the same thing — or can someone be better while also weaker and less powerful, and stronger while also more corrupt, or is the definition of the better and of the stronger one and the same? Just make this itself clear to me — are the stronger, the better, and the more powerful the same thing, or different?

Callicles

I'm telling you clearly — they're the same thing.

Socrates

So then the many are stronger than the one by nature? And it's the many who make the laws against the one, just as you were saying a moment ago.

Callicles

How could they not be?

Socrates

So the conventions of the many are the conventions of the stronger.

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

And so the conventions of the better men too? Because the stronger are far better, according to your account.

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So then their conventions are fine by nature, since they belong to the stronger?

Callicles

I say so.

Socrates

So then, do the many believe this — just as you were saying a moment ago — that it's just to have an equal share, and more shameful to do wrong than to suffer it? Is that so, or not? And mind you don't get caught out being embarrassed here yourself. Do the many believe, or not, that it's just to have an equal share rather than more, and that doing wrong is more shameful than suffering it? Don't grudge me an answer to this, Callicles, so that if you agree with me, I can already treat it as settled, coming as it does from a man competent to judge.

Callicles

Well, the many do believe that.

Socrates

So it's not only by convention that doing wrong is more shameful than suffering it, and that having an equal share is just — it's by nature too; which means you run the risk of not having spoken the truth earlier, and of accusing me wrongly when you said that convention and nature are opposed, something I supposedly know and exploit to cheat in argument, dragging anyone who speaks by nature over to convention, and anyone who speaks by convention over to nature.

Callicles

This man will never stop talking nonsense. Tell me, Socrates — aren't you embarrassed, at your age, to go hunting for words, and to treat it as a windfall whenever someone makes a slip of the tongue? Do you really think I mean anything different by "the stronger" than "the better"? Haven't I been telling you for a while now that I say the better and the stronger are the same thing? Or do you think I mean that if a mob of slaves and every sort of worthless person gets together — worth nothing except perhaps for physical strength — and they say something, that's automatically a valid convention?

Socrates

All right, wisest of men, Callicles — is that what you're saying?

Callicles

That's exactly it.

Socrates

Well, my good man, I myself have suspected for a while now that this is roughly what you mean by "the stronger," and I've been asking because I'm eager to know clearly what you mean. Because surely you don't think two men are better than one, or that your own slaves are better than you, just because they're physically stronger than you. So tell me again, from the beginning, who you mean by "the better," since it's not the stronger? And, my extraordinary friend, teach me a bit more gently, so I don't run off and leave your school.

Callicles

You're being sarcastic, Socrates.

Socrates

By Zethus, Callicles — the very character you used a moment ago to poke fun at me — no, come on, tell me: who do you mean by "the better"?

Callicles

The superior men, that's who.

Socrates

Do you see, then, that you're just uttering words yourself and explaining nothing? Won't you tell me whether by "the better and the stronger" you mean the more intelligent, or some other people?

Callicles

Yes, by god, that's exactly who I mean, and emphatically so.

Socrates

So then, on your account, one intelligent man is often stronger than ten thousand unintelligent ones, and he ought to rule while they're ruled, and the ruler ought to have more than the ruled; this seems to me to be what you mean to say — and I'm not hunting for a slip of the tongue — if the one man is stronger than the ten thousand.

Callicles

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. Because I think this is what's just by nature — that the man who is better and more intelligent should both rule and have more than his inferiors.

Socrates

Hold on right there. What exactly are you saying now? If we were all together in one place, as we are now, a whole crowd of us, and we had plenty of food and drink in common, and we were all sorts — some strong, some weak — and one of us, being a doctor, were more knowledgeable than the rest about these things, and were, as is likely, stronger than some of us and weaker than others, wouldn't this man, being more intelligent than we are, turn out to be better and stronger than us in this area?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

So should he then have a greater share of this food than the rest of us, because he's better — or should the distribution all be up to him as ruler, while when it comes to using it up and consuming it for his own body he shouldn't get more than his share, unless he means to suffer for it, but should get more of some things and less of others — and if he happens to be the weakest of all, should the best man get the least of all, Callicles? Isn't that how it is, my good man?

Callicles

You're talking about food and drink and doctors and nonsense; that's not what I mean at all.

Socrates

Don't you mean the more intelligent man by "the better"? Say yes or no.

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

And shouldn't the better man have more?

Callicles

Not of food or drink, no.

Socrates

I see — clothes then, perhaps, and the best weaver ought to have the biggest cloak and go around wearing the most and the finest clothes?

Callicles

What clothes are you even talking about?

Socrates

All right, shoes then — clearly the man who is most intelligent and best at this ought to get more than his share. The shoemaker, perhaps, ought to walk around wearing the biggest and the most shoes.

Callicles

What shoes? You won't stop talking nonsense.

Socrates

Well, if you don't mean things like that, maybe you mean something like this — say, a man who's skilled, fine, and good when it comes to farming; perhaps he ought to get more seed than his share, and use as much seed as possible on his own land.

Callicles

You keep saying the same things over and over, Socrates.

Socrates

Not only that, Callicles — I also keep saying them about the same things.

Callicles

By the gods, you literally never stop talking about shoemakers and fullers and cooks and doctors, as if our discussion were about them.

Socrates

Then won't you tell me in what area the stronger and more intelligent man justly gets more than his share by having more? Or will you neither put up with my suggestions nor tell me yourself?

Callicles

I've been telling you for a while now. First of all, by "the stronger" I don't mean shoemakers or cooks, but the men who are intelligent about the business of the city, about how it should best be run — and not only intelligent, but also courageous, capable of carrying out whatever they've thought through, and not the sort to give up out of softness of soul.

Socrates

Do you see, my excellent Callicles, that your accusation against me and my accusation against you aren't the same? You say I always say the same things, and you find fault with me for it; but I find fault with you for the opposite reason — that you never say the same thing twice about the same subject, but first you defined the better and the stronger as the physically stronger, then as the more intelligent, and now you've come around with something else again — now you say the braver men are the stronger and the better. So, my good man, just tell me plainly, once and for all, who exactly you mean by the better and the stronger, and in what respect, and be done with it.

Callicles

I already told you — the men who are intelligent about the business of the city, and courageous. Because it's fitting for these men to rule the cities, and this is what justice is — for these men, the rulers, to have more than the others, the ruled.

Socrates

And what about this? What about themselves, my friend? Are they rulers of themselves, or ruled?

Callicles

What do you mean?

Socrates

I mean each man ruling himself; or is there no need at all for a man to rule himself, only to rule others?

Callicles

What do you mean by ruling himself?

Socrates

Nothing complicated — just what most people mean: being moderate and in control of oneself, ruling over the pleasures and desires within oneself.

Hedonism Declared, and the Coward's Equal Pleasure

Callicles

How sweet you are — you call the moderate ones fools.

Socrates

How could it [not]? There's no one who wouldn't know that isn't what I mean.

Callicles

Yes, very much so, Socrates. How could a man ever be happy while he's a slave to anything? But this is what's fine and just by nature — I'll say it to you now, speaking frankly — that the man who's going to live rightly should let his own appetites grow as large as possible and not restrain them, and when they're as large as possible, be capable of serving them through courage and intelligence, and satisfy them with whatever he happens to desire at any time. But most people, I think, can't do this — that's why they criticize men like that out of shame, hiding their own inability, and call lack of restraint shameful, exactly what I said before, enslaving the men who are naturally superior; and because they themselves can't secure enough to fill their pleasures, they praise moderation and justice, out of their own lack of manhood. Since for those who from the start happened to be sons of kings, or were naturally capable of securing some rule or tyranny or domination for themselves, ⟨what⟩ could truly be more shameful and worse than moderation and justice for men like this — men who could enjoy good things with nothing standing in their way, and yet bring upon themselves as master the law and the talk and the blame of the common crowd? Or how would they not turn out wretched, brought low by the so-called fineness of justice and moderation, giving no more to their own friends than to their enemies — and that while ruling their own city? No, the truth, Socrates — the very thing you claim to be pursuing — is this: luxury and lack of restraint and freedom, when they have support behind them, that is virtue and happiness; everything else, all this finery, is just conventions men have agreed on, against nature, nonsense and worth nothing.

