PLATO,

CHAPTER XXIV.

GORGIAS.

Persons who debate in the Gorgias. Celebrity of the historical Gorgias.

Aristotle, in one of his lost dialogues, made honourable mention of a Corinthian cultivator, who, on reading the Platonic Gorgias, was smitten with such vehement admiration, that he abandoned his fields and his vines, came to Athens forthwith, and committed himself to the tuition of Plato.1 How much of reality there may be in this anecdote, we cannot say: but the Gorgias itself is well calculated to justify such warm admiration. It opens with a discussion on the nature and purpose of Rhetoric, but is gradually enlarged so as to include a comparison of the various schemes of life, and an outline of positive ethical theory. It is carried on by Sokrates with three distinct interlocutors — Gorgias, Polus, and Kalliklês; but I must again remind the reader that all the four are only spokesmen prompted by Plato himself.2 It may indeed be considered almost as three distinct dialogues, connected by a loose thread. The historical Gorgias, a native of Leontini in Sicily, was the most celebrated of the Grecian rhetors; an elderly man during Plato’s youth. He paid visits to different cities in all parts of Greece, and gave lessons in rhetoric to numerous pupils, chiefly young men of ambitious aspirations.3

318 Introductory circumstances of the dialogue. Polus and Kalliklês.

Sokrates and Chærephon are described as intending to come to a rhetorical lecture of Gorgias, but as having been accidentally detained so as not to arrive until just after it has been finished, with brilliant success. Kalliklês, however, the host and friend of Gorgias, promises that the rhetor will readily answer any questions put by Sokrates; which Gorgias himself confirms, observing at the same time that no one had asked him any new question for many years past.4 Sokrates accordingly asks Gorgias what his profession is? what it is that he teaches? what is the definition of rhetoric? Not receiving a satisfactory answer, Sokrates furnishes a definition of his own: out of which grow two arguments of wide ethical bearing: carried on by Sokrates, the first against Polus, the second against Kalliklês. Both these two are represented as voluble speakers, of confident temper, regarding the acquisition of political power and oratorical celebrity as the grand objects of life. Polus had even composed a work on Rhetoric, of which we know nothing: but the tone of this dialogue would seem to indicate (as far as we can judge from such evidence) that the style of the work was affected, and the temper of the author flippant.

Purpose of Sokrates in questioning. Conditions of a good definition.

Here, as in the other dialogues above noticed, the avowed aim of Sokrates is — first, to exclude long speaking — next, to get the question accurately conceived, and answered in an appropriate manner. Specimens are given of unsuitable and inaccurate answers, which Sokrates corrects. The conditions of a good definition are made plain by contrast with bad ones; which either include much more than the thing defined, or set forth what is accessory and occasional in place of what is essential and constant. These tentatives and gropings to find a definition are always instructive, 319and must have been especially so in the Platonic age, when logical distinctions had never yet been made a subject of separate attention or analysis.

Questions about the definition of Rhetoric. It is the artisan of persuasion.

About what is Rhetoric as a cognition concerned, Gorgias? Gorg. — About words or discourses. Sokr. — About what discourses? such as inform sick men how they are to get well? Gorg. — No. Sokr. — It is not about all discourses? Gorg. — It makes men competent to speak: of course therefore also to think, upon the matters on which they speak.5 Sokr. — But the medical and gymnastic arts do this likewise, each with reference to its respective subject: what then is the difference between them and Rhetoric? Gorg. — The difference is, that each of these other arts tends mainly towards some actual work or performance, to which the discourses, when required at all, are subsidiary: but Rhetoric accomplishes every thing by discourses alone.6 Sokr. — But the same may be said about arithmetic, geometry, and other sciences. How are they distinguished from Rhetoric? You must tell me upon what matters the discourses with which Rhetoric is conversant turn; just as you would tell me, if I asked the like question about arithmetic or astronomy. Gorg. — The discourses, with which Rhetoric is conversant, turn upon the greatest of all human affairs. Sokr. — But this too, Gorgias, is indistinct and equivocal. Every man, the physician, the gymnast, the money-maker, thinks his own object and his own affairs the greatest of all.7 Gorg. — The function of Rhetoric, is to persuade assembled multitudes, and thus to secure what are in truth the greatest benefits: freedom to the city, political command to the speaker.8 Sokr. — Rhetoric is then the artisan of persuasion. Its single purpose is to produce persuasion in the minds of hearers? Gorg. — It is so.

The Rhetor produces belief without knowledge. Upon what matters is he competent to advise?

Sokr. — But are there not other persons besides the Rhetor, who produce persuasion? Does not the arithmetical teacher, and every other teacher, produce persuasion? 320How does the Rhetor differ from them? What mode of persuasion does he bring about? Persuasion about what? Gorg. — I reply — it is that persuasion which is brought about in Dikasteries, and other assembled multitudes — and which relates to just and unjust.9 Sokr. — You recognise that to have learnt and to know any matter, is one thing — to believe it, is another: that knowledge and belief are different — knowledge being always true, belief sometimes false? Gorg. — Yes. Sokr. — We must then distinguish two sorts of persuasion: one carrying with it knowledge — the other belief without knowledge. Which of the two does the Rhetor bring about? Gorg. — That which produces belief without knowledge. He can teach nothing. Sokr. — Well, then, Gorgias, on what matters will the Rhetor be competent to advise? When the people are deliberating about the choice of generals or physicians, about the construction of docks, about practical questions of any kind — there will be in each case a special man informed and competent to teach or give counsel, while the Rhetor is not competent. Upon what then can the Rhetor advise — upon just and unjust — nothing else?10

The Rhetor can persuade the people upon any matter, even against the opinion of the special expert. He appears to know, among the ignorant.

The Rhetor (says Gorgias) or accomplished public speaker, will give advice about all the matters that you name, and others besides. He will persuade the people and carry them along with him, even against the opinion of the special Expert. He will talk more persuasively than the craftsman about matters of the craftsman’s own business. The power of the Rhetor is thus very great: but he ought to use it, like all other powers, for just and honest purposes; not to abuse it for wrong and oppression. If he does the latter, the misdeed is his own, and not the fault of his teacher, who gave his lessons with a view that they should be turned to proper use. If a man, who has learnt the use of arms, employs them to commit murder, this abuse ought not to be imputed to his master of arms.11

You mean (replies Sokrates) that he, who has learnt Rhetoric from you, will become competent not to teach, but to persuade 321the multitude:—that is, competent among the ignorant. He has acquired an engine of persuasion; so that he will appear, when addressing the ignorant, to know more than those who really do know.12

Gorgias is now made to contradict himself. Polus takes up the debate with Sokrates.

Thus far, the conversation is carried on between Sokrates and Gorgias. But the latter is now made to contradict himself — apparently rather than really — for the argument whereby Sokrates reduces him to a contradiction, is not tenable, unless we admit the Platonic doctrine that the man who has learnt just and unjust, may be relied on to act as a just man;13 in other words, that virtue consists in knowledge.

Polemical tone of Sokrates. At the instance of Polus he gives his own definition of rhetoric. It is no art, but an empirical knack of catering for the immediate pleasure of hearers, analogous to cookery. It is a branch under the general head flattery.

Polus now interferes and takes up the conversation: challenging Sokrates to furnish what he thinks the proper definition of Rhetoric. Sokrates obeys, in a tone of pungent polemic. Rhetoric (he says) is no art at all, but an empirical knack of catering for the pleasure and favour of hearers; analogous to cookery.14 It is a talent falling under the general aptitude called Flattery; possessed by some bold spirits, who are forward in divining and adapting themselves to the temper of the public.15 It is not honourable, but a mean pursuit, like cookery. It is the shadow or false imitation of a branch of the political art.16 In reference both to the body and the mind, there are two different conditions: one, a condition really and truly 322good — the other, good only in fallacious appearance, and not so in reality. To produce, and to verify, the really good condition of the body, there are two specially qualified professions, the gymnast or trainer and the physician: in regard to the mind, the function of the trainer is performed by the law-giving power, that of the physician by the judicial power. Law-making, and adjudicating, are both branches of the political art, and when put together make up the whole of it. Gymnastic and medicine train and doctor the body towards its really best condition: law-making and adjudicating do the same in regard to the mind. To each of the four, there corresponds a sham counterpart or mimic, a branch under the general head flattery — taking no account of what is really best, but only of that which is most agreeable for the moment, and by this trick recommending itself to a fallacious esteem.17 Thus Cosmetic, or Ornamental Trickery, is the counterfeit of Gymnastic; and Cookery the counterfeit of Medicine. Cookery studies only what is immediately agreeable to the body, without considering whether it be good or wholesome: and does this moreover, without any truly scientific process of observation or inference, but simply by an empirical process of memory or analogy. But Medicine examines, and that too by scientific method, only what is good and wholesome for the body, whether agreeable or not. Amidst ignorant men, Cookery slips in as the counterfeit of medicine; pretending to know what food is good for the body, while it really knows only what food is agreeable. In like manner, the artifices of ornament dress up the body to a false appearance of that vigour and symmetry, which Gymnastics impart to it really and intrinsically.

Distinction between the true arts which aim at the good of the body and mind — and the counterfeit arts, which pretend to the same, but in reality aim at immediate pleasure.

The same analogies hold in regard to the mind. Sophistic is the shadow or counterfeit of law-giving: Rhetoric, of judging or adjudicating. The lawgiver and the judge aim at what is good for the mind: the Sophist and the Rhetor aim at what is agreeable to it. This distinction323 between them (continues Sokrates) is true and real: though it often happens that the Sophist is, both by himself and by others, confounded with and mistaken for the lawgiver, because he deals with the same topics and occurrences: and the Rhetor, in the same manner, is confounded with the judge.18 The Sophist and the Rhetor, addressing themselves to the present relish of an undiscerning public, are enabled to usurp the functions and the credit of their more severe and far-sighted rivals.

Questions of Polus. Sokrates denies that the Rhetors have any real power, because they do nothing which they really wish.

This is the definition given by Sokrates of Rhetoric and of the Rhetor. Polus then asks him: You say that Rhetoric is a branch of Flattery: Do you think that good Rhetors are considered as flatterers in their respective cities? Sokr. — I do not think that19 they are considered at all. Polus. — How! not considered? Do not good Rhetors possess great power in their respective cities? Sokr. — No: if you understand the possession of power as a good thing for the possessor. Polus. — I do understand it so. Sokr. — Then I say that the Rhetors possess nothing beyond the very minimum of power. Polus. — How can that be? Do not they, like despots, kill, impoverish, and expel any one whom they please? Sokr. — I admit that both Rhetors and Despots can do what seems good to themselves, and can bring penalties of death, poverty, or exile upon 324others: but I say that nevertheless they have no power, because they can do nothing which they really wish.20

All men wish for what is good for them. Despots and Rhetors, when they kill any one, do so because they think it good for them. If it be really not good, they do not do what they will, and therefore have no real power.

