Stephen Campbell's Profile

When opinion
by the help of reason leads us to the best, the conquering
principle is called temperance;

but when desire, which is devoid of
reason, rules in us and drags us to pleasure, that power of misrule
is called excess.

that supreme desire, I say,
which by leading conquers and by the force of passion is
reinforced, from this very force, receiving a name, is called love
(erromenos eros).’

And what is well and what is badly—need we ask
Lysias, or any other poet or orator, who ever wrote or will write
either a political or any other work, in metre or out of metre,
poet or prose writer, to teach us this?

There is something more ridiculous
coming:—Suppose, further, that in sober earnest I, having
persuaded you of this, went and composed a speech in honour of an
ass, whom I entitled a horse beginning: ‘A noble animal and a
most useful possession, especially in war, and you may get on his
back and fight, and he will carry baggage or anything.’

And when the orator instead of putting an ass in the
place of a horse, puts good for evil, being himself as ignorant of
their true nature as the city on which he imposes is ignorant; and
having studied the notions of the multitude, falsely persuades them
not about ‘the shadow of an ass,’ which he confounds
with a horse, but about good which he confounds with
evil,—what will be the harvest which rhetoric will be likely
to gather after the sowing of that seed?

And a professor of the art will make the same thing
appear to the same persons to be at one time just, at another time,
if he is so inclined, to be unjust?

I mean to say that the composition was mostly playful.
Yet in these chance fancies of the hour were involved two
principles of which we should be too glad to have a clearer
description if art could give us one.

First, the comprehension of scattered particulars in
one idea; as in our definition of love, which whether true or false
certainly gave clearness and consistency to the discourse, the
speaker should define his several notions and so make his meaning
clear.

The second principle is that of division into species
according to the natural formation, where the joint is, not
breaking any part as a bad carver might. Just as our two
discourses, alike assumed, first of all, a single form of unreason;
and then, as the body which from being one becomes double and may
be divided into a left side and right side, each having parts right
and left of the same name—after this manner the speaker
proceeded to divide the parts of the left side and did not desist
until he found in them an evil or left-handed love which he justly
reviled; and the other discourse leading us to the madness which
lay on the right side, found another love, also having the same
name, but divine, which the speaker held up before us and applauded
and affirmed to be the author of the greatest benefits.

You mean the excellent Theodorus

I remember Prodicus laughing when I
told him of this; he said that he had himself discovered the true
rule of art, which was to be neither long nor short, but of a
convenient length.

The method which proceeds without analysis is like the
groping of a blind man. Yet, surely, he who is an artist ought not
to admit of a comparison with the blind, or deaf. The rhetorician,
who teaches his pupil to speak scientifically, will particularly
set forth the nature of that being to which he addresses his
speeches; and this, I conceive, to be the soul.

“Nay, solemnly I tell you, twice already I have essayed to
consider my defence, and twice the divinity⁹ hinders me”

And now if my age is still to be
prolonged,¹² I know that I cannot
escape paying¹³ the penalty of old
age, in increasing dimness of sight and dulness of hearing. I shall
find myself slower to learn new lessons, and apter to forget the
lessons I have learnt. And if to these be added the consciousness
of failing powers, the sting of self-reproach, what prospect have I
of any further joy in living? It may be, you know,”

that God out of his great kindness is intervening in my
behalf¹⁴ to suffer me to close my
life in the ripeness of age, and by the gentlest of deaths. For if
at this time sentence of death be passed upon me, it is plain I
shall be allowed to meet an end which, in the opinion of those who
have studied the matter, is not only the easiest in itself, but one
which will cause the least trouble to one’s friends,¹⁵ while engendering the deepest longing
for the departed. For of necessity he will only be thought of with
regret and longing who leaves nothing behind unseemly or
discomfortable to haunt the imagination of those beside him, but,
sound of body, and his soul still capable of friendly repose, fades
tranquilly away.”