Socrates

That's no cowardly way to pursue the argument, Callicles, speaking as frankly as you do — you're plainly saying now what everyone else thinks but isn't willing to say. So I ask you not to let up in any way, so that it can really become clear how one ought to live. Now tell me: you say the appetites shouldn't be restrained, if a person is going to be what he should be, but that he should let them grow as large as possible and provide them fulfillment from wherever he can, and that this is virtue?

Callicles

Yes, that's what I say.

Socrates

Then it's not right to say that those who need nothing are happy.

Callicles

Because on that view stones and corpses would be the happiest of all.

Socrates

Well, on your account life is a strange thing indeed. I wouldn't be surprised if Euripides is telling the truth in these lines, where he says—

And it may be that we really are dead — I have in fact heard from the wise that we are dead right now, that the body is a tomb for us, and that the part of the soul in which our appetites live happens to be the kind of thing that can be talked around and flipped upside down, and that some clever storyteller — a Sicilian, perhaps, or an Italian — twisting the name for the sake of the pun, called it, because it is so persuadable and so easily swayed, a jar, and called the mindless the uninitiated — and that in the mindless, this same part of the soul where the appetites are, its unrestrained and leaky part, he compared, on account of its greed, to a jar full of holes. This man, then, is showing you the opposite, Callicles — that among those in Hades, playing on the "unseen" in the name, the most wretched would be exactly these uninitiated ones, and that they would carry water into that leaky jar using another vessel just as full of holes, a sieve. The sieve, so the man who told me this said, stands for the soul — he likened the soul of the mindless to a sieve because it's full of holes, since it can't hold anything, thanks to its faithlessness and forgetfulness. This is all admittedly rather strange, but it shows what I want to point out to you, in case I can somehow persuade you to change your mind and choose, instead of the insatiable and unrestrained life, the orderly life, one content and satisfied with whatever is at hand each time. So, am I persuading you at all, and getting you to change your mind that the orderly are happier than the unrestrained, or would you not shift your position even if I told many more such tales?

Callicles

That's truer, Socrates.

Socrates

Come now, let me give you another image, from the same school as the one just now. Consider whether this is what you mean about each life, the moderate one and the unrestrained one: suppose two men each had many jars — one man's healthy and full, one of wine, one of honey, one of milk, and many others full of many things, but the streams feeding each of these were scarce and hard to come by, procured only with much painful effort; so this first man, once he'd filled his jars, would draw no more from them and give them no further thought, but would be at ease on their account; while the other man, though he too could get the streams, with just as much difficulty, had jars that were cracked and full of holes, and was forced to keep filling them, night and day, or else suffer the worst pains — given that each life is like this, do you say the unrestrained man's life is happier than the orderly man's? Am I persuading you at all by saying this, to agree that the orderly life is better than the unrestrained one, or am I not persuading you?

Callicles

You're not persuading me, Socrates. Because that man who's filled his jars has no more pleasure left at all — that's exactly what I was saying just now, living like a stone once he's filled up, feeling neither joy nor pain any longer. No, living pleasantly consists in having as much as possible flowing in.

Socrates

Then isn't it necessary, if a lot is flowing in, that a lot is also flowing out, and that the holes for the outflow are pretty big?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

So now you're describing the life of some stone-curlew, not a corpse's or a stone's. Now tell me: do you mean something like this — being hungry, and eating while hungry?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And being thirsty, and drinking while thirsty?

Callicles

Yes, and having all the other appetites too, and being able to satisfy them, and enjoying it — that's living happily.

Socrates

Well said, my excellent fellow — keep going the way you started, and don't get embarrassed. And it seems I mustn't get embarrassed either. So first tell me: is it possible to live happily by scratching, if one is scabby and itchy and has plenty to scratch with, spending one's whole life scratching?

Callicles

What a strange man you are, Socrates, and simply a crowd-pleaser.

Socrates

That's exactly why, Callicles, I managed to shock Polus and Gorgias and make them embarrassed, but you won't be shocked or embarrassed, because you're a brave man. Just answer, that's all.

Callicles

Well then, I say that even the man who scratches would live pleasantly.

Socrates

Then if pleasantly, also happily?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

What if it's only his head he itches — or why do I even keep asking you this? Watch what you'll answer, Callicles, if someone asks you everything that follows from this, one thing after another. And, taking all such things to their conclusion, isn't the life of catamites terrible and shameful and wretched? Or will you dare to say that they're happy, as long as they have plenty of what they need?

Callicles

Aren't you ashamed, Socrates, to drag the discussion into things like this?

Socrates

Am I the one dragging it there, my noble friend, or is it whoever claims, without qualification, that those who feel pleasure — however they feel it — are happy, and refuses to distinguish which pleasures are good and which are bad? But even now, tell me: do you say the pleasant and the good are the same thing, or is there some pleasant thing that isn't good?

Callicles

So as not to contradict myself, in case I'd have to say they're different, I say they're the same.

Socrates

You're ruining our earlier agreements, Callicles, and you won't be able to examine the truth properly with me any longer, if you're going to speak against what you actually believe.

Callicles

So do you, Socrates.

Socrates

Well then, neither of us is doing right, if I'm doing that, nor are you. But, my good man, consider whether the good might not simply be feeling pleasure in every case — because many shameful things clearly follow from what was just hinted at, if that's really so, and many other absurdities besides.

Callicles

So you think, Socrates.

Socrates

But do you really maintain this, Callicles?

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

Then shall we take up the argument on the assumption that you're serious?

Callicles

Yes, very much so.

Socrates

Come then, since that's how it seems to you, distinguish these things for me — you do call something knowledge, don't you?

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

And didn't you just say a moment ago that there's such a thing as courage, along with knowledge?

Callicles

Yes, I did.

Socrates

So weren't you speaking of these as two different things, courage as distinct from knowledge?

Callicles

Very much so.

Socrates

What about this? Are pleasure and knowledge the same, or different?

Callicles

Different, surely, wisest of men.

Socrates

And is courage also different from pleasure?

Callicles

Of course.

Socrates

Come then, let's remember this: that Callicles of Acharnae said the pleasant and the good are the same, but knowledge and courage are different both from each other and from the good.

Callicles

And Socrates of Alopece doesn't agree with this. Or does he?

Socrates

He doesn't agree — and I don't think Callicles does either, once he looks at himself properly. Tell me: don't you think those who fare well have had the opposite experience from those who fare badly?

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

So if these are opposite to each other, must things stand with them the way they stand with health and disease? Because a person surely isn't healthy and sick at the same time, and doesn't get rid of health and disease at the same time either.

Callicles

What do you mean?

Socrates

Take, for instance, whatever part of the body you like and examine it. A person gets sick in the eyes, something called ophthalmia, right?

Callicles

Of course.

Socrates

He's surely not healthy in those same eyes at the same time, is he?

Callicles

Not in the least.

Socrates

But what about when he gets rid of the ophthalmia? Does he then also get rid of the health of his eyes, and end up rid of both at once?

Callicles

Not at all.