That which men wish (Sokrates lays down as a general proposition) is to obtain good, and to escape evil. Each separate act which they perform, is performed not with a view to its own special result, but with a view to these constant and paramount ends. Good things, or profitable things (for Sokrates alternates the phrases as equivalent), are wisdom, health, wealth, and other such things. Evil things are the contraries of these.21 Many things are in themselves neither good nor evil, but may become one or the other, according to circumstances — such as stones, wood, the acts of sitting still or moving, &c. When we do any of these indifferent acts, it is with a view to the pursuit of good, or to the avoidance of evil: we do not wish for the act, we wish for its good or profitable results. We do every thing for the sake of good: and if the results are really good or profitable, we accomplish what we wish: if the contrary, not. Now, Despots and Rhetors, when they kill or banish or impoverish any one, do so because they think it will be better for them, or profitable.22 If it be good for them, they do what they wish: if evil for them, they do the contrary of what they wish and therefore have no power.

To do evil (continues Sokrates), is the worst thing that can happen to any one; the evil-doer is the most miserable and pitiable of men. The person who suffers evil is unfortunate, and is to be pitied; but much less unfortunate and less to be pitied than the evil-doer. If I have a concealed dagger in the public market-place, I can kill any one whom I choose: but this is no good to me, nor is it a proof of great power, because I shall be forthwith taken up and punished. The result is not profitable, 325but hurtful: therefore the act is not good, nor is the power to do it either good or desirable.23 It is sometimes good to kill, banish, or impoverish — sometimes bad. It is good when you do it justly: bad, when you do it unjustly.24

Comparison of Archelaus, usurping despot of Macedonia — Polus affirms that Archelaus is happy, and that every one thinks so — Sokrates admits that every one thinks so, but nevertheless denies it.

Polus. — A child can refute such doctrine. You have heard of Archelaus King of Macedonia. Is he, in your opinion, happy or miserable? Sokr. — I do not know: I have never been in his society. Polus. — Cannot you tell without that, whether he is happy or not? Sokr. — No, certainly not. Polus. — Then you will not call even the Great King happy? Sokr. — No: I do not know how he stands in respect to education and justice. Polus. — What! does all happiness consist in that? Sokr. — I say that it does. I maintain that the good and honourable man or woman is happy: the unjust and wicked, miserable.25 Polus. — Then Archelaus is miserable, according to your doctrine? Sokr. — Assuredly, if he is wicked. Polus. — Wicked, of course; since he has committed enormous crimes: but he has obtained complete kingly power in Macedonia. Is there any Athenian, yourself included, who would not rather be Archelaus than any other man in Macedonia?26 Sokr. — All the public, with Nikias, Perikles, and the most eminent men among them, will agree with you in declaring Archelaus to be happy. I alone do not agree with you. You, like a Rhetor, intend to overwhelm me and gain your cause, by calling a multitude of witnesses: I shall prove my case without calling any other witness than yourself.27 Do you think that Archelaus would have been a happy man, if he had been defeated in his conspiracy and punished? Polus. — Certainly not: he would then have been very miserable. Sokr. — Here again I differ from you: I think that Archelaus, or any other wicked man, is under all circumstances miserable; but he is less miserable, if afterwards punished, than he would be if 326unpunished and successful.28 Polus. — How say you? If a man, unjustly conspiring to become despot, be captured, subjected to torture, mutilated, with his eyes burnt out and with many other outrages inflicted, not only upon himself but upon his wife and children — do you say that he will be more happy than if he succeeded in his enterprise, and passed his life in possession of undisputed authority over his city — envied and extolled as happy, by citizens and strangers alike?29 Sokr. — More happy, I shall not say: for in both cases he will be miserable; but he will be less miserable on the former supposition.

Sokrates maintains — 1. That it is a greater evil to do wrong, than to suffer wrong. 2. That if a man has done wrong, it is better for him to be punished than to remain unpunished.

Sokr. — Which of the two is worst: to do wrong, or to suffer wrong? Polus. — To suffer wrong. Sokr. — Which of the two is the most disgraceful? Polus. — To do wrong. Sokr. — If more ugly and disgraceful, is it not then worse? Polus. — By no means. Sokr. — You do not think then that the good — and the fine or honourable — are one and the same; nor the bad — and the ugly or disgraceful? Polus. — No: certainly not. Sokr. — How is this? Are not all fine or honourable things, such as bodies, colours, figures, voices, pursuits, &c., so denominated from some common property? Are not fine bodies said to be fine, either from rendering some useful service, or from affording some pleasure to the spectator who contemplates them?30 And are not figures, colours, voices, laws, sciences, &c., called fine or honourable for the same reason, either for their agreeableness or their usefulness, or both? Polus. — Certainly: your definition of the fine or honourable, by reference to pleasure, or to good, is satisfactory. Sokr. — Of course therefore the ugly or disgraceful must be defined by the contrary, by reference to pain or to evil? Polus. — Doubtless.31 Sokr. — If therefore one thing be finer or 327more honourable than another, this is because it surpasses the other either in pleasure, or in profit: if one thing be more ugly or disgraceful than another, it must surpass that other either in pain, or in evil? Polus. — Yes.

Sokrates offers proof — Definition of Pulchrum and Turpe — Proof of the first point.

Sokr. — Well, then! what did you say about doing wrong and suffering wrong? You said that to suffer wrong was the worst of the two, but to do wrong was the most ugly or disgraceful. Now, if to do wrong be more disgraceful than to suffer wrong, this must be because it has a preponderance either of pain or of evil? Polus. — Undoubtedly. Sokr. — Has it a preponderance of pain? Does the doer of wrong endure more pain than the sufferer? Polus. — Certainly not. Sokr. — Then it must have a preponderance of evil? Polus. — Yes. Sokr. — To do wrong therefore is worse than to suffer wrong, as well as more disgraceful? Polus. — It appears so. Sokr. — Since therefore it is both worse and more disgraceful, I was right in affirming that neither you, nor I, nor any one else, would choose to do wrong in preference to suffering wrong. Polus. — So it seems.32

Proof of the second point.

Sokr. — Now let us take the second point — Whether it be the greatest evil for the wrong-doer to be punished, or whether it be not a still greater evil for him to remain unpunished. If punished, the wrong-doer is of course punished justly; and are not all just things fine or honourable, in so far as they are just? Polus. — I think so. Sokr. — When a man does anything, must there not be some correlate which suffers; and must it not suffer in a way corresponding to what the doer does? Thus if any one strikes, there must also be something stricken: and if he strikes quickly or violently, there must be something which is stricken quickly or violently. And so, if any one burns or cuts, there must be something burnt or cut. As the agent acts, so the patient suffers. Polus. — Yes. Sokr. — Now if a man be punished for wrong doing, he suffers what is just, and the punisher does what is just? Polus. — He does. Sokr. — You admitted that all just things were honourable: therefore the agent does what is honourable, the patient suffers what is honourable.33 But if honourable, it must be either agreeable — 328or good and profitable. In this case, it is certainly not agreeable: it must therefore be good and profitable. The wrong-doer therefore, when punished, suffers what is good and is profited. Polus. — Yes.34 Sokr. — In what manner is he profited? It is, as I presume, by becoming better in his mind — by being relieved from badness of mind. Polus. — Probably. Sokr. — Is not this badness of mind the greatest evil? In regard to wealth, the special badness is poverty: in regard to the body, it is weakness, sickness, deformity, &c.: in regard to the mind, it is ignorance, injustice, cowardice, &c. Is not injustice, and other badness of mind, the most disgraceful of the three? Polus. — Decidedly. Sokr. — If it be most disgraceful, it must therefore be the worst. Polus. — How? Sokr. — It must (as we before agreed) have the greatest preponderance either of pain, or of hurt and evil. But the preponderance is not in pain: for no one will say that the being unjust and intemperate and ignorant, is more painful than being poor and sick. The preponderance must therefore be great in hurt and evil. Mental badness is therefore a greater evil than either poverty, or disease and bodily deformity. It is the greatest of human evils. Polus. — It appears so.35

The criminal labours under a mental distemper, which though not painful, is a capital evil. Punishment is the only cure for him. To be punished is best for him.

Sokr. — The money-making art is, that which relieves us from poverty: the medical art, from sickness and weakness: the judicial or punitory, from injustice and wickedness of mind. Of these three relieving forces, which is the most honourable? Polus. — The last, by far. Sokr. — If most honourable, it confers either most pleasure or most profit? Polus. — Yes. Sokr. — Now, to go through medical treatment is not agreeable; but it answers to a man to undergo the pain, in order to get rid of a great evil, and to become well. He would be a happier man, if he were never sick: he is less miserable by undergoing the painful treatment and becoming well, than if he underwent no treatment and remained sick. Just so the man who is mentally bad: the happiest man is he who never becomes so; but if a man has become so, the next best course for him is, to undergo punishment and to get rid of the evil. The worst lot of all is, that of 329him who remains mentally bad, without ever getting rid of badness.36

Misery of the Despot who is never punished. If our friend has done wrong, we ought to get him punished: if our enemy, we ought to keep him unpunished.

This last, Polus (continues Sokrates), is the condition of Archelaus, and of despots and Rhetors generally. They possess power which enables them, after they have committed injustice, to guard themselves against being punished: which is just as if a sick man were to pride himself upon having taken precautions against being cured. They see the pain of the cure, but they are blind to the profit of it; they are ignorant how much more miserable it is to have an unhealthy and unjust mind than an unhealthy body.37 There is therefore little use in Rhetoric: for our first object ought to be, to avoid doing wrong: our next object, if we have done wrong, not to resist or elude punishment by skilful defence, but to present ourselves voluntarily and invite it: and if our friends or relatives have done wrong, far from helping to defend them, we ought ourselves to accuse them, and to invoke punishment upon them also.38 On the other hand, as to our enemy, we ought undoubtedly to take precautions against suffering any wrong from him ourselves: but if he has done wrong to others, we ought to do all we can, by word or deed, not to bring him to punishment, but to prevent him from suffering punishment or making compensation: so that he may live as long as possible in impunity.39 These are the purposes towards which rhetoric is serviceable. For one who intends to do no wrong, it seems of no great use.40

This dialogue between Sokrates and Polus exhibits a representation330 of Platonic Ethics longer and more continuous than is usual in the dialogues. I have therefore given a tolerably copious abridgment of it, and shall now proceed to comment upon its reasoning.

Argument of Sokrates paradoxical — Doubt expressed by Kallikles whether he means it seriously.

The whole tenor of its assumptions, as well as the conclusions in which it ends, are so repugnant to received opinions, that Polus, even while compelled to assent, treats it as a paradox: while Kallikles, who now takes up the argument, begins by asking from Chærephon — “Is Sokrates really in earnest, or is he only jesting?”41 Sokrates himself admits that he stands almost alone. He has nothing to rely upon, except the consistency of his dialectics — and the verdict of philosophy.42 This however is a matter of little moment, in discussing the truth and value of the reasoning, except in so far as it involves an appeal to the judgment of the public as a matter of fact. Plato follows out the train of reasoning — which at the time presents itself to his mind as conclusive, or at least as plausible — whether he may agree or disagree with others.

Principle laid down by Sokrates — That every one acts with a view to the attainment of happiness and avoidance of misery.