We know, I fancy, what
such corrupting influences are; and perhaps you will tell us if you
know of any one who, under my influence, has been changed from a
religous into an irreligious man; who, from being sober-minded, has
become prodigal; from being a moderate drinker has become a
wine-bibber and a drunkard; from being a lover of healthy honest
toil has become effeminate, or under the thrall of some other
wicked pleasure.”

“I admit it,” Socrates replied, “in the case
of education, for they know that I have made the matter a study;
and with regard to health a man prefers to obey his doctor rather
than his parents;

If so be I perish prematurely while the
tide of life’s blessings flows free and fast, certainly I and
my well-wishers should feel pained; but if it be that I am bringing
my life to a close on the eve of troubles, for my part I think you
ought all of you to take heart of grace and rejoice in my good
fortune.”

But far more dangerous are these,
who began when you were children, and took possession of your minds with
their falsehoods, telling of one Socrates, a wise man, who speculated about
the heaven above, and searched into the earth beneath, and made the worse
appear the better cause.

one recent, the other ancient; and I hope that you will
see the propriety of my answering the latter first, for these accusations
you heard long before the others, and much oftener.

"Socrates is an evil-doer,
and a curious person, who searches into things under the earth and in heaven,
and he makes the worse appear the better cause; and he teaches the aforesaid
doctrines to others."

I have no knowledge of the
kind.

he asked the oracle
to tell him whether there was anyone wiser than I was, and the Pythian
prophetess answered that there was no man wiser.

When I began to talk with him, I could not help thinking that
he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by many, and wiser
still by himself; and I went and tried to explain to him that he thought
himself wise, but was not really wise; and the consequence was that he
hated me, and his enmity was shared by several who were present and heard
me

When
I left the politicians, I went to the poets; tragic, dithyrambic, and all
sorts.

At last I went to the artisans, for I was conscious that I knew
nothing at all, as I may say, and I was sure that they knew many fine things;
and in this I was not mistaken, for they did know many things of which
I was ignorant, and in this they certainly were wiser than I was.

young men of the richer classes, who
have not much to do, come about me of their own accord; they like to hear
the pretenders examined, and they often imitate me, and examine others
themselves; there are plenty of persons, as they soon enough discover,
who think that they know something, but really know little or nothing:
and then those who are examined by them instead of being angry with themselves
are angry with me:

Meletus
is a doer of evil, and the evil is that he makes a joke of a serious matter,
and is too ready at bringing other men to trial from a pretended zeal and
interest about matters in which he really never had the smallest interest.

And you, Meletus, have sufficiently shown that you never had a thought
about the young: your carelessness is seen in your not caring about matters
spoken of in this very indictment.

Now is that a truth which your superior wisdom
has recognized thus early in life, and am I, at my age, in such darkness
and ignorance as not to know that if a man with whom I have to live is
corrupted by me, I am very likely to be harmed by him, and yet I corrupt
him, and intentionally, too; - that is what you are saying, and of that
you will never persuade me or any other human being

if you fancy them ignorant to
such a degree as not to know that those doctrines are found in the books
of Anaxagoras the Clazomenian, who is full of them.

he ought only to consider whether
in doing anything he is doing right or wrong - acting the part of a good
man or of a bad.

For I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young
alike, not to take thought for your persons and your properties, but first
and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell
you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue come money
and every other good of man, public as well as private.

I made up my mind
that I would run the risk, having law and justice with me, rather than
take part in your injustice because I feared imprisonment and death.

For if I am really corrupting
the youth, and have corrupted some of them already, those of them who have
grown up and have become sensible that I gave them bad advice in the days
of their youth should come forward as accusers and take their revenge;
and if they do not like to come themselves, some of their relatives, fathers,
brothers, or other kinsmen, should say what evil their families suffered
at my hands.

Perhaps this may come into his mind, and he may be set against me, and
vote in anger because he is displeased at this.

Well then,
say thirty minae, let that be the penalty; for that they will be ample
security to you.