Socrates

That would be strange, I think, and unreasonable — wouldn't it?

Callicles

Very much so.

Socrates

So I think he gets and loses each of the two in turn?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And the same goes for strength and weakness?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And speed and slowness?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

And does he also get good things and happiness, and their opposites, bad things and misery, in turn, getting rid of each in turn as well?

Callicles

Surely, in every case.

Socrates

So if we find some things a person gets rid of and has at the same time, clearly those things can't be the good and the bad. Do we agree on this? Think it over carefully and answer.

Callicles

I agree, extraordinarily so.

Socrates

Let's go back to what we agreed on earlier. Did you say being hungry is pleasant or painful? I mean hunger itself.

Callicles

Painful, I'd say — though eating while hungry, I say, is pleasant .

Socrates

I understand — but hunger itself is painful, at any rate. Or isn't it?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And thirst too?

Callicles

Very much.

Socrates

Shall I keep asking more of these, or do you agree that every lack and every appetite is painful?

Callicles

I agree — just stop asking.

Socrates

Very well — and do you say that drinking while thirsty is anything other than pleasant?

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

So in what you're describing, the thirsty part is surely in pain?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And the drinking is a filling of the lack, and a pleasure?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So you're saying the enjoyment is in the drinking?

Callicles

Exactly.

Socrates

While thirsty, that is.

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

While in pain?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

Do you see what follows, that you're saying he's enjoying himself while in pain at the same time, when you say he drinks while thirsty? Or doesn't this happen at the same place and the same time, whether you mean the soul or the body? Because I don't think it makes any difference. Is this so, or not?

Callicles

It is.

Socrates

But you say it's impossible to fare well and fare badly at the same time.

Callicles

Yes, I do.

Socrates

But you've agreed that it's possible to feel pleasure while in distress.

Callicles

So it seems.

Socrates

So feeling pleasure isn't the same as faring well, nor is being in distress the same as faring badly — which means the pleasant turns out to be different from the good.

Callicles

I don't know what sophistries you're up to, Socrates.

Socrates

You do know it, but you're playing innocent, Callicles — go on a bit further still [since you're knowingly talking nonsense], so you can see how wise you sound, lecturing me. Doesn't each of us stop being thirsty and start feeling pleasure through drinking, at the same time?

Callicles

I don't know what you mean.

Gorgias

Don't say that, Callicles — answer, if only for our sake, so the discussion can be brought to a conclusion.

Callicles

But Socrates is always like this, Gorgias — he keeps asking about petty, worthless things and refuting people over them.

Gorgias

But what difference does that make to you? It's not your reputation at stake here anyway, Callicles — so submit yourself to Socrates, and let him refute you however he wants.

The Choice of Lives: Philosophy or Flattery of the Crowd

Callicles

Go on and ask your petty little questions, then, since that's how Gorgias wants it.

Socrates

You're a happy man, Callicles, to have been initiated into the great mysteries before the small ones — I didn't think that was allowed. So answer from where you left off: doesn't each of us stop being thirsty and feeling pleasure at the same time?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And doesn't he stop being hungry, and stop with the other appetites and pleasures, at the same time as well?

Callicles

That's so.

Socrates

And doesn't he stop feeling the pains and the pleasures at the same time too?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

But you're not stopping with the good and bad things at the same time, as you agreed — or do you not agree with that now?

Callicles

I do — so what of it?

Socrates

It's because the good and the pleasant don't turn out to be the same thing, my friend, and neither do the bad and the painful. Because he stops with some of these at the same time, but not with others, since they're different — so how could the pleasant be the same as the good, or the painful the same as the bad? But if you like, look at it this way too — I don't think you'll agree with me on this one either ; think it over — you call good men good by the presence of good things in them, don't you, just as you call fine men fine when fineness is present in them?

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

What about this? Do you call foolish and cowardly men good? No, not just now — you spoke of the courageous and intelligent ones; or don't you call these men good?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

What about this? Have you ever seen a mindless child feeling pleasure?

Callicles

I have.

Socrates

And have you never seen a mindless man feeling pleasure?

Callicles

I think I have — but what of it?

Socrates

Nothing — just answer.

Callicles

I've seen it.

Socrates

What about this? A sensible man, feeling pain and feeling pleasure?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

Which of the two feel pleasure and pain more, the intelligent or the foolish?

Callicles

I think there isn't much difference.

Socrates

Well, even that's enough. Have you ever seen a cowardly man in war?

Callicles

Of course.

Socrates

Well then? When the enemy retreats, which men seemed to you to feel more pleasure, the cowards or the brave?

Callicles

Both, I'd say, [more so] — or if not, at least about equally.

Socrates

It makes no difference. So the cowards feel pleasure too?

Callicles

Very much so.

Socrates

And the foolish too, it seems.

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

But when the enemy advances, do only the cowards feel pain, or the brave as well?

Callicles

Both.

Socrates

Equally?

Callicles

The cowards more, perhaps.

Socrates

And when the enemy retreats, don't they feel more pleasure?

Callicles

Perhaps.

Socrates

So both the foolish and the intelligent, both the cowardly and the brave, feel pain and pleasure about equally, as you say — only the cowards more than the brave?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

But surely the intelligent and the brave are good, and the cowardly and foolish are bad?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So the good and the bad feel pleasure and pain about equally?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So are the good and the bad about equally good and bad? Or are the bad even more good?

Callicles

By Zeus, I don't know what you're saying.

Socrates

Don't you know you're saying that good men are good by the presence of good things, and bad men bad by the presence of bad things? And that the good things are the pleasures, and the bad things the pains?

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

So the good things, the pleasures, are present in those who feel pleasure, since they're feeling pleasure?

Callicles

Of course.

Socrates

So, with good things present, those who feel pleasure are good?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

What about this? Aren't the bad things, the pains, present in those who feel pain?

Callicles

They're present.

Socrates

And you say the bad are bad by the presence of bad things — or do you no longer say that?

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

So those who feel pleasure are good, and those who feel pain are bad?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

The more so, the more good or bad; the less so, the less; and those about equally, about equally good or bad?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So you're saying the intelligent and the foolish, and the cowardly and the brave, feel pleasure and pain about equally — or even the cowards a bit more?

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

Now reason it out together with me, what follows for us from what we've agreed — since they say it's fine to state and examine fine things even twice and three times over. We say the intelligent and brave man is good. Isn't that so?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And the foolish and cowardly man is bad?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

And again, the one feeling pleasure is good?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And the one feeling pain is bad?

Callicles

That must be so.

Socrates

And the good man and the bad man feel pain and pleasure alike — perhaps even the bad man more?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So doesn't the bad man turn out just as good as the good man — or even more good than him? Isn't this exactly what followed before too, if someone says the pleasant and the good are the same thing? Isn't this necessary, Callicles?

Callicles

I've been listening to you agree along for a while now, Socrates, thinking to myself that whenever someone concedes you anything, even in play, you grab onto it gladly, like the boys do. As if you really think I, or anyone else alive, don't believe some pleasures are better and others worse.

Socrates

Well, well, Callicles, what a schemer you are — you're treating me like a child, first claiming things are one way, then another, deceiving me. And yet I didn't think at the start I'd be willingly deceived by you, since I took you for a friend — but now I've been proven wrong, and it seems, as the old saying goes, I must make the best of what's here and accept this gift you're now offering. So what you're now saying, it seems, is that some pleasures are good and others bad — isn't that so?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So the beneficial ones are good, and the harmful ones bad?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

And the beneficial ones are the ones that produce something good, and the harmful ones produce something bad?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

Do you mean something like this: take the bodily pleasures we were just talking about, in eating and drinking — of these, whichever produce health in the body, or strength, or some other excellence of the body, those are good, and their opposites bad?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

And likewise with pains, some are good and some are bad?