Plato has ranked the Rhetor in the same category as the Despot: a classification upon which I shall say something presently. But throughout the part of the dialogue just extracted, he treats the original question about Rhetoric as part of a much larger ethical question.43 Every one (argues Sokrates) wishes for the attainment of good and for the avoidance of evil. Every one performs each separate act with a view not to its own immediate end, but to one or other of these permanent ends. In so far as he attains them, he is happy: in so far as he either fails in attaining the good, or incurs the evil, he is unhappy or miserable. The good and honourable man or woman is happy, the unjust and wicked is miserable. Power acquired or employed unjustly, is no boon to the possessor: for he does not thereby obtain what he really wishes, good or happiness; but incurs the contrary, evil 331and misery. The man who does wrong is more miserable than he who suffers wrong: but the most miserable of all is he who does wrong and then remains unpunished for it.44

Polus, on the other hand, contends, that Archelaus, who has “waded through slaughter” to the throne of Macedonia, is a happy man both in his own feelings and in those of every one else, envied and admired by the world generally: That to say — Archelaus would have been more happy, or less miserable, if he had failed in his enterprise and had been put to death under cruel torture — is an untenable paradox.

Peculiar view taken by Plato of Good — Evil — Happiness.

The issue here turns, and the force of Plato’s argument rests (assuming Sokrates to speak the real sentiments of Plato), upon the peculiar sense which he gives to the words Good — Evil — Happiness:—different from the sense in which they are conceived by mankind generally, and which is here followed by Polus. It is possible that to minds like Sokrates and Plato, the idea of themselves committing enormous crimes for ambitious purposes might be the most intolerable of all ideas, worse to contemplate than any amount of suffering: moreover, that if they could conceive themselves as having been thus guilty, the sequel the least intolerable for them to imagine would be one of expiatory pain. This, taken as the personal sentiment of Plato, admits of no reply. But when he attempts to convert this subjective judgment into an objective conclusion binding on all, he fails of success, and misleads himself by equivocal language.

Contrast of the usual meaning of these words, with the Platonic meaning.

Plato distinguishes two general objects of human desire, and two of human aversion. 1. The immediate, and generally transient, object — Pleasure or the Pleasurable — Pain or the Painful. 2. The distant, ulterior, and more permanent object — Good or the profitable — Evil or the hurtful. — In the attainment of Good and avoidance of Evil consists happiness. But now comes the important question — In what sense are we to understand the 332words Good and Evil? What did Plato mean by them? Did he mean the same as mankind generally? Have mankind generally one uniform meaning? In answer to this question, we must say, that neither Plato, nor mankind generally, are consistent or unanimous in their use of the words: and that Plato sometimes approximates to, sometimes diverges from, the more usual meaning. Plato does not here tell us clearly what he himself means by Good and Evil: he specifies no objective or external mark by which we may know it: we learn only, that Good is a mental perfection — Evil a mental taint — answering to indescribable but characteristic sentiments in Plato’s own mind, and only negatively determined by this circumstance — That they have no reference either to pleasure or pain. In the vulgar sense, Good stands distinguished from pleasure (or relief from pain), and Evil from pain (or loss of pleasure), as the remote, the causal, the lasting from the present, the product, the transient. Good and Evil are explained by enumerating all the things so called, of which enumeration Plato gives a partial specimen in this dialogue: elsewhere he dwells upon what he calls the Idea of Good, of which I shall speak more fully hereafter. Having said that all men aim at good, he gives, as examples of good things — Wisdom, Health, Wealth, and other such things: while the contrary of these, Stupidity, Sickness, Poverty, are evil things: the list of course might be much enlarged. Taking Good and Evil generally to denote the common property of each of these lists, it is true that men perform a large portion of their acts with a view to attain the former and avoid the latter:—that the approach which they make to happiness depends, speaking generally, upon the success which attends their exertions for the attainment of and avoidance of these permanent ends: and moreover that these ends have their ultimate reference to each man’s own feelings.

But this meaning of Good is no longer preserved, when Sokrates proceeds to prove that the triumphant usurper Archelaus is the most miserable of men, and that to do wrong with impunity is the greatest of all evils.

Examination of the proof given by Sokrates — Inconsistency between the general answer of Polus and his previous declarations — Law and Nature.

Sokrates provides a basis for his intended proof by asking Polus,45 which of the two is most disgraceful — To do wrong — or to suffer wrong? Polus answers — To do 333wrong: and this answer is inconsistent with what he had previously said about Archelaus. That prince, though a wrong-doer on the largest scale, has been declared by Polus to be an object of his supreme envy and admiration: while Sokrates also admits that this is the sentiment of almost all mankind, except himself. To be consistent with such an assertion, Polus ought to have answered the contrary of what he does answer, when the general question is afterwards put to him: or at least he ought to have said — “Sometimes the one, sometimes the other”. But this he is ashamed to do, as we shall find Kallikles intimating at a subsequent stage of the dialogue:46 because of King Nomos, or the established habit of the community — who feel that society rests upon a sentiment of reciprocal right and obligation animating every one, and require that violations of that sentiment shall be marked with censure in general words, however widely the critical feeling may depart from such censure in particular cases.47 Polus is forced to make profession of a 334faith, which neither he nor others (except Sokrates with a few companions) universally or consistently apply. To bring such a force to bear upon the opponent, was one of the known artifices of dialecticians:48 and Sokrates makes it his point of departure, to prove the unparalleled misery of Archelaus.

The definition of Pulchrum and Turpe, given by Sokrates, will not hold.

He proceeds to define Pulchrum and Turpe (καλὸν-αἰσχρόν). When we recollect the Hippias Major, in which dialogue many definitions of Pulchrum were canvassed and all rejected, so that the search ended in total disappointment — we are surprised to see that Sokrates hits off at once a definition satisfactory both to himself and Polus: and we are the more surprised, because the definition here admitted without a remark, is in substance one of those shown to be untenable in the Hippias Major.49 It depends upon the actual argumentative purpose which Plato has in hand, whether he chooses to multiply objections and give them effect — or to ignore them altogether. But the definition which he here proposes, even if assumed as incontestable, fails altogether to sustain the conclusion that he draws from it. He defines Pulchrum to be that which either confers pleasure upon the spectator when he contemplates it, or produces ulterior profit or good — we must presume profit to the spectator, or to him along with others — at any rate it is not said to whom. He next defines the ugly and disgraceful (τὸ αἰσχρὸν) as comprehending both the painful and the hurtful or evil. If then (he argues) to do wrong is more ugly and disgraceful than to suffer wrong, this must be either because it is more painful — or because it is more hurtful, more evil (worse). It certainly is not more painful: therefore it must be worse.

Worse or better — for whom? The argument of Sokrates does not specify. If understood in the sense necessary for his inference, the definition would be inadmissible.

But worse, for whom? For the spectators, who declare the proceedings of Archelaus to be disgraceful? For the persons who suffer by his proceedings? Or for Archelaus himself? It is the last of the three which Sokrates undertakes to prove: but his definition does 335not help him to the proof. Turpe is defined to be either what causes immediate pain to the spectator, or ulterior hurt — to whom? If we say to the spectator — the definition will not serve as a ground of inference to the condition of the agent contemplated. If on the other hand, we say — to the agent — the definition so understood becomes inadmissible: as well for other reasons, as because there are a great many Turpia which are not agents at all, and which the definition therefore would not include. Either therefore the definition given by Sokrates is a bad one — or it will not sustain his conclusion. And thus, on this very important argument, where Sokrates admits that he stands alone, and where therefore the proof would need to be doubly cogent — an argument too where the great cause (so Adam Smith terms it) of the corruption of men’s moral sentiments has to be combated — Sokrates has nothing to produce except premisses alike far-fetched and irrelevant. What increases our regret is, that the real arguments establishing the turpitude of Archelaus and his acts are obvious enough, if you look for them in the right direction. You discover nothing while your eye is fixed on Archelaus himself: far from presenting any indications of misery, which Sokrates professes to discover, he has gained much of what men admire as good wherever they see it. But when you turn to the persons whom he has killed, banished, or ruined — to the mass of suffering which he has inflicted — and to the widespread insecurity which such acts of successful iniquity spread through all societies where they become known — there is no lack of argument to justify that sentiment which prompts a reflecting spectator to brand him as a disgraceful man. This argument however is here altogether neglected by Plato. Here, as elsewhere, he looks only at the self-regarding side of Ethics.

Plato applies to every one a standard of happiness and misery peculiar to himself. His view about the conduct of Archelaus is just, but he does not give the true reasons for it.

Sokrates proceeds next to prove — That the wrong-doer who remains unpunished is more miserable than if he were punished. The wrong-doer (he argues) when punished suffers what is just: but all just things are honourable: therefore he suffers what is honourable. But all honourable things are so called because they are either agreeable, or profitable, or both together. Punishment is certainly not agreeable: it must 336therefore be profitable or good. Accordingly the wrong-doer when justly punished suffers what is profitable or good. He is benefited, by being relieved of mental evil or wickedness, which is a worse evil than either bodily sickness or poverty. In proportion to the magnitude of this evil, is the value of the relief which removes it, and the superior misery of the unpunished wrong-doer who continues to live under it.50

Upon this argument, I make the same remark as upon that immediately preceding. We are not expressly told, whether good, evil, happiness, misery, &c., refer to the agent alone or to others also: but the general tenor implies that the agent alone is meant. And in this sense, Plato does not make out his case. He establishes an arbitrary standard of his own, recognised only by a few followers, and altogether differing from the ordinary standard, to test and compare happiness and misery. The successful criminal, Archelaus himself, far from feeling any such intense misery as Plato describes, is satisfied and proud of his position, which most others also account an object of envy. This is not disputed by Plato himself. And in the face of this fact, it is fruitless as well as illogical to attempt to prove, by an elaborate process of deductive reasoning, that Archelaus must be miserable. That step of Plato’s reasoning, in which he asserts, that the wrong-doer when justly punished suffers what is profitable or good — is only true if you take in (what Plato omits to mention) the interests of society as well as those of the agent. His punishment is certainly profitable to (conducive to the security and well being of) society: it may possibly be also profitable to himself, but very frequently it is not so. The conclusion brought out by Plato, therefore, while contradicted by the fact, involves also a fallacy in the reasoning process.

If the reasoning of Plato were true, the point of view in which punishment is considered would be reversed.

Throughout the whole of this dialogue, Plato intimates decidedly how great a paradox the doctrine maintained by Sokrates must appear: how diametrically it was opposed to the opinion not merely of the less informed multitude, but of the wiser and more reflecting citizen — even such a man as Nikias. Indeed it is literally 337exact — what Plato here puts into the mouth of Kallikles — that if the doctrine here advocated by Sokrates were true, the whole of social life would be turned upside down.51 If, for example, it were true, as Plato contends, — That every man who commits a crime, takes upon him thereby a terrible and lasting distemper, incurable except by the application of punishment, which is the specific remedy in the case — every theory of punishment would, literally speaking, be turned upside down. The great discouragement from crime would then consist in the fear of that formidable distemper with which the criminal was sure to inoculate himself: and punishment, instead of being (as it is now considered, and as Plato himself represents it in the Protagoras) the great discouragement to the commission of crime, would operate in the contrary direction. It would be the means of removing or impairing the great real discouragement to crime: and a wise legislator would hesitate to inflict it. This would be nothing less than a reversal of the most universally accepted political or social precepts (as Kallikles is made to express himself).