Still I have a favor to ask of them. When my sons are grown up,
I would ask you, O my friends, to punish them; and I would have you trouble
them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches, or anything,
more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are
really nothing, - then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring
about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something
when they are really nothing. And if you do this, I and my sons will have
received justice at your hands

seeing that rhetoric is one of those arts which works
mainly by the use of words, and there are other arts which also use
words, tell me what is that quality in words with which rhetoric is
concerned

O Socrates, Gorgias is
deceiving you, for my art is concerned with the greatest good of
men and not his.’

rhetoric is the artificer of
persuasion

‘having learned’ the same as
‘having believed,’ and are learning and belief the same
things?

two sorts of
persuasion,—one which is the source of belief without
knowledge, as the other is of knowledge

I have persuaded him to do for me what he would not do for
the physician just by the use of rhetoric.

SOCRATES: You, Gorgias, like myself, have had great experience
of disputations, and you must have observed, I think, that they do
not always terminate in mutual edification, or in the definition by
either party of the subjects which they are discussing; but
disagreements are apt to arise —somebody says that another
has not spoken truly or clearly; and then they get into a passion
and begin to quarrel, both parties conceiving that their opponents
are arguing from personal feeling only and jealousy of themselves,
not from any interest in the question at issue. And sometimes they
will go on abusing one another until the company at last are quite
vexed at themselves for ever listening to such fellows. Why do I
say this? Why, because I cannot help feeling that you are now
saying what is not quite consistent or accordant with what you were
saying at first about rhetoric. And I am afraid to point this out
to you, lest you should think that I have some animosity against
you, and that I speak, not for the sake of discovering the truth,
but from jealousy of you. Now if you are one of my sort, I should
like to cross-examine you, but if not I will let you alone. And
what is my sort? you will ask. I am one of those who are very
willing to be refuted if I say anything which is not true, and very
willing to refute any one else who says what is not true, and quite
as ready to be refuted as to refute; for I hold that this is the
greater gain of the two, just as the gain is greater of being cured
of a very great evil than of curing another. For I imagine that
there is no evil which a man can endure so great as an erroneous
opinion about the matters of which we are speaking; and if you
claim to be one of my sort, let us have the discussion out, but if
you would rather have done, no matter;—let us make an end of
it.

The soul and body being two, have two arts
corresponding to them: there is the art of politics attending on
the soul; and another art attending on the body, of which I know no
single name, but which may be described as having two divisions,
one of them gymnastic, and the other medicine.

Cookery, then, I maintain to be a flattery which takes the form
of medicine;

cookery : medicine :: rhetoric : justice.

natural difference between the
rhetorician and the sophist,

Forbear, Polus!

punishment is an evil?

I praised you at first, Polus, for being a rhetorician
rather than a reasoner. And this, as I suppose, is the sort of
argument with which you fancy that a child might refute me, and by
which I stand refuted when I say that the unjust man is not happy.
But, my good friend, where is the refutation? I cannot admit a word
which you have been saying.

knowledge, good-will, outspokenness,

There are two men,
both of whom have a number of casks; the one man has his casks
sound and full, one of wine, another of honey, and a third of milk,
besides others filled with other liquids, and the streams which
fill them are few and scanty, and he can only obtain them with a
great deal of toil and difficulty; but when his casks are once
filled he has no need to feed them any more, and has no further
trouble with them or care about them. The other, in like manner,
can procure streams, though not without difficulty; but his vessels
are leaky and unsound, and night and day he is compelled to be
filling them, and if he pauses for a moment, he is in an agony of
pain. Such are their respective lives:—And now would you say
that the life of the intemperate is happier than that of the
temperate? Do I not convince you that the opposite is the
truth?

That was the reason, Callicles, why I scared Polus and
Gorgias, until they were too modest to say what they thought; but
you will not be too modest and will not be scared, for you are a
brave man. And now, answer my question.