Callicles

Of course.

Socrates

So the good pleasures and pains are the ones to be chosen and acted on?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

But not the bad ones?

Callicles

Clearly not.

Socrates

Because, if you remember, it seemed to Polus and me that everything must be done for the sake of the good. Do you agree with this too, that the good is the goal of all our actions, and that everything else must be done for its sake, and not it for the sake of the other things? Will you make it unanimous with us, as the third vote?

Callicles

I will.

Socrates

So it's for the sake of good things that we must do the other things, including the pleasant ones, and not the good things for the sake of the pleasant ones.

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

So is it within any man's power to pick out which of the pleasant things are good and which are bad, or is a skilled person needed for each case?

Callicles

A skilled person.

Socrates

Let's remember what I happened to be saying to Polus and Gorgias. I was saying, if you recall, that there are some preparations that go only as far as pleasure, providing just that and nothing more, ignorant of what's better and what's worse, and others that know what's good and what's bad; and I put cookery among those concerned with pleasure — a knack, not a craft — and medicine among those concerned with the good, a craft. And by Philia's god, Callicles, don't you go thinking you need to joke around with me, answering whatever comes to mind against what you actually believe, and don't take what I say as a joke either — because you see that our discussion concerns the very thing a person with even a little sense would take most seriously: how one ought to live — whether following the way you're urging me toward, doing the things a real man does, speaking before the assembly and practicing rhetoric and engaging in politics the way you people do now, or living this life spent in philosophy, and what it is that makes this one different from that one. So perhaps it's best, as I just tried to do, to make a distinction, and once we've distinguished the two and agreed with each other whether there really are these two different lives, to examine how they differ from each other and which of the two is worth living. Perhaps you don't yet know what I mean.

Callicles

No, I don't.

Socrates

But I'll tell you more clearly. Since you and I have agreed that there's such a thing as the good, and such a thing as the pleasant, and that the pleasant is different from the good, and that each of the two has its own practice and pursuit for acquiring it, one the hunt for the pleasant, the other the hunt for the good — this very point, first, either agree with me on it or not. Do you agree?

Callicles

Yes, that's what I say.

Socrates

Come then, agree with me on the things I was saying earlier to Polus and Gorgias — whether I seemed to you to be speaking the truth then. I was saying, I believe, that cookery doesn't seem to me to be a craft but a knack, while medicine is a craft — because medicine has examined the nature of what it treats and the cause of what it does, and can give an account of each of these; while the other one, aiming entirely at pleasure, which is the whole of its business, goes at it in a completely unskilled way, having examined neither the nature of pleasure nor its cause, having reckoned nothing at all, so to speak, in any rational way, preserving through mere routine and knack only a memory of what usually happens, which is also how it supplies its pleasures. So first consider whether this seems to you to be said well enough, and whether there are, in the case of the soul too, other such pursuits — some of them skilled, taking some forethought for what's best for the soul, and others that neglect this, and instead, just as in the body's case, have looked only at the soul's pleasure, at how it might come about, without examining at all which pleasures are better and which worse, caring about nothing except gratifying it, whether for better or worse. Because to me, Callicles, it seems there are such pursuits, and I say that this sort of thing is flattery, whether it concerns the body, or the soul, or anything else — whenever someone attends to pleasure with no thought at all for what's better and what's worse; but you — do you agree with us on this, holding the same opinion, or do you disagree?

Callicles

I don't disagree — I concede it, so your argument can reach its conclusion, and so I can do Gorgias here a favor.

What a Soul-Improving Statesman Would Look Like

Socrates

Now does this hold for just one soul, but not for two or many?

Callicles

No, it holds for two and for many as well.

Socrates

So it's possible to gratify a whole group at once, without any regard for what's best?

Callicles

I think so.

Socrates

Can you tell me, then, what practices do this? Or rather, if you like, as I ask about each one, say yes if it seems to you to be one of these, and no if it doesn't. Let's first consider flute-playing. Doesn't it seem to you to be the sort of thing, Callicles, that pursues only our pleasure and cares about nothing else?

Callicles

It seems so to me.

Socrates

And all the similar ones too, like competitive lyre-playing?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

What about the training of choruses, and the composing of dithyrambs? Doesn't it strike you as the same kind of thing? Or do you think Cinesias son of Meles gives any thought to saying something that would make his listeners better, rather than something likely to gratify the crowd of spectators?

Callicles

That much is clear, Socrates, at least about Cinesias.

Socrates

And what about his father, Meles? Did he seem to you to sing to the lyre with an eye toward what's best? Or didn't even he aim at what's most pleasant? Because his singing annoyed the audience. But consider — doesn't the whole art of singing to the lyre, and the composing of dithyrambs, seem to you to have been invented for the sake of pleasure?

Callicles

So it seems to me.

Socrates

And what about this solemn and wondrous thing, the composing of tragedy — what is it in earnest about? Is its whole undertaking and effort, as it seems to you, just to gratify the spectators, or does it also fight against this, so that if something is pleasant and gratifying to them but bad, it won't say that, and if something happens to be unpleasant but beneficial, it will say and sing that instead, whether they enjoy it or not? Which way does the composing of tragedies seem to you to be arranged?

Callicles

That much is clear, Socrates — it's aimed more at pleasure, and at gratifying the spectators.

Socrates

And didn't we just say, Callicles, that this sort of thing is flattery?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

Now, if someone stripped away the melody, the rhythm, and the meter from all poetry, wouldn't what's left just be speeches?

Callicles

Necessarily.

Socrates

And aren't these speeches delivered before a great crowd, the people?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So poetry turns out to be a kind of public speaking to the crowd.

Callicles

So it appears.

Socrates

So it would be a rhetorical kind of public speaking — or don't the poets seem to you to be practicing rhetoric in the theaters?

Callicles

So it seems to me.

Socrates

So now we've discovered a kind of rhetoric addressed to a crowd made up of children and women and men together, and slaves and free men alike — one we don't much admire, since we say it's a flattering kind.

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

Very well — but what about the rhetoric addressed to the Athenian people and the other free citizens in other cities — what is this rhetoric, for us? Do the orators seem to you always to speak with an eye to what's best, aiming at making the citizens as good as possible through their speeches, or are they too driven toward gratifying the citizens, neglecting the common good for the sake of their own private interest, treating the people like children, trying only to please them, and giving no thought at all to whether this makes them better or worse?

Callicles

That's no longer a simple question you're asking — some of them say what they say out of genuine care for the citizens, while others are just as you describe.

Socrates

That's enough. Because if this too is twofold, then one part of it would be flattery and shameful public speaking, while the other would be fine — the part that works to make the citizens' souls as good as possible, and fights hard, saying what's best, whether it turns out more pleasant or less pleasant to the listeners. But you've never once seen this kind of rhetoric — or if you can name one of the orators who's like that, why haven't you told me who he is?

Callicles

By Zeus, I can't name a single one of the current orators for you.

Socrates

What about this? Among the men of old, can you name one on whose account the Athenians became better, when before his public speaking began they were worse? Because I myself don't know who this man could be.

Callicles

What about this? Haven't you heard that Themistocles was a good man, and Cimon, and Miltiades, and this Pericles here who died recently, whom you yourself have heard speak?

Socrates

If, Callicles, the virtue you spoke of earlier is the true one — satisfying one's own appetites and other people's — well and good; but if it isn't that, and instead it's what we were forced to agree to later on, that of the appetites, the ones that make a person better when filled should be satisfied, and the ones that make him worse should not, and that this takes some skill — then I myself have no way to say that any of these men [became] such a man.