Plato pushes too far the analogy between mental distemper and bodily distemper — Material difference between the two — Distemper must be felt by the distempered persons.

It will indeed be at once seen, that the taint or distemper with which Archelaus is supposed to inoculate himself, when he commits signal crime — is a pure fancy or poetical metaphor on the part of Plato himself.52 A distemper must imply something painful, enfeebling, disabling, to the individual who feels it: there is no other meaning: we cannot recognise a distemper, which does not make itself felt in any way by the distempered person. Plato is misled by his ever-repeated analogy between bodily health and mental health: real, on some points — not real on others. When a man is in bad bodily health, his sensations warn him of it at once. He suffers pain, discomfort, 338or disabilities, which leave no doubt as to the fact: though he may not know either the precise cause, or the appropriate remedy. Conversely, in the absence of any such warnings, and in the presence of certain positive sensations, he knows himself to be in tolerable or good health. If Sokrates and Archelaus were both in good bodily health, or both in bad bodily health, each would be made aware of the fact by analogous evidences. But by what measure are we to determine when a man is in a good or bad mental state? By his own feelings? In that case, Archelaus and Sokrates are in a mental state equally good: each is satisfied with his own. By the judgment of by-standers? Archelaus will then be the better of the two: at least his admirers and enviers will outnumber those of Sokrates. By my judgment? If my opinion is asked, I agree with Sokrates: though not on the grounds which he here urges, but on other grounds. Who is to be the ultimate referee — the interests or security of other persons, who have suffered or are likely to suffer by Archelaus, being by the supposition left out of view?

Polus is now dismissed as vanquished, after having been forced, against his will, to concede — That the doer of wrong is more miserable than the sufferer: That he is more miserable, if unpunished, — less so, if punished: That a triumphant criminal on a great scale, like Archelaus, is the most miserable of men.

Kallikles begins to argue against Sokrates — he takes a distinction between Just by Law and Just by nature — Reply of Sokrates, that there is no variance between the two, properly understood.

Here, then, we commence with Kallikles: who interposes, to take up the debate with Sokrates. Polus (says Kallikles), from deference to the opinions of mankind, has erroneously conceded the point — That it is more disgraceful to do wrong, than to suffer wrong. This is indeed true (continues Kallikles), according to what is just by law or convention, that is, according to the general sentiment of mankind: but it is not true, according to justice by nature, or natural justice. Nature and Law are here opposed.53 The justice of Nature is, that among men (as among other animals) the strong individual should govern and strip the weak, taking and keeping as much as he can 339grasp. But this justice will not suit the weak, who are the many, and who defeat it by establishing a different justice — justice according to law — to curb the strong man, and prevent him from having more than his fair share.54 The many, feeling their own weakness, and thankful if they can only secure a fair and equal division, make laws and turn the current of praise and blame for their own protection, in order to deter the strong man from that encroachment and oppression to which he is disposed. The just according to law is thus a tutelary institution, established by the weak to defend themselves against the just according to nature. Nature measures right by might, and by nothing else: so that according to the right of nature, suffering wrong is more disgraceful than doing wrong. Hêraklês takes from Geryon his cattle, by the right of nature or of the strongest, without either sale or gift.55

But (rejoins Sokrates) the many are by nature stronger than the one; since, as you yourself say, they make and enforce laws to restrain him and defeat his projects. Therefore, since the many are the strongest, the right which they establish is the right of (or by) nature. And the many, as you admit, declare themselves in favour of the answer given by Polus — That to do wrong is more disgraceful than to suffer wrong.56 Right by nature, and right by institution, sanction it alike.

What Kalliklês says is not to be taken as a sample of the teachings of Athenian sophists. Kalliklês — rhetor and politician.

Several commentators have contended, that the doctrine which Plato here puts into the mouth of Kalliklês was taught by the Sophists at Athens: who are said to have inculcated on their hearers that true wisdom and morality consisted in acting upon the right of the strongest and taking whatever they could get, without any regard to law or justice. I have already 340endeavoured to show, in my History of Greece, that the Sophists cannot be shown to have taught either this doctrine, or any other common doctrine: that one at least among them (Prodikus) taught a doctrine inconsistent with it: and that while all of them agreed in trying to impart rhetorical accomplishments, or the power of handling political, ethical, judicial, matters in a manner suitable for the Athenian public — each had his own way of doing this. Kalliklês is not presented by Plato as a Sophist, but as a Rhetor aspiring to active political influence; and taking a small dose of philosophy, among the preparations for that end.57 He depreciates the Sophists as much as the philosophers, and in fact rather more.58 Moreover Plato represents him as adapting himself, with accommodating subservience, to the Athenian public assembly, and saying or unsaying exactly as they manifested their opinion.59 Now the Athenian public assembly would repudiate indignantly all this pretended right of the strongest, if any orator thought fit to put it forward as over-ruling established right and law. Any aspiring or subservient orator, such as Kalliklês is described, would know better than to address them in this strain. The language which Plato puts into the mouth of Kalliklês is noway consistent with the attribute which he also ascribes to him — slavish deference to the judgments of the Athenian Dêmos.

Uncertainty of referring to Nature as an authority. It may be pleaded in favour of opposite theories. The theory of Kalliklês is made to appear repulsive by the language in which he expresses it.

Kalliklês is made to speak like one who sympathises with the right of the strongest, and who decorates such iniquity with the name and authority of that which he calls Nature. But this only shows the uncertainty of referring to Nature as an authority.60 It may be pleaded in favour of different and opposite theories. Nature prompts the strong man to take from weaker men what will gratify his desires: Nature also prompts these weaker men to defeat him and protect themselves by the best means in their power. The 341many are weaker, taken individually — stronger taken collectively: hence they resort to defensive combination, established rules, and collective authority.61 The right created on one side, and the opposite right created on the other, flow alike from Nature: that is, from propensities and principles natural, and deeply seated, in the human mind. The authority of Nature, considered as an enunciation of actual and wide-spread facts, may be pleaded for both alike. But a man’s sympathy and approbation may go either with the one or the other; and he may choose to stamp that which he approves, with the name of Nature as a personified law-maker. This is what is here done by Kalliklês as Plato exhibits him.62 He 342sympathises with, and approves, the powerful individual. Now the greater portion of mankind are, and always have been, governed upon this despotic principle, and brought up to respect it: while many, even of those who dislike Kalliklês because 343they regard him as the representative of Athenian democracy (to which however his proclaimed sentiments stand pointedly opposed), when they come across a great man or so-called hero, such as Alexander or Napoleon, applaud the most exorbitant ambition if successful, and if accompanied by military genius and energy — regarding communities as made for little else except to serve as his instruments, subjects, and worshippers. Such are represented as the sympathies of Kalliklês: but those of the Athenians went with the second of the two rights — and mine go with it also. And though the language which Plato puts into the mouth of Kalliklês, in describing this second right, abounds in contemptuous rhetoric, proclaiming offensively the individual weakness of the multitude63 — yet this very fact is at once the most solid and most respectable foundation on which rights and obligations can be based. The establishment of them is indispensable, and is felt as indispensable, to procure security for the community: whereby the strong man whom Kalliklês extols as the favourite of Nature, may be tamed by discipline and censure, so as to accommodate his own behaviour to this equitable arrangement.64 Plato himself, in his Republic,65 traces the generation of a city to the fact that each man individually taken is not self-sufficing, but stands in need of many things: it is no less true, that each man stands also in fear of many things, especially of depredations from animals, and depredations from powerful individuals of his own species. In the mythe of Protagoras,66 we have fears from hostile animals — in the speech here ascribed to Kalliklês, we have fears from hostile strong men — assigned as the generating cause, both of political communion and of established rights and obligations to protect it.

Sokrates maintains that self-command and moderation is requisite for the strong man as well as for others. Kalliklês defends the negative.

Kalliklês now explains, that by stronger men, he means better, wiser, braver men. It is they (he says) who ought, according to right by nature, to rule over others and to have larger shares than others. Sokr. — Ought 344they not to rule themselves as well as others:67 to control their own pleasures and desires: to be sober and temperate? Kall. — No, they would be foolish if they did. The weak multitude must do so; and there grows up accordingly among them a sentiment which requires such self-restraint from all. But it is the privilege of the superior few to be exempt from this necessity. The right of nature authorises them to have the largest desires, since their courage and ability furnish means to satisfy the desires. It would be silly if a king’s son or a despot were to limit himself to the same measure of enjoyment with which a poor citizen must be content; and worse than silly if he did not enrich his friends in preference to his enemies. He need not care for that public law and censure which must reign paramount over each man among the many. A full swing of enjoyment, if a man has power to procure and maintain it, is virtue as well as happiness.68

Whether the largest measure of desires is good for a man, provided he has the means of satisfying them? Whether all varieties of desire are good? Whether the pleasurable and the good are identical?

Sokr. — I think on the contrary that a sober and moderate life, regulated according to present means and circumstances, is better than a life of immoderate indulgence.69 Kall. — The man who has no desires will have no pleasure, and will live like a stone. The more the desires, provided they can all be satisfied, the happier a man will be. Sokr. — You mean that a man shall be continually hungry, and continually satisfying his hunger: continually thirsty, and satisfying his thirst; and so forth. Kall. — By having and by satisfying those and all other desires, a man will enjoy happiness. Sokr. — Do you mean to include all varieties of desire and satisfaction of desire: such for example as itching and scratching yourself:70 and other bodily appetites which might be named? Kall. — Such things are not fit for discussion. Sokr. — It is you who drive me to mention them, by laying down the principle, that men who enjoy, be the enjoyment of what sort it may, are 345happy; and by not distinguishing what pleasures are good and what are evil. Tell me again, do you think that the pleasurable and the good are identical? Or are there any pleasurable things which are not good?71 Kall. — I think that the pleasurable and the good are the same.

Kalliklês maintains that pleasurable and good are identical. Sokrates refutes him. Some pleasures are good, others bad. A scientific adviser is required to discriminate them.

Upon this question the discussion now turns: whether pleasure and good are the same, or whether there are not some pleasures good, others bad. By a string of questions much protracted, but subtle rather than conclusive, Sokrates proves that pleasure is not the same as good — that there are such things as bad pleasures and good pains. And Kalliklês admits that some pleasures are better, others worse.72 Profitable pleasures are good: hurtful pleasures are bad. Thus the pleasures of eating and drinking are good, if they impart to us health and strength — bad, if they produce sickness and weakness. We ought to choose the good pleasures and pains, and avoid the bad ones. It is not every man who is competent to distinguish what pleasures are good, and what are bad. A scientific and skilful adviser, judging upon general principles, is required to make this distinction.73

Contradiction between Sokrates in the Gorgias, and Sokrates in the Protagoras.