Callicles

But if you look for one properly, you'll find one.

Socrates

Let's look at this quietly, examining whether any of these men actually became like that — because, consider: the good man, the one who speaks with a view to what's best, won't he say whatever he says not at random, but with his eye on something? Just as all the other craftsmen too, each one, don't select and apply things to their work at random, but so that the thing they're making takes on some definite form. For instance, if you want to look at painters, builders, shipwrights, all the other craftsmen, any one you like — see how each one places whatever he places into some arrangement, and forces one part to be fitting and to harmonize with another, until the whole stands together as an ordered and well-arranged thing; and the other craftsmen too, and the ones we were just talking about, those concerned with the body, trainers and doctors, they too, I take it, bring order and arrangement to the body. Do we agree this is so, or not?

Callicles

Let it be so.

Socrates

So a house that has arrangement and order would be a good one, and one with disorder a bad one?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And a ship, the same way?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And surely we say the same about our bodies too?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

And what about the soul? Will it be good if it has disorder, or if it has some arrangement and order?

Callicles

Given what we agreed before, I have to grant this too.

Socrates

So what's the name for the thing that arises in the body from arrangement and order?

Callicles

I suppose you mean health and strength.

Socrates

I do. And what about the thing that arises in the soul from arrangement and order? Try to find and give its name, just as you did for the body.

Callicles

Why don't you just say it yourself, Socrates?

Socrates

Well, if you'd rather I did, I'll say it — and you, if you think I'm putting it well, say so, and if not, refute me, don't just let it pass. Because it seems to me the name for the body's arrangements is "healthy," the thing from which health arises in it, along with the body's other excellence. Is this so, or not?

Callicles

It is.

Socrates

And for the soul's arrangements and orderings, the names are "lawful order" and "law" — the source from which people become law-abiding and orderly; and these are justice and moderation. Do you say so, or not?

Callicles

Let it be so.

Socrates

So, keeping his eye on these things, that orator — the skilled and good one — will apply to people's souls whatever speeches he gives, and all his actions besides, and if he gives some gift, he'll give it, and if he takes something away, he'll take it away, always with his mind fixed on this: how justice might arise in his fellow citizens' souls and injustice be driven out, how moderation might come to be there and lack of restraint be driven out, and how their other virtue might arise and vice depart. Do you agree, or not?

Callicles

I agree.

Socrates

Because what good is it, Callicles, to give a body that's sick and in bad condition plenty of food, even the most pleasant kind, or drink, or anything else, if it won't do it any more good — and, by a fair reckoning, even less good than the opposite would? Isn't that so?

Callicles

Let it be so.

Socrates

Because I don't think it profits a person to live with a body in bad condition — since that means living badly, of necessity. Or isn't that so?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So don't doctors, as a rule, allow a healthy person to satisfy his appetites, letting him eat as much as he wants when hungry, or drink when thirsty, while a sick person, one might say, they never allow to fill himself with what he desires? Do you agree with this too?

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

And isn't it the same way with the soul, my excellent friend? As long as it's in bad condition — being mindless, unrestrained, unjust, and unholy — it must be held back from its appetites, and not permitted to do anything except what will make it better; do you say so, or not?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

Because that's better for the soul, isn't it?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

And isn't holding it back from what it desires a matter of correcting it?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So being corrected is better for the soul than lacking restraint, just as you thought a moment ago.

Callicles

I don't know what you're talking about, Socrates — ask somebody else.

Socrates

This man can't stand being helped, or undergoing the very thing our discussion is about — being corrected.

Callicles

And I don't care in the least about what you're saying — and I only answered you this far as a favor to Gorgias.

Socrates

Very well — so what shall we do, then? Shall we break off the discussion in the middle?

Callicles

You'll have to decide that yourself.

Socrates

But they say it isn't even permitted to leave stories unfinished in the middle — you have to put a head on them, so they don't go around headless. So answer the rest too, so our discussion can get a head.

Callicles

What a bully you are, Socrates. If you'll listen to me, you'll let this discussion go, or else find someone else to argue with.

Socrates

Well, who else is willing? Because we really shouldn't leave the discussion unfinished.

Callicles

Couldn't you get through the discussion yourself, either talking it out on your own or answering your own questions?

The Argument's Bonds of Iron and Adamant

Socrates

So Epicharmus's saying may come true for me — what two men used to say before, I, one man, may prove able to say. But it looks like this really is the most necessary thing. If we're actually going to do this, though, I think all of us need to be eager to find out what's true and what's false in what we're saying; it's a good shared by everyone alike once it comes out into the open. So I'll go through the argument the way it seems to me to stand; and if any of you thinks I'm not agreeing with myself about how things really are, you should take hold of it and refute me. I'm not saying what I say because I know it, but because I'm searching together with all of you, so that if the person disputing with me turns out to be saying something worthwhile, I'll be the first to agree. Still, I'm saying all this on the assumption that we ought to carry the argument through to the end; but if you don't want to, let's drop it right now and go.

Gorgias

But it doesn't seem to me yet time to leave, Socrates — you should go through the argument to the end; it looks to me like the others think so too. I myself, for one, want to hear you go through what's left yourself.

Socrates

But truly, Gorgias, I myself would happily go on talking with our friend Callicles here, until I paid him back Amphion's speech for Zethus's; but since you, Callicles, aren't willing to help me see the argument through, at least listen to me and step in if you think I'm not speaking well . And if you refute me, I won't be annoyed with you the way you were with me — instead you'll be registered as my greatest benefactor.

Callicles

Go on, my good man, speak for yourself and finish it.

Socrates

Listen, then, while I take up the argument again from the beginning. Is the pleasant the same as the good?—Not the same, as Callicles and I agreed.—Now, which is it: do we choose the pleasant because of the good, or the good because of the pleasant?—The pleasant, because of the good.—And the pleasant is that whose presence gives us pleasure, and the good is that whose presence makes us good?—Certainly.—And we, and everything else that's good, are good once some excellence is present in us?—That seems necessary to me, Callicles.—But surely the excellence of each thing — a tool, a body, a soul again, any living creature — comes to it at its finest not by chance, but through arrangement, correctness, and whatever craft has been assigned to each; is that so?—Yes, I say so.—So the excellence of each thing is arranged by arrangement and given order?—I'd say so.—So it's some order, arising in each thing and proper to it, that makes each existing thing good?—So it seems to me.—And a soul that has its own order is better than one without order?—Necessarily.—And surely one that has order is orderly?—How could it not be?—And the orderly one is moderate ?—Quite necessarily.—So the moderate soul is good. I have nothing else to say against this, my dear Callicles; but if you do, teach me.

Callicles

Speak, my good man.

Socrates

I say this: if the moderate soul is good, then the one in the opposite condition to the moderate is bad; and that one was the foolish and unrestrained soul.—Certainly.—And surely the moderate man would do what's fitting, both toward gods and toward men; for he wouldn't be moderate if he did what's not fitting?—That must be so.—And doing what's fitting toward men, he'd be doing just things, and toward gods, pious things; and a man who does just and pious things must be just and pious.—That's so.—And he must be brave too; for it's not the mark of a moderate man to chase or avoid what he shouldn't, but to avoid and pursue whatever things, people, pleasures, and pains he ought to, and to hold his ground and endure where he must; so it's altogether necessary , Callicles, that the moderate man, as we've gone through, being just and brave and pious, is a completely good man; and that the good man does well and finely whatever he does; and that the one who does well is blessed and happy, while the wicked one, who does badly, is wretched; and this last would be the man in the condition opposite to the moderate — the unrestrained man, whom you were praising.

So I hold to all this, and I say it's true; and if it's true, then anyone who wants, it seems, to be happy must pursue and practice moderation, and flee licentiousness as fast as his feet will carry him, and above all arrange things so he never needs correcting, but if he does need it — himself, or anyone close to him, whether a private person or a city — then punishment must be imposed and correction applied, if he's going to be happy. This seems to me to be the goal a person should keep in view and live by, directing everything he does — his own affairs and the city's — toward making sure justice and moderation will be present in the man who's going to be happy, acting that way instead of letting his desires run unrestrained and trying to fill them up, an endless evil, living a bandit's life. A man like that couldn't be dear to anyone else, human or god; he's incapable of community, and where there's no community, there can be no friendship. The wise say, Callicles, that heaven and earth, gods and men, are all held together by community, friendship, orderliness, moderation, and justice — and that's why they call the whole of it order, my friend, not disorder or licentiousness. But you seem to me to pay no attention to any of this, clever as you are, and it has escaped you that geometric equality has great power among both gods and men, while you think one should practice getting more; that's because you neglect geometry. Well then; either this argument of ours must be refuted — that it's not by possessing justice and moderation that the happy are happy, and by possessing vice that the wretched are wretched — or, if it's true, we need to look at what follows from it. And all those earlier things follow, Callicles — the ones you asked me about, whether I was serious when I said that a person ought to accuse himself, his son, or his companion, if he does any wrong, and that rhetoric should be used for this purpose; and what you thought Polus admitted only out of shame turns out to be true after all — that doing wrong is worse than suffering it by exactly as much as it's more shameful ; and that the man who's going to be a genuine orator must be just and knowledgeable about just things, which Polus in turn said Gorgias admitted only out of shame.

Since that's how things stand, let's consider what it actually is you're reproaching me with — whether it's well said or not — that I'm not capable of helping myself or any of my friends or family, or saving them from the greatest dangers, and that I'm at the mercy of anyone who wants, the way disgraced men are at the mercy of anyone who's willing — whether he wants to hit me across the face, that vigorous phrase of yours, or take my money, or drive me out of the city, or, worst of all, kill me; and that being in such a position is the most shameful thing there is, according to your argument. But my own position, whatever it is, has already been stated many times, and nothing stops me from stating it again now; I say, Callicles, that being struck unjustly across the face isn't the most shameful thing, and neither is having my body cut, or my purse — but striking me and mine unjustly, and cutting us, is more shameful and worse, and so is stealing, enslaving, breaking into my house, and in a word doing any wrong at all to me and mine — for the one doing the wrong, it's worse and more shameful than it is for me, the one wronged. These things, having appeared to us this way, up there in our earlier discussions, are held fast and bound, as I put it, and — if I may put it rather crudely — bound by arguments of iron and adamant, or so it would seem, at any rate; arguments which, unless you or someone even more forceful than you break them, no one can say anything other than what I'm now saying and still speak well; since, for my part, my position is always the same — that I myself don't know how these things stand, but that of everyone I've ever met, as now, no one can say anything different without being ridiculous. So I, for my part, maintain once again that this is how things stand; and if this is so, and doing wrong is the greatest of evils for the one doing it, and greater still than this greatest evil — if such a thing is possible — is for the wrongdoer to escape paying the penalty, then what kind of help, if a person can't provide it for himself, would make him truly ridiculous? Isn't it the help that would turn aside the greatest harm to us? It must surely be the most shameful thing, then, not to be able to provide that help either for oneself or for one's own friends and family, and the next most shameful not to be able to help against the second-worst evil, and the third most shameful against the third, and so on down the line; the greater the natural size of each evil, the finer it is to be able to help against it, and the more shameful not to be able to. Or does it stand some other way than this, Callicles?

Callicles

Not some other way.

Socrates

So, there being two things, doing wrong and suffering wrong, we say doing wrong is the greater evil, and suffering wrong the lesser. What, then, would a person need to acquire in order to help himself and get both these benefits — the one that comes from not doing wrong, and the one that comes from not suffering wrong? Power, or wishing? Here's what I mean: if he simply doesn't wish to suffer wrong, will he not suffer it, or does he need to acquire the power not to suffer wrong in order not to suffer it?

Callicles

That much is clear — if he has the power.

Socrates

And what about doing wrong? Is it enough for him simply not to wish to do wrong — since then he won't do it — or does he also need to acquire some power and craft for this , so that if he doesn't learn and practice it, he'll do wrong? Why don't you just answer me this, Callicles: do you think Polus and I were right to be forced into agreeing, earlier in the discussion, or not, when we agreed that no one does wrong willingly, and that everyone who does wrong does it unwillingly?

Currying a Tyrant's Favour, and the Craft That Saves Lives

Callicles

Let's grant you that, Socrates, so that you can finish the argument.

Socrates

So for this too, it seems, we need to acquire some power and craft, so that we don't do wrong.

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

So what craft, then, provides for not being wronged at all, or as little as possible? See if you think the same as I do. Because it seems to me to be this: either a man must rule in the city himself, or even be tyrant, or be a partner of the government currently in power.

Callicles

You see, Socrates, how ready I am to praise you, whenever you say something well? This seems to me very well put.

Socrates

Then consider this too, and see if you think I'm right. It seems to me that each person is a friend to another as much as possible in the way the ancients and the wise put it — like to like. Don't you think so too?

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

So wherever a savage, uneducated man is tyrant and ruler, if someone in the city were far better than he is, the tyrant would surely be afraid of him, and could never wholeheartedly become his friend?

Callicles

That's so.

Socrates

Nor, if someone were far worse, could that man be his friend either; the tyrant would look down on him, and would never take him seriously as a friend.

Callicles

That's true too.

Socrates

So the only friend worth mentioning left for a man like that is someone of the same character, who blames and praises the same things, and is willing to be ruled and to submit to the ruler. This man will have great power in that city, and no one will wrong him and get away with it. Isn't that how it is?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So if one of the young men in that city were to consider, in what way could I gain great power and have no one wrong me? This, it seems, is his path: to accustom himself, right from youth, to take pleasure and displeasure in the same things as his master, and to arrange things so that he becomes as much like him as possible. Isn't that so?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So this man will have achieved both not being wronged and having great power in the city, according to your account.

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

But does he also achieve not doing wrong? Or is that far from true, if he's going to be like a ruler who's unjust, and have great power at his side? No — I think it's exactly the opposite: his preparation will be aimed at being able to do as much wrong as possible, and doing wrong without paying the penalty. Isn't that so?

Callicles

It seems so.

Socrates

So the greatest evil will befall him — being corrupt in his soul and maimed, because of his imitation of his master and his power.

Callicles

I don't know how you keep turning the arguments upside down every time, Socrates; or don't you know that the man who does the imitating will kill the one who doesn't, if he wants to, and take his property away?

Socrates

I know it, my good Callicles, unless I'm deaf — I've heard it just now from you, and from Polus, many times over, and from nearly everyone else in the city; but you listen to me too: he'll kill him, if he wants — but he'll be a wicked man killing a fine and good one.

Callicles

And isn't that exactly the outrageous part?

Socrates

Not to a man with sense, at any rate, as the argument shows. Or do you think a person ought to arrange to live as long as possible, and practice the crafts that always save us from danger — the way you tell me to practice rhetoric, the kind that saves people in the courtroom?

Callicles

Yes, by Zeus, and giving you good advice too.

Socrates

But what about this, my excellent fellow? Does the knowledge of swimming seem to you to be some solemn thing?