This debate between Sokrates and Kalliklês, respecting the “Quomodo vivendum est,”74 deserves attention on more than one account. In the first place, the relation which Sokrates is here made to declare between the two pairs of general terms, Pleasurable — Good: Painful — Evil: is the direct reverse of that which he both declares and demonstrates in the Protagoras. In that dialogue, the Sophist Protagoras is represented as holding an opinion very like that which is maintained 346by Sokrates in the Gorgias. But Sokrates (in the Protagoras) refutes him by an elaborate argument; and demonstrates that pleasure and good (also pain and evil) are names for the same fundamental ideas under different circumstances: pleasurable and painful referring only to the sensation of the present moment — while good and evil include, besides, an estimate of its future consequences and accompaniments, both pleasurable and painful, and represent the result of such calculation. In the Gorgias, Sokrates demonstrates the contrary, by an argument equally elaborate but not equally convincing. He impugns a doctrine advocated by Kalliklês, and in impugning it, proclaims a marked antithesis and even repugnance between the pleasurable and the good, the painful and the evil: rejecting the fundamental identity of the two, which he advocates in the Protagoras, as if it were a disgraceful heresy.

Views of critics about this contradiction.

The subject evidently presented itself to Plato in two different ways at different times. Which of the two is earliest, we have no means of deciding. The commentators, who favour generally the view taken in the Gorgias, treat the Protagoras as a juvenile and erroneous production: sometimes, with still less reason, they represent Sokrates as arguing in that dialogue, from the principles of his opponents, not from his own. For my part, without knowing whether the Protagoras or the Gorgias is the earliest, I think the Protagoras an equally finished composition, and I consider that the views which Sokrates is made to propound in it, respecting pleasure and good, are decidedly nearer to the truth.

Comparison and appreciation of the reasoning of Sokrates in both dialogues.

That in the list of pleasures there are some which it is proper to avoid, — and in the list of pains, some which it is proper to accept or invite — is a doctrine maintained by Sokrates alike in both the dialogues. Why? Because some pleasures are good, others bad: some pains bad, others good — says Sokrates in the Gorgias. The same too is said by Sokrates in the Protagoras; but then, he there explains what he means by the appellation. All pleasure (he there says), so far as it goes, is good — all pain is bad. But there are some pleasures which cannot be enjoyed without debarring us from greater pleasures or entailing upon us greater pains: on that ground therefore, such pleasures are bad. 347So again, there are some pains, the suffering of which is a condition indispensable to our escaping greater pains, or to our enjoying greater pleasures: such pains therefore are good. Thus this apparent exception does not really contradict, but confirms, the general doctrine — That there is no good but the pleasurable, and the elimination of pain — and no evil except the painful, or the privation of pleasure. Good and evil have no reference except to pleasures and pains; but the terms imply, in each particular case, an estimate and comparison of future pleasurable and painful consequences, and express the result of such comparison. “You call enjoyment itself evil” (says Sokrates in the Protagoras),75 “when it deprives us of greater pleasures or entails upon us greater pains. If you have any other ground, or look to any other end, in calling it evil, you may tell us what that end is; but you will not be able to tell us. So too, you say that pain is a good, when it relieves us from greater pains, or when it is necessary as the antecedent cause of greater pleasures. If you have any other end in view, when you call pain good, you may tell us what that end is; but you will not be able to tell us.”76

Distinct statement in the Protagoras. What are good and evil, and upon what principles the scientific adviser is to proceed in discriminating them. No such distinct statement in the Gorgias.

In the Gorgias, too, Sokrates declares that some pleasures are good, others bad — some pains bad, others good. But here he stops. He does not fulfil the reasonable demand urged by Sokrates in the Protagoras — “If you make such a distinction, explain the ground on which you make it, and the end to which you look“. The distinction in the Gorgias stands without any assigned ground or end to rest upon. And this want 348is the more sensibly felt, when we read in the same dialogue, that — “It is not every man who can distinguish the good pleasures from the bad: a scientific man, proceeding on principle, is needed for the purpose”.77 But upon what criterion is the scientific man to proceed? Of what properties is he to take account, in pronouncing one pleasure to be bad, another good — or one pain to be bad and another good — the estimate of consequences, measured in future pleasures and pains, being by the supposition excluded? No information is given. The problem set to the scientific man is one of which all the quantities are unknown. Now Sokrates in the Protagoras78 also lays it down, that a scientific or rational calculation must be had, and a mind competent to such calculation must be postulated, to decide which pleasures are bad or fit to be rejected — which pains are good, or proper to be endured. But then he clearly specifies the elements which alone are to be taken into the calculation — viz., the future pleasures and pains accompanying or dependent upon each with the estimate of their comparative magnitude and durability. The theory of this calculation is clear and intelligible: though in many particular cases, the data necessary for making it, and the means of comparing them, may be very imperfectly accessible.

Modern ethical theories. Intuition. Moral sense — not recognised by Plato in either of the dialogues.

According to various ethical theories, which have chiefly obtained currency in modern times, the distinction — between pleasures good or fit to be enjoyed, and pleasures bad or unfit to be enjoyed — is determined for us by a moral sense or intuition: by a simple, peculiar, sentiment of right and wrong, or a conscience, which springs up within us ready-made, and decides on such matters without appeal; so that a man has only to look into his own heart for a solution. We need not take account of this hypothesis, in reviewing Plato’s philosophy: for he evidently does not proceed upon it. He expressly affirms, in the Gorgias as well as in the Protagoras, that the question is one requiring science or knowledge to determine it, and upon 349which none but the man of science or expert (τεχνικὸς) is a competent judge.

In both dialogues the doctrine of Sokrates is self-regarding as respects the agent: not considering the pleasures and pains of other persons, so far as affected by the agent.

Moreover, there is another point common to both the two dialogues, deserving of notice. I have already remarked when reviewing the doctrine of Sokrates in the Protagoras, that it appears to me seriously defective, inasmuch as it takes into account the pleasures and pains of the agent only, and omits the pleasures and pains of other persons affected by his conduct. But this is not less true respecting the doctrine of Sokrates in the Gorgias: for whatever criterion he may there have in his mind to determine which among our pleasures are bad, it is certainly not this — that the agent in procuring them is obliged to hurt others. For the example which Sokrates cites as specially illustrating the class of bad pleasures — viz., the pleasure of scratching an itching part of the body79 — is one in which no others besides the agent are concerned. As in the Protagoras, so in the Gorgias — Plato in laying down his rule of life, admits into the theory only what concerns the agent himself, and makes no direct reference to the happiness of others as affected by the agent’s behaviour.

Points wherein the doctrine of the two dialogues is in substance the same, but differing in classification.

There are however various points of analogy between the Protagoras and the Gorgias, which will enable us, after tracing them out, to measure the amount of substantial difference between them; I speak of the reasoning of Sokrates in each. Thus, in the Protagoras,80 Sokrates ranks health, strength, preservation of the community, wealth, command, &c., under the general head of Good things, but expressly on the ground that they are the producing causes and conditions of pleasures and of exemption from pains: he also ranks sickness and poverty under the head of Evil things, as productive causes of pain and suffering. In the Gorgias also, he numbers wisdom, health, strength, perfection of body, riches, &c., among Good things or profitable things81 — (which two words he treats as 350equivalent) — and their contraries as Evil things. Now he does not expressly say here (as in the Protagoras) that these things are good, because they are productive causes of pleasure or exemption from pain: but such assumption must evidently be supplied in order to make the reasoning valid. For upon what pretence can any one pronounce strength, health, riches, to be good — and helplessness, sickness, poverty, to be evil — if no reference be admitted to pleasures and pains? Sokrates in the Gorgias82 declares that the pleasures of eating and drinking are good, in so far as they impart health and strength to the body — evil, in so far as they produce a contrary effect. Sokrates in the Protagoras reasons in the same way — but with this difference — that he would count the pleasure of the repast itself as one item of good: enhancing the amount of good where the future consequences are beneficial, diminishing the amount of evil where the future consequences are Unfavourable: while Sokrates in the Gorgias excludes immediate pleasure from the list of good things, and immediate pain from the list of evil things.

This last exclusion renders the theory in the Gorgias untenable and inconsistent. If present pleasure be not admitted as an item of good so far as it goes — then neither can the future and consequent aggregates of pleasure, nor the causes of them, be admitted as good. So likewise, if present pain be no evil, future pain cannot be allowed to rank as an evil.83

Kalliklês, whom Sokrates refutes in the Gorgias, maintains a different argument from that which Sokrates combats in the Protagoras.

Each of the two dialogues, which I am now comparing, is in truth an independent composition: in each, Sokrates has a distinct argument to combat; and in the latest of the two (whichever that was), no heed is taken of 351the argumentation in the earlier. In the Protagoras, he exalts the dignity and paramount force of knowledge or prudence: if a man knows how to calculate pleasures and pains, he will be sure to choose the result which involves the greater pleasure or the less pain, on the whole: to say that he is overpowered by immediate pleasure or pain into making a bad choice, is a wrong description — the real fact being, that he is deficient in the proper knowledge how to choose. In the Gorgias, the doctrine assigned to Kalliklês and impugned by Sokrates is something very different. That justice, temperance, self-restraint, are indeed indispensable to the happiness of ordinary men; but if there be any one individual, so immensely superior in force as to trample down and make slaves of the rest, this one man would be a fool if he restrained himself: having the means of gratifying all his appetites, the more appetites he has, the more enjoyments will he have and the greater happiness.84 Observe — that Kalliklês applies this doctrine only to the one omnipotent despot: to all other members of society, he maintains that self-restraint is essential. This is the doctrine which Sokrates in the Gorgias undertakes to refute, by denying community of nature between the pleasurable and the good — between the painful and the evil.

The refutation of Kalliklês by Sokrates in the Gorgias, is unsuccessful — it is only so far successful as he adopts unintentionally the doctrine of Sokrates in the Protagoras.

To me his refutation appears altogether unsuccessful, and the position upon which he rests it incorrect. The only parts of the refutation really forcible, are those in which he unconsciously relinquishes this position, and slides into the doctrine of the Protagoras. Upon this latter doctrine, a refutation might be grounded: you may show that even an omnipotent despot (regard for the comfort of others being excluded by the hypothesis) will gain by limiting the gratification of his appetites to-day so as not to spoil his appetites of tomorrow. Even in his case, prudential restraint is required, though his motives for it would be much less than in the case of ordinary social men. But Good, as laid down by Plato in the Gorgias, entirely disconnected from pleasure352 — and Evil, entirely disconnected from pain — have no application to this supposed despot. He has no desire for such Platonic Good — no aversion for such Platonic Evil. His happiness is not diminished by missing the former or incurring the latter. In fact, one of the cardinal principles of Plato’s ethical philosophy, which he frequently asserts both in this dialogue and elsewhere,85 — That every man desires Good, and acts for the sake of obtaining Good, and avoiding Evil — becomes untrue, if you conceive Good and Evil according to the Gorgias, as having no reference to pleasure or the avoidance of pain: untrue, not merely in regard to a despot under these exceptional conditions, but in regard to the large majority of social men. They desire to obtain Good and avoid Evil, in the sense of the Protagoras: but not in the sense of the Gorgias.86 Sokrates himself proclaims in this dialogue: “I and philosophy stand opposed to Kalliklês and the Athenian public. What I desire is, to reason consistently with myself.” That is, to speak the language of Sokrates in the Protagoras — “To me, Sokrates, the consciousness of inconsistency with myself and of an unworthy character, the loss of my own self-esteem and the pungency of my own self-reproach, are the greatest of all pains: greater than those which you, Kalliklês, and the Athenians generally, seek to avoid at all price and urge me also to avoid at all price — poverty, political nullity, exposure 353to false accusation, &c.”87 The noble scheme of life, here recommended by Sokrates, may be correctly described according to the theory of the Protagoras: without any resort to the paradox of the Gorgias, that Good has no kindred or reference to Pleasure, nor Evil to Pain.