Callicles

No, by Zeus, not to me.

Socrates

And yet it too saves people from death, whenever they fall into a situation where that knowledge is needed. And if that seems too small a thing to you, I'll tell you of a greater one : the pilot's craft, which saves not only lives but also bodies and property from the direst dangers, the way rhetoric does. And this craft is modest and orderly, and doesn't put on airs, dressing itself up as though it were doing something magnificent, but having accomplished the very same result as the courtroom pleader's craft — if it brings someone safely here from Aegina, I think it charges two obols, and if from Egypt or the Black Sea, however great the distance, for this great service — having saved, as I was just saying, the man himself, his children, his property, and his womenfolk — it sets them ashore at the harbor and charges two drachmas; and the man who has the craft, having accomplished all that, steps off the ship and walks along the beach beside it in a modest manner; for I imagine he knows how to reckon that it's unclear which of his fellow passengers he benefited by not letting them drown, and which he harmed, knowing that he put none of them ashore any better than they were when they boarded, neither in body nor in soul. So he reckons that it isn't the case that if a man burdened with great, incurable diseases of the body failed to drown, that man is wretched for not having died, and got no benefit from him; but that if someone, on the other hand, has many incurable diseases in what is more valuable than the body, the soul, and this man is to go on living, the pilot will do him a service by saving him, whether from the sea, or the courtroom, or wherever else he saves him from — no, he knows that it's no better for a corrupt man to live; for such a man is bound to live badly.

That's why it isn't customary for the pilot to give himself airs, even though he saves us, nor for the engineer either, my remarkable friend, who's sometimes able to save no less than a general — to say nothing of a pilot — or anyone else; because sometimes he saves whole cities. Doesn't he seem to you to be on the same level as the courtroom pleader? And yet if he wanted to talk the way you people do, Callicles, giving the business a grand air , he could bury you in words, saying and urging that everyone ought to become an engineer, since nothing else amounts to anything; his argument would be more than adequate for it. But you look down on him and his craft all the same, and you'd use engineer as an insult, and you wouldn't want to give your daughter to his son, or take his daughter for yourself. And yet, given the grounds on which you praise your own pursuits, what fair reason do you have to look down on the engineer and the others I just mentioned? I know you'd say you're better, and from better people. But if the better isn't what I say it is, and instead virtue itself just is saving yourself and what's yours, whatever sort of person you happen to be, then your contempt for the engineer, the doctor, and the other crafts made for the sake of saving people becomes ridiculous. No, my good man, consider whether what's noble and good might be something other than saving and being saved. Because a man who's truly a man should let this — living for however long — go, and not cling to life, but leave these matters to the god and trust the women who say no one can escape his fated portion, and then turn to the question of how he might live as well as possible in whatever time he has left — whether by making himself like the government of the city he lives in, and so whether you now need to become as much like the Athenian people as possible, if you're going to be dear to them and have great power in the city; consider whether that actually pays off for you and for me, so that we don't end up, my good friend, suffering what they say the Thessalian witches suffer who pull down the moon — that we pay for this power in the city with what we hold dearest. But if you think any human being at all is going to hand you a craft that will let you have great power in this city while being unlike its government, whether for better or for worse, then, as it seems to me, you're not planning correctly, Callicles; you can't be an imitator — you have to be naturally like them, if you're going to produce anything genuine that wins the friendship of the Athenian people, and, by Zeus, of Pyrilampes' son too. So whoever makes you most like these people will make you into what you long to be — a politician and orator; for each group takes pleasure in speeches made to match its own character , and resents speeches that don't fit it, unless you have something else to say, my dear fellow. Do we have anything to say to that, Callicles?

Callicles

I don't know how it is, Socrates, but you seem to me to be right somehow, yet I feel what most people feel — I'm not entirely convinced by you.

Socrates

That's because the love of the people, Callicles, at home in your soul, is resisting me; but if we examine these same things over again many times, [perhaps even] better , you'll be convinced. Just recall that we said there were two ways of caring for each thing, body and soul alike: one that deals with pleasure, and another that deals with what's best, not indulging but fighting against it. Isn't that what we settled on back then?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

So the one that deals with pleasure is base, and turns out to be nothing but flattery — isn't that so?

Callicles

Let it be so for you, if you like.

Socrates

And the other one aims at making whatever we're caring for — body or soul, whichever it happens to be — as good as possible?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

So is this how we ought to go about caring for the city and its citizens — trying to make the citizens themselves as good as possible? Because without that, as we found earlier, there's no use in providing any other benefit at all, unless the intentions of the people who are going to acquire great wealth, or rule over others, or hold any other kind of power, are fine and good. Shall we say that's how it is?

Callicles

Certainly, if that's more agreeable to you.

Socrates

So if, Callicles, we were calling on each other to take up public affairs and turn to building projects — the greatest structures, whether walls, dockyards, or temples — should we first have examined and questioned ourselves , whether we knew the craft of building or not, and from whom we'd learned it? Should we have, or not?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

And here's the second question: whether we'd ever actually built a building on our own, either for a friend or for ourselves, and whether that building was fine or shameful; and if, on examining the matter, we found that our teachers had been good and distinguished, and that we'd built many fine buildings together with our teachers, and many more on our own once we'd parted ways with them — in that condition, it would make sense to go on to public works; but if we had no teacher of our own to point to, and either no buildings at all, or many that weren't worth anything, then surely it would be senseless to attempt public works and call on each other to undertake them. Shall we say that's rightly put, or not?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

And so it is with everything else too; and if we'd taken it upon ourselves to practice medicine in public and called on each other as competent doctors, surely I'd have examined you and you'd have examined me — come, by the gods, how is Socrates himself doing in bodily health? Or has anyone else, slave or free, ever been rid of a disease because of Socrates? I imagine I'd have questioned you along the same lines too; and if we found that no one had become better in body because of us, neither foreigner nor citizen, neither man nor woman, then by Zeus, Callicles, wouldn't it truly be laughable, for people to reach such a pitch of folly that, before practicing privately, doing a great many things as chance would have it, and getting a good many right, and training sufficiently in the craft, they attempt — as the saying goes — to learn pottery on a full-sized jar, and try to practice in public themselves, and call on other people like themselves to do the same? Doesn't it seem to you that acting that way would be senseless?

Callicles

It does to me.

Did the Great Statesmen Make Athens Better, or Only Bigger?

Socrates

But now, best of men — since you are just now starting to handle the city's affairs yourself, while you keep urging me on and reproaching me for not taking part — come, let's examine each other: has Callicles by now made any citizen better? Is there anyone — foreigner or citizen, slave or free — who was wicked before, unjust and undisciplined and foolish, and has become fine and good because of Callicles? Tell me — if someone were to question you on this, Callicles — what will you say? Who will you say you have made better by keeping company with you? Are you reluctant to answer, if there is some deed of yours from when you were still a private citizen, before you attempted public life?

Callicles

You're a contentious man, Socrates.

Socrates

No, I'm not asking out of contentiousness, but because I genuinely want to know in what manner you think one ought to conduct politics among us. Or is it something else you'll take care of for us once you turn to the city's affairs, rather than making the citizens as good as possible? Or haven't we already agreed many times over that this is what the political man must do? Have we agreed, or not? Answer. We have agreed — I'll answer on your behalf. So if this is what a good man must provide for his own city, think back now and tell me about those men you were mentioning a little earlier — whether you still think they turned out to be good citizens — Pericles, Cimon, Miltiades, and Themistocles.

Callicles

I do.

Socrates

Then if they were good, clearly each of them made the citizens better instead of worse. Did he, or not?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

So when Pericles first began speaking before the assembly, were the Athenians worse than when he was giving his last speeches?