Permanent elements — and transient elements — of human agency — how each of them is appreciated in the two dialogues.

Lastly I will compare the Protagoras and the Gorgias (meaning always, the reasoning of Sokrates in each of them) under one more point of view. How does each of them describe and distinguish the permanent elements, and the transient elements, involved in human agency? What function does each of them assign to the permanent element? The distinction of these two is important in its ethical bearing. The whole life both of the individual and of society consists of successive moments of action or feeling. But each individual (and the society as an aggregate of individuals) has within him embodied and realised an element more or less permanent — an established character, habits, dispositions, intellectual acquirements, &c. — a sort of capital accumulated from the past. This permanent element is of extreme importance. It stands to the transient element in the same relation as the fixed capital of a trader or manufacturer to his annual produce. The whole use and value of the fixed capital, of which the skill and energy of the trader himself make an important part, consists in the amount of produce which it will yield: but at the same time the trader must keep it up in its condition of fixed capital, in order to obtain such amount: he must set apart, and abstain from devoting to immediate enjoyment, as much of the annual produce as will suffice to maintain the fixed capital unimpaired — and more, if he desires to improve his condition. The capital cannot be commuted into interest; yet nevertheless its whole value depends upon, and is measured by, the interest which it yields. Doubtless the mere idea of possessing the capital is pleasurable to the possessor, because he knows that it can and will be profitably employed, so long as he chooses.

In the Protagoras.

Now in the Protagoras, the permanent element is very pointedly distinguished from the transient, and is called Knowledge — the Science or Art of Calculation. 354Its function also is clearly announced — to take comparative estimate and measurement of the transient elements; which are stated to consist of pleasures and pains, present and future — near and distant — certain and uncertain — faint and strong. To these elements, manifold yet commensurable, the calculation is to apply. “The safety of life” (says Sokrates88) “resides in our keeping up this science or art of calculation.” No present enjoyment must be admitted, which would impair it; no present pain must be shunned, which is essential to uphold it. Yet the whole of its value resides in its application to the comparison of the pleasures and pains.

In the Gorgias.

In the Gorgias the same two elements are differently described, and less clearly explained. The permanent is termed, Order, arrangement, discipline, a lawful, just, and temperate, cast of mind (opposed to the doctrine ascribed to Kalliklês, which negatived this element altogether, in the mind of the despot), parallel to health and strength of body: the unordered mind is again the parallel of the corrupt, distempered, helpless, body; life is not worth having until this is cured.89 This corresponds to the knowledge or Calculating Science in the Protagoras; but we cannot understand what its function is, in the Gorgias, because the calculable elements are incompletely enumerated.

In the Protagoras, these calculable elements are two-fold — immediate pleasures and pains — and future or distant pleasures and pains. Between these two there is intercommunity of nature, so that they are quite commensurable; and the function of the calculating reason is, to make a right estimate of the one against the other.90 But in the Gorgias, no mention is made of future or distant pleasures and pains: the calculable element is represented only by immediate pleasure or pain — and from thence we pass at once to the permanent calculator — the mind, sound or corrupt. You must abstain from a particular enjoyment, because it will 355taint the soundness of your mind: this is a pertinent reason (and would be admitted as such by Sokrates in the Protagoras, who instead of sound mind would say, calculating intelligence), but it is neither the ultimate reason (since this soundness of mind is itself valuable with a view to future calculations), nor the only reason: for you must also abstain, if it will bring upon yourself (or upon others) preponderating pains in the particular case — if the future pains would preponderate over the present pleasure. Of this last calculation no notice is taken in the Gorgias: which exhibits only the antithesis (not merely marked but even over-done91) between the immediate pleasure or pain and the calculating efficacy of mind, but leaves out the true function which gives value to the sound mind as distinguished from the unsound and corrupt. That function consists in its application to particular cases: in right dealing with actual life, as regards the agent himself and others: in ἐνεργεία, as distinguished from ἕξις, to use Aristotelian language.92 I am far from supposing that this part of the case was absent from Plato’s mind. But the theory laid out in the Gorgias (as compared with that in the Protagoras) leaves no room for it; giving exclusive prominence to the other elements, and acknowledging only the present pleasure or pain, to be set against the permanent condition of mind, bad or good as it may be.

Character of the Gorgias generally — discrediting all the actualities of life.

Indeed there is nothing more remarkable in the Gorgias, than the manner in which Sokrates not only condemns the unmeasured, exorbitant, maleficent desires, but also depreciates and degrades all the actualities of life — all the recreative and elegant arts, including music and poetry, tragic as well as dithyrambic — all provision for the most essential wants, all protection against particular 356sufferings and dangers, even all service rendered to another person in the way of relief or of rescue93 — all the effective maintenance of public organised force, such as ships, docks, walls, arms, &c. Immediate satisfaction or relief, and those who confer it, are treated with contempt, and presented as in hostility to the perfection of the mental structure. And it is in this point of view that various Platonic commentators extol in an especial manner the Gorgias: as recognising an Idea of Good superhuman and supernatural, radically disparate from pleasures and pains of any human being, and incommensurable with them: an Universal Idea, which, though it is supposed to cast a distant light 357upon its particulars, is separated from them by an incalculable space, and is discernible only by the Platonic telescope.

Argument of Sokrates resumed — multifarious arts of flattery, aiming at immediate pleasure.

We have now established (continues Sokrates) that pleasure is essentially different from good, and pain from evil: also, that to obtain good and avoid evil, a scientific choice is required — while to obtain pleasure and avoid pain, is nothing more than blind imitation or irrational knack. There are some arts and pursuits which aim only at procuring immediate pleasure — others which aim at attaining good or the best;94 some arts, for a single person, — others for a multitude. Arts and pursuits which aim only at immediate pleasure, either of one or of a multitude, belong to the general head of Flattery. Among them are all the musical, choric, and dithyrambic representations at the festivals — tragedy as well as comedy — also political and judicial rhetoric. None of these arts aim at any thing except to gratify the public to whom they are addressed: none of them aim at the permanent good: none seek to better the character of the public. They adapt themselves to the prevalent desires: but whether those desires are such as, if realised, will make the public worse or better, they never enquire.95

The Rhetors aim at only flattering the public — even the best past Rhetors have done nothing else — citation of the four great Rhetors by Kallikles.

Sokr. — Do you know any public speakers who aim at anything more than gratifying the public, or who care to make the public better? Kall. — There are some who do, and others who do not. Sokr. — Which are those who do? and which of them has ever made the public 358better?96 Kall. — At any rate, former statesmen did so; such as Miltiades, Themistokles, Kimon, Perikles. Sokr. — None of them. If they had, you would have seen them devoting themselves systematically and obviously to their one end. As a builder labours to construct a ship or a house, by putting together its various parts with order and symmetry — so these statesmen would have laboured to implant order and symmetry in the minds and bodies of the citizens: that is, justice and temperance in their minds, health and strength in their bodies.97 Unless the statesman can do this, it is fruitless to supply the wants, to fulfil the desires and requirements, to uphold or enlarge the power, of the citizens. This is like supplying ample nourishment to a distempered body: the more such a body takes in, the worse it becomes. The citizens must be treated with refusal of their wishes and with punishment, until their vices are healed, and they become good.98

Necessity for temperance, regulation, order. This is the condition of virtue and happiness.

We ought to do (continues Sokrates) what is pleasing for the sake of what is good: not vice versà. But every thing becomes good by possessing its appropriate virtue or regulation. The regulation appropriate to the mind is to be temperate. The temperate man will do what is just — his duty towards men: and what is holy — his duty towards the Gods. He will be just and holy. He will therefore also be courageous: for he will seek only such pleasures as duty permits, and he will endure all such pains as duty requires. Being thus temperate, just, brave, holy, he will be a perfectly good man, doing well and honourably throughout. The man who does well, will be happy: the man who does ill and is wicked, will be miserable.99 It ought to be our principal aim, both for ourselves individually and for the city, to attain temperance and to keep clear of intemperance: not to let our desires run immoderately (as you, Kallikles, advise), and then seek repletion for them: which is an endless mischief, the life of a pirate. He who pursues this plan can neither be the friend of any other man, nor of the Gods: for he is incapable of communion, and therefore of friendship.100

359 Impossible to succeed in public life, unless a man be thoroughly akin to and in harmony with the ruling force.

Now, Kallikles (pursues Sokrates), you have reproached me with standing aloof from public life in order to pursue philosophy. You tell me that by not cultivating public speaking and public action, I am at the mercy of any one who chooses to accuse me unjustly and to bring upon me severe penalties. But I tell you, that it is a greater evil to do wrong than to suffer wrong; and that my first business is, to provide for myself such power and such skill as shall guard me against doing wrong.101 Next, as to suffering wrong, there is only one way of taking precautions against it. You must yourself rule in the city: or you must be a friend of the ruling power. Like is the friend of like:102 a cruel despot on the throne will hate and destroy any one who is better than himself, and will despise any one worse than himself. The only person who will have influence is, one of the same dispositions as the despot: not only submitting to him with good will, but praising and blaming the same things as he does — accustomed from youth upwards to share in his preferences and aversions, and assimilated to him as much as possible.103 Now if the despot be a wrong-doer, he who likens himself to the despot will become a wrong-doer also. And thus, in taking precautions against suffering wrong, he will incur the still greater mischief and corruption of doing wrong, and will be worse off instead of better.

Danger of one who dissents from the public, either for better or for worse.

Kall. — But if he does not liken himself to the despot, the despot may put him to death, if he chooses? Sokr. — Perhaps he may: but it will be death inflicted by a bad man upon a good man.104 To prolong life is not the foremost consideration, but to decide by rational thought what is the best way of passing that length of life which the Fates allot.105 Is it my best plan to do as you 360recommend, and to liken myself as much as possible to the Athenian people — in order that I may become popular and may acquire power in the city? For it will be impossible for you to acquire power in the city, if you dissent from the prevalent political character and practice, be it for the better or for the worse. Even imitation will not be sufficient: you must be, by natural disposition, homogeneous with the Athenians, if you intend to acquire much favour with them. Whoever makes you most like to them, will help you forward most towards becoming an effective statesman and speaker: for every assembly delight in speeches suited to their own dispositions, and reject speeches of an opposite tenor.106

Sokrates resolves upon a scheme of life for himself — to study permanent good, and not immediate satisfaction.

Such are the essential conditions of political success and popularity. But I, Kalliklês, have already distinguished two schemes of life; one aiming at pleasure, the other aiming at good: one, that of the statesman who studies the felt wants, wishes, and impulses of the people, displaying his genius in providing for them effective satisfaction — the other, the statesman who makes it his chief or sole object to amend the character and disposition of the people. The last scheme is the only one which I approve: and if it be that to which you invite me, we must examine whether either you, Kallikles, or I, have ever yet succeeded in amending or improving the character of any individuals privately, before we undertake the task of amending the citizens collectively.107 None of the past statesmen whom you extol, Miltiades, Kimon, Themistokles, Perikles, has produced any such amendment.108 Considered as ministers, indeed, they were skilful and effective; better than the present statesmen. They were successful in furnishing satisfaction to the prevalent wants and desires of the citizens: they provided docks, walls, ships, tribute, and other such follies, abundantly:109 361but they did nothing to amend the character of the people — to transfer the desires of the people from worse things to better things — or to create in them justice and temperance. They thus did no real good by feeding the desires of the people: no more good than would be done by a skilful cook for a sick man, in cooking for him a sumptuous meal before the physician had cured him.

Sokrates announces himself as almost the only man at Athens, who follows out the true political art. Danger of doing this.

I believe myself (continues Sokrates) to be the only man in Athens, — or certainly one among a very few, — who am a true statesman, following out the genuine purposes of the political art.110 I aim at what is best for the people, not at what is most agreeable. I do not value those captivating accomplishments which tell in the Dikastery. If I am tried, I shall be like a physician arraigned by the confectioner before a jury of children. I shall not be able to refer to any pleasures provided for them by me: pleasures which they call benefits, but which I regard as worthless. If any one accuses me of corrupting the youth by making them sceptical, or of libelling the older men in my private and public talk — it will be in vain for me to justify myself by saying the real truth. — Dikasts, I do and say all these things justly, for your real benefit. I shall not be believed when I say this, and I have nothing else to say: so that I do not know what sentence may be passed on me.111 My only refuge and defence will be, the innocence of my life. As for death, no one except a fool or a coward fears that: the real evil, and the greatest of all evils, is to pass into Hades with a corrupt and polluted mind.112

Mythe respecting Hades, and the treatment of deceased persons therein, according to their merits during life — the philosopher who stood aloof from public affairs, will then be rewarded.

Sokrates then winds up the dialogue, by reciting a Νέκυια, a mythe or hypothesis about judgment in Hades after death, and rewards and punishments to be apportioned to deceased men, according to their merits during life, by Rhadamanthus and Minos. The greatest sufferers by these judgments (he says) will be the kings, despots, and men politically powerful, who have during their lives committed the greatest injustices,362 — which indeed few of them avoid.113 The man most likely to fare well and to be rewarded, will be the philosopher, “who has passed through life minding his own business, and not meddling with the affairs of others”.114

Peculiar ethical views of Sokrates — Rhetorical or dogmatical character of the Gorgias.

“Dicuntur ista magnifice,”115 — we may exclaim, in Ciceronian words, on reaching the close of the Gorgias. It is pre-eminently solemn and impressive; all the more so, from the emphasis of Sokrates, when proclaiming the isolation in which he stands at Athens, and the contradiction between his ethico-political views and those of his fellow-citizens. In this respect it harmonises with the Apology, the Kriton, Republic, and Leges: in all which, the peculiarity of his ethical points of view stands proclaimed — especially in the Kriton, where he declares that his difference with his opponents is fundamental, and that there can be between them no common ground for debate — nothing but reciprocal contempt.116

He merges politics in Ethics — he conceives the rulers as spiritual teachers and trainers of the community.

The argument of Sokrates in the Gorgias is interesting, not merely as extolling the value of ethical self-restraint, but also as considering political phenomena under this point of view: that is, merging politics in ethics. The proper and paramount function of statesmen (we find it eloquently proclaimed) is to serve as spiritual teachers in the community: for the purpose of amending the lives and characters of the citizens, and of converting them from bad dispositions to good. We are admonished that until this is effected, more is lost than gained by realising the actual wants and wishes of the community, which are disorderly and distempered: like the state of a sick man, 363who would receive harm and not benefit from a sumptuous banquet.

Idéal of Plato — a despotic lawgiver or man-trainer, on scientific principles, fashioning all characters pursuant to certain types of his own.

This is the conception of Plato in the Gorgias, speaking through the person of Sokrates, respecting the ends for which the political magistrate ought to employ his power. The magistrate, as administering law and justice, is to the minds of the community what the trainer and the physician are to their bodies: he produces goodness of mind, as the two latter produce health and strength of body. The Platonic idéal is that of a despotic law-giver and man-trainer, wielding the compulsory force of the secular arm for what he believes to be spiritual improvement. However instructive it is to study the manner in which a mind like that of Plato works out such a purpose in theory, there is no reason for regret that he never had an opportunity of carrying it into practice. The manner in which he always keeps in view the standing mental character, as an object of capital importance to be attended to, and as the analogon of health in the body — deserves all esteem. But when he assumes the sceptre of King Nomos (as in Republic and Leges) to fix by unchangeable authority what shall be the orthodox type of character, and to suppress all the varieties of emotion and intellect, except such as will run into a few predetermined moulds — he oversteps all the reasonable aims and boundaries of the political office.

Platonic analogy between mental goodness and bodily health — incomplete analogy — circumstances of difference.

Plato forgets two important points of difference, in that favourite and very instructive analogy which he perpetually reproduces, between mental goodness and bodily health. First, good health and strength of the body (as I have observed already) are states which every man knows when he has got them. Though there is much doubt and dispute about causes, preservative, destructive, and restorative, there is none about the present fact. Every sick man derives from his own sensations an anxiety to get well. But virtue is not a point thus fixed, undisputed, indubitable: it is differently conceived by different persons, and must first be discovered and settled by a process of enquiry; the Platonic Sokrates himself, in many of the dialogues — after declaring that neither he nor any 364one else within his knowledge, knows what it is — tries to find it out without success. Next, the physician, who is the person actively concerned in imparting health and strength, exercises no coercive power over any one: those who consult him have the option whether they will follow the advice given, or not. To put himself upon the same footing with the physician, the political magistrate ought to confine himself to the function of advice; a function highly useful, but in which he will be called upon to meet argumentative opposition, and frequent failure, together with the mortification of leaving those whom he cannot convince, to follow their own mode of life. Here are two material differences, modifying the applicability of that very analogy on which Plato so frequently rests his proof.

Sokrates in the Gorgias speaks like a dissenter among a community of fixed opinions and habits. Impossible that a dissenter, on important points, should acquire any public influence.

In Plato’s two imaginary commonwealths, where he is himself despotic law-giver, there would have been no tolerable existence possible for any one not shaped upon the Platonic spiritual model. But in the Gorgias, Plato (speaking in the person of Sokrates) is called upon to define his plan of life in a free state, where he was merely a private citizen. Sokrates receives from Kallikles the advice, to forego philosophy and to aspire to the influence and celebrity of an active public speaker. His reply is instructive, as revealing the interior workings of every political society. No man (he says) can find favour as an adviser — either of a despot, where there is one, or of a people where there is free government — unless he be in harmony with the sentiments and ideas prevalent, either with the ruling Many or the ruling One. He must be moulded, from youth upwards, on the same spiritual pattern as they are:117 his love and hate, his praise and blame, must turn towards the same things: he must have the same tastes, the same morality, the same idéal, as theirs: he must be no imitator, but a chip of the same block. If he be either better than they or worse than they,118 he will fail in acquiring popularity, and his efforts as a competitor for public 365influence will be not only abortive, but perhaps dangerous to himself.

Sokrates feels his own isolation from his countrymen. He is thrown upon individual speculation and dialectic.

The reasons which Sokrates gives here (as well as in the Apology, and partly also in the Republic) for not embarking in the competition of political aspirants, are of very general application. He is an innovator in religion; and a dissenter from the received ethics, politics, social sentiment, and estimate of life and conduct.119 Whoever dissents upon these matters from the governing force (in whatever hands that may happen to reside) has no chance of being listened to as a political counsellor, and may think himself fortunate if he escapes without personal hurt or loss. Whether his dissent be for the better or for the worse, is a matter of little moment: the ruling body always think it worse, and the consequences to the dissenter are the same.

Antithesis between philosophy and rhetoric.

Herein consists the real antithesis between Sokrates, Plato, and philosophy, on the one side — Perikles, Nikias, Kleon, Demosthenes, and rhetoric, on the other. “You,” (says Sokrates to Kalliklês),120 “are in love with the Athenian people, and take up or renounce such opinions as they approve or discountenance: I am in love with philosophy, and follow her guidance. You and other active politicians do not wish to have more than a smattering of philosophy; you are afraid of becoming unconsciously corrupted, if you carry it beyond such elementary stage.”121 Each of these 366orators, discussing political measures before the public assembly, appealed to general maxims borrowed from the received creed of morality, religion, taste, politics, &c. His success depended mainly on the emphasis which his eloquence could lend to such maxims, and on the skill with which he could apply them to the case in hand. But Sokrates could not follow such an example. Anxious in his research after truth, he applied the test of analysis to the prevalent opinions — found them, in his judgment, neither consistent nor rational — constrained many persons to feel this, by an humiliating cross-examination — but became disqualified from addressing, with any chance of assent, the assembled public.

Position of one who dissents, upon material points, from the fixed opinions and creed of his countrymen.

That in order to succeed politically, a man must be a genuine believer in the creed of King Nomos or the ruling force — cast in the same spiritual mould — (I here take the word creed not as confined to religion, but as embracing the whole of a man’s critical idéal, on moral or social practice, politics, or taste — the ends which he deems worthy of being aspired to, or proper to be shunned, by himself or others) is laid down by Sokrates as a general position: and with perfect truth. In disposing of the force or influence of government, whoever possesses that force will use it conformably to his own maxims. A man who dissents from these maxims will find no favour in the public assembly; nor, probably, if his dissent be grave and wide, will he ever be able to speak out his convictions aloud in it, without incurring dangerous antipathy. But what is to become of such a dissenter122 — the man who frequents the same porticos with the people, but does not hold the same creed, 367nor share their judgments respecting social expetenda and fugienda? How is he to be treated by the government, or by the orthodox majority of society in their individual capacity? Debarred, by the necessity of the case, from influence over the public councils — what latitude of pursuit, profession, or conduct, is to be left to him as a citizen? How far is he to question, or expose, or require to be proved, that which the majority believe without proof? Shall he be required to profess, or to obey, or to refrain from contradicting, religious or ethical doctrines which he has examined and rejected? Shall such requirement be enforced by threat of legal penalties, or of ill-treatment from individuals, which is not less intolerable than legal penalties? What is likely to be his character, if compelled to suppress all declaration of his own creed, and to act and speak as if he were believer in another?

Probable feelings of Plato on this subject. Claim put forward in the Gorgias of an independent locus standi for philosophy, but without the indiscriminate cross-examination pursued by Sokrates.

The questions here suggested must have impressed themselves forcibly on the mind of Plato when he recollected the fate of Sokrates. In spite of a blameless life, Sokrates had been judicially condemned and executed for publicly questioning received opinions, innovating upon the established religion, and instilling into young persons habits of doubt. To dissent only for the better, afforded no assurance of safety: and Plato knew well that his own dissent from the Athenian public was even wider and more systematic than that of his master. The position and plan of life for an active-minded reasoner, dissenting from the established opinions of the public, could not but be an object of interesting reflection to him.123 The Gorgias (written, in my judgment, long after the death of Sokrates, probably after the Platonic school was established) announces the vocation of the philosopher, and claims an open field for speculation, apart from the actualities of politics — for the self-acting reason of the individual doubter and investigator, against the authority of 368numbers and the pressure of inherited tradition. A formal assertion to this effect was worthy of the founder of the Academy — the earliest philosophical school at Athens. Yet we may observe that while the Platonic Sokrates in the Gorgias adopts the life of philosophy, he does not renew that farther demand with which the historical Sokrates had coupled it in his Apology — the liberty of oral and aggressive cross-examination, addressed to individuals personally and indiscriminately124 — to the primores populi as well as to the populum tributim. The fate of Sokrates rendered Plato more cautious, and induced him to utter his ethical interrogations and novelties of opinion in no other way except that of lectures to chosen hearers and written dialogue: borrowing the name of Sokrates or some other speaker, and refraining upon system (as his letters125 tell us that he did) from publishing any doctrines in his own name.