Callicles

Perhaps.

Socrates

Not perhaps, best of men, but a necessity from what we've agreed, if he really was a good citizen.

Callicles

What of it, then?

Socrates

Nothing — but tell me this too: whether the Athenians are said to have become better because of Pericles, or, on the contrary, to have been utterly ruined by him. For this is what I hear — that Pericles made the Athenians idle and cowardly and talkative and money-loving, by being the first to establish paid service.

Callicles

You're hearing that from the men with the battered ears, Socrates.

Socrates

But this I no longer merely hear — both you and I know clearly that Pericles was well regarded at first, and the Athenians voted no shameful conviction against him while they were worse; but once they had become fine and good because of him, at the end of Pericles's life, they convicted him of theft, and came close to sentencing him to death — clearly because they thought him wicked.

Callicles

What of it? Was Pericles bad because of that?

Socrates

Well, a keeper of donkeys or horses or cattle, at any rate, would be thought a bad one if this were his record — if he took them over not kicking or butting or biting him, and turned them into animals doing all of that out of savageness. Or don't you think any keeper of any animal whatever is a bad one, if he takes over gentler creatures and turns them out wilder than he received them? Do you think so, or not?

Callicles

Certainly — just to indulge you.

Socrates

Then indulge me on this too, and answer: is man one of the animals, or not?

Callicles

Of course he is.

Socrates

So Pericles was taking care of human beings?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

What then? Shouldn't they, as we just agreed, have become more just instead of more unjust because of him, if he really was taking care of them as a man good in political matters?

Callicles

Certainly.

Socrates

Now the just are gentle, as Homer said — but what do you say? Isn't that so?

Callicles

Yes.

Socrates

And yet he made them come out wilder than he received them — and toward himself, of all people, whom he'd least have wished it.

Callicles

Do you want me to agree with you?

Socrates

If you think I'm telling the truth.

Callicles

All right, let it be so.

Socrates

Then if wilder, also more unjust and worse?

Callicles

Let it be.

Socrates

Then by this argument Pericles was not good at politics.

Callicles

Not by your account, anyway.

Socrates

No, by Zeus, nor by yours either, from what you've agreed. Now tell me again about Cimon — didn't the very men he served ostracize him, so as not to hear his voice for ten years? And didn't they do the same to Themistocles, and add exile as punishment? And didn't they vote to throw Miltiades, the hero of Marathon, into the pit, and if not for the presiding officer, wouldn't he have gone in? And yet if these men were good, as you claim, they would never have suffered any of this. Good charioteers, surely, don't fall out of their chariots at the start and then fall out later, once they've trained their horses and become better drivers themselves — that isn't how it works, either in chariot-driving or in any other line of work — or do you think it is?

Callicles

Not to me.

Socrates

So it seems our earlier arguments were true, that we know of no man who has turned out good at politics in this city. You agreed there was none among the men of today, but there was among the men of the past, and you picked out these particular men — but they've turned out to be no better than the men of today, so that, if they were orators, they used neither the true rhetoric — for then they wouldn't have fallen — nor the flattering kind.

Callicles

But it's far from the case, Socrates, that any man alive today could accomplish deeds like the ones any of these men — whichever one you please — accomplished.

Socrates

My good man, I'm not faulting them as servants of the city either — they seem to me to have been more capable servants than the men of today, and better able to supply the city with what it desired. But when it comes to redirecting people's desires instead of indulging them, persuading and compelling the citizens toward whatever would actually make them better — in that, they differed from the men of today, one might say, not at all; and that is the one task of a good citizen. As for ships and walls and dockyards and plenty of other things of that kind, I grant you those men were cleverer at supplying them. So you and I are doing something absurd in our discussion — the whole time we've been talking, we haven't stopped circling back to the same point, each failing to grasp what the other is saying. At any rate, I think you've many times agreed and recognized that this business, whether concerning the body or the soul, comes in two kinds: one of them is a service, capable of supplying, if our bodies are hungry, food, if thirsty, drink, if cold, clothes, bedding, shoes, or whatever else bodies come to desire — and I'm deliberately using the same images with you, so you'll follow more easily. For being able to supply any of these things — whether as a shopkeeper or a merchant or a craftsman of one of them, a baker or a cook or a weaver or a shoemaker or a tanner — it's no wonder that a man of that kind seems, both to himself and to others, to be a caretaker of the body, to anyone who doesn't know that there is, apart from all these, one craft, physical training together with medicine, which really is the caretaking of the body, and which rightly ought to rule over all these crafts and make use of their products, because it alone knows what is good and bad among foods and drinks for the excellence of the body, while all the others are ignorant of this — which is why these other crafts, in dealing with the body, are slavish and servile and unfree, while physical training and medicine are, by right, their mistresses. That the same holds for the soul as well — at times you seem to me to understand what I'm saying, and agree as though you know what I mean; but a little later you come round saying that men have become fine and good citizens in the city, and when I ask which men, you seem to me to be putting forward, for politics, men of exactly the same stripe as if, when I asked about physical training who has become or is a good caretaker of bodies, you told me quite in earnest, Thearion the baker, and Mithaecus, who wrote the book on Sicilian cookery, and Sarambus the wine-merchant — that these men have turned out to be wonderful caretakers of bodies, one preparing wonderful bread, another relish, another wine. Well, perhaps you'd be indignant if I told you: my good man, you understand nothing about physical training — you're telling me about servants, men who supply desires, with no understanding of anything fine and good about the matter, who, if it so happens, stuff and fatten people's bodies, get praised for it, and along the way destroy their old flesh too; while the people themselves, in their inexperience, won't blame the ones who feasted them as the cause of their sicknesses and the loss of their old flesh, but rather whoever happens to be present at the time offering some advice, once that earlier overindulgence brings on sickness a good while later, arriving as it does with no regard for health — these are the ones they'll blame and censure and do some harm to, if they can, while praising those earlier men, the actual causes of the trouble, to the skies. And that, Callicles, is exactly what you're doing now — you praise men who have feasted the citizens, filling them up with whatever they wanted. And people say these men made the city great — but that it's swollen and festering underneath because of those men of old, that they don't perceive. For without moderation and justice they've filled the city with harbors and dockyards and walls and tribute and nonsense of that kind; so when this collapse of its weakness comes, they'll blame whoever happens to be advising at the time, and praise Themistocles and Cimon and Pericles, the actual causes of the trouble — and perhaps they'll take hold of you too, if you aren't careful, and of my friend Alcibiades, once they start losing even the old possessions along with what they've newly gained — though you two aren't the causes of the trouble, only perhaps its accomplices. And yet I see a foolish thing happening even now, and I hear the same about the men of old. For I notice that whenever the city takes some political man to task as a wrongdoer, they grow indignant and complain bitterly at the terrible treatment they're suffering — as if, having done the city many good services, they're now being unjustly destroyed by it, or so their story goes. But the whole thing is a lie — no leader of a city could ever be unjustly destroyed by the very city he leads. It seems the same holds for all who claim to be statesmen as for all who claim to be sophists. For the sophists too, wise as they are in other respects, do this absurd thing — claiming to be teachers of virtue, they often accuse their own students of wronging them, cheating them of their fees and paying back no other gratitude either, after having been well treated by them. And what could be more unreasonable than this claim — that men who have become good and just, who have had injustice removed from them by their teacher and have acquired justice instead, should do wrong by means of something they no longer have? Doesn't that strike you as absurd, my friend? You've truly forced me into giving a speech, Callicles, by refusing to answer.

Callicles

And you wouldn't be able to talk, if no one answered you?