Importance of maintaining the utmost liberty of discussion. Tendency of all ruling orthodoxy towards intolerance.

As a man dissenting from received opinions, Sokrates had his path marked out in the field of philosophy or individual speculation. To such a mind as his, the fullest liberty ought to be left, of professing and defending his own opinions, as well as of combating other opinions, accredited or not, which he may consider false or uncertified.126 The public guidance of the state thus falls to one class of minds, the activity of speculative discussion to another; though accident 369may produce, here and there, a superior individual, comprehensive or dexterous enough to suffice for both. But the main desideratum is that this freedom of discussion should exist: that room shall be made, and encouragement held out, to the claims of individual reason, and to the full publication of all doubts or opinions, be they what they may: that the natural tendency of all ruling force, whether in few or in many hands, to perpetuate their own dogmas by proscribing or silencing all heretics and questioners, may be neutralised as far as possible. The great expansive vigour of the Greek mind — the sympathy felt among the best varieties of Greeks for intellectual superiority in all its forms — and the privilege of free speech (παῤῥησία), on which the democratical citizens of Athens prided themselves — did in fact neutralise very considerably these tendencies in Athens. A greater and more durable liberty of philosophising was procured for Athens, and through Athens for Greece generally, than had ever been known before in the history of mankind.

Issue between philosophy and rhetoric — not satisfactorily handled by Plato. Injustice done to rhetoric. Ignoble manner in which it is presented by Polus and Kalliklês.

This antithesis of the philosophical life to the rhetorical or political, constitutes one of the most interesting features of the Platonic Gorgias. But when we follow the pleadings upon which Plato rests this grand issue, and the line which he draws between the two functions, we find much that is unsatisfactory. Since Plato himself pleads both sides of the case, he is bound in fairness to set forth the case which he attacks (that of rhetoric), as it would be put by competent370 and honourable advocates — by Perikles, for example, or Demosthenes, or Isokrates, or Quintilian. He does this, to a certain extent, in the first part of the dialogue, carried on by Sokrates with Gorgias. But in the succeeding portions — carried on with Pôlus and Kalliklês, and occupying three-fourths of the whole — he alters the character of the defence, and merges it in ethical theories which Perikles, had he been the defender, would not only have put aside as misplaced, but disavowed as untrue. Perikles would have listened with mixed surprise and anger, if he had heard any one utter the monstrous assertion which Plato puts into the mouth of Polus — That rhetors, like despots, kill, impoverish, or expel any citizen at their pleasure. Though Perikles was the most powerful of all Athenian rhetors, yet he had to contend all his life against fierce opposition from others, and was even fined during his last years. He would hardly have understood how an Athenian citizen could have made any assertion so completely falsified by all the history of Athens, respecting the omnipotence of the rhetors. Again, if he had heard Kalliklês proclaiming that the strong giant had a natural right to satiate all his desires at the cost of the weaker Many — and that these latter sinned against Nature when they took precautions to prevent him — Perikles would have protested against the proclamation as emphatically as Plato.127

Perikles would have accepted the defence of rhetoric, as Plato has put it into the mouth of Gorgias.

If we suppose Perikles to have undertaken the defence of the rhetorical element at Athens, against the dialectic element represented by Sokrates, he would have accepted it, though not a position of his own choosing, on the footing on which Plato places it in the mouth of Gorgias: “Rhetoric is an engine of persuasion addressed to numerous assembled auditors: it ensures freedom to the city (through the free exercise of such a gift by many competing orators) and political ascendency or command to the ablest rhetor. It thus confers great power on him who possesses it in the highest measure: but he ought by no means to employ that power for unjust purposes.” It is very probable that Perikles might have recommended rhetorical study to Sokrates,371 as a means of defending himself against unjust accusations, and of acquiring a certain measure of influence on public affairs.128 But he would have distinguished carefully (as Horace does) between defending yourself against unjust attacks, and making unjust attacks upon others: though the same weapon may suit for both.

The Athenian people recognise a distinction between the pleasurable and the good: but not the same as that which Plato conceived.

Farther, neither Perikles, nor any defender of free speech, would assent to the definition of rhetoric — That it is a branch of the art of flattery, studying the immediately pleasurable, and disregarding the good.129 This indeed represents Plato’s own sentiment, and was true in the sense which the Platonic Sokrates assigns (in the Gorgias, though not in the Protagoras) to the words good and evil. But it is not true in the sense which the Athenian people and the Athenian public 372men assigned to those words. Both the one and the other used the words pleasurable and good as familiarly as Plato, and had sentiments corresponding to both of them. The pleasurable and painful referred to present and temporary causes: the Good and Evil to prospective causes and permanent situations, involving security against indefinite future suffering, combined with love of national dignity and repugnance to degradation, as well as with a strong sense of common interests and common obligations to each other. To provide satisfaction for these common patriotic feelings — to sustain the dignity of the city by effective and even imposing public establishments, against foreign enemies — to protect the individual rights of citizens by an equitable administration of justice — counted in the view of the Athenians as objects good and honourable: while the efforts and sacrifices necessary for these permanent ends, were, so far as they went, a renunciation373 of what they would call the pleasurable. When, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, the Athenians, acting on the advice of Perikles, allowed all Attica to be ravaged, and submitted to the distress of cooping the whole population within the long walls, rather than purchase peace by abnegating their Hellenic dignity, independence, and security — they not only renounced much that was pleasurable, but endured great immediate distress, for the sake of what they regarded as a permanent good.130 Eighty years afterwards, when Demosthenes pointed out to them the growing power and encroachments of the Macedonian Philip, and exhorted them to the efforts requisite for keeping back that formidable enemy, while there was yet time — they could not be wound up to the pitch requisite for affronting so serious an amount of danger and suffering. They had lost that sense of Hellenic dignity, and that association of self-respect with active personal soldiership and sailorship, which rendered submission to an enemy the most intolerable of all pains, at the time when Perikles had addressed them. They shut their eyes to an impending danger, which ultimately proved their ruin. On both these occasions, we have the pleasurable and the good brought into contrast in the Athenian mind; in both we have the two most eminent orators of Grecian antiquity enforcing the good in opposition to the pleasurable: the first successfully, the last vainly, in opposition to other orators.

Rhetoric was employed at Athens in appealing to all the various established sentiments and opinions. Erroneous inferences raised by the Kalliklês of Plato.

Lastly, it is not merely the political power of the Athenians that Perikles employs his eloquence to uphold. He dwells also with emphasis on the elegance of taste, on the intellectual force and activity, which warranted him in decorating the city with the title of Preceptress of Hellas.131 All this belongs, not to the pleasurable as distinguished from the good, but to 374good (whether immediately pleasurable or not) in its most comprehensive sense, embracing the improvement and refinement of the collective mind. If Perikles, in this remarkable funeral harangue, flattered the sentiments of the people — as he doubtless did — he flattered them by kindling their aspirations towards good. And Plato himself does the same (though less nobly and powerfully), adopting the received framework of Athenian sentiment, in his dialogue called Menexenus, which we shall come to in a future chapter.

The Platonic Idéal exacts, as good, some order, system, discipline. But order may be directed to bad ends as well as to good. Divergent ideas about virtue.

The issue, therefore, which Plato here takes against Rhetoric, must stand or fall with the Platonic Idéal of Good and Evil. But when he thus denounces both the general public and the most patriotic rhetors, to ensure exclusive worship for his own Idéal of Good — we may at least require that he shall explain, wherein consists that Good — by what mark it is distinguishable — and on what authority pre-eminence is claimed for it. So far, indeed, we advance by the help of Plato’s similes132 — order, discipline, health and strength of body — that we are called upon to recognise, apart from all particular moments of enjoyment or suffering, of action or quiescence, a certain permanent mental condition and habit — a certain order, regulation, discipline — as an object of high importance to be attained. This (as I have before remarked) is a valuable idea which pervades, in one form or another, all the Hellenic social views, from Sokrates downward, and even before Sokrates; an idea, moreover, which was common to Peripatetics, Stoics, Epikureans. But mental order and discipline is not in itself an end: it may be differently cast, and may subserve many different purposes. The Pythagorean brotherhood was intensely restrictive in its canons. The Spartan system exhibited the strictest order and discipline — an assemblage of principles and habits predetermined by authority and enforced upon all — yet neither Plato nor Aristotle approve of its results. Order and discipline attained full perfection in the armies of Julius Caesar and the French Emperor Napoleon; in the middle ages, also, 375several of the monastic orders stood high in respect to finished discipline pervading the whole character: and the Jesuits stood higher than any. Each of these systems has included terms equivalent to justice, temperance, virtue, vice, &c., with sentiments associated therewith, yet very different from what Plato would have approved. The question — What is Virtue? — Vir bonus est quis? — will be answered differently in each. The Spartans — when they entrapped (by a delusive pretence of liberation and military decoration) two thousand of their bravest Helot warriors, and took them off by private assassinations,133 — did not offend against their own idea of virtue, or against the Platonic exigency of Order — Measure — System.

How to discriminate the right order from the wrong. Plato does not advise us.

It is therefore altogether unsatisfactory, when Plato — professing to teach us how to determine scientifically, which pleasures are bad, and which pains are good — refers to a durable mental order and discipline. Of such order there existed historically many varieties; and many more are conceivable, as Plato himself has shown in the Republic and Leges. By what tests is the right order to be distinguished from the wrong? If by its results, by what results? — calculations for minimising pains, and maximising pleasures, being excluded by the supposition? Here the Sokrates of the Gorgias is at fault. He has not told us by what scientific test the intelligent Expert proceeds in determining what pleasures are bad, and what pains are good. He leaves such determination to the unscientific sentiment of each society and each individual. He has not, in fact, responded to the clear and pertinent challenge thrown out by the Sokrates of the Protagoras.

The Gorgias upholds the independence and dignity of the dissenting philosopher.

I think, for these reasons, that the logic of the Gorgias is not at all on a par with its eloquence. But there is one peculiar feature which distinguishes it among all the Platonic dialogues. Nowhere in ancient literature is the title, position, and dignity of individual dissenting opinion, ethical and political — against established ethical and political orthodoxy — so clearly marked out and so boldly asserted. “The Athenians will judge as they 376think right: none but those speakers who are in harmony with them, have any chance of addressing their public assemblies with effect, and acquiring political influence. I, Sokrates, dissent from them, and have no chance of political influence: but I claim the right of following out, proclaiming, and defending, the conclusions of my own individual reason, until debate satisfies me that I am wrong.”

[END OF CHAPTER XXIV]

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