Jowett: rhetorician

Rhetoric

Whether such an incident ever really occurred as the visit of Crito   and the proposal of escape is uncertain : Plato could easily have invented far more than that ; and in the selection of Crito, the aged friend, as the fittest person to make the proposal to Socrates  , we seem to recognize the hand of the artist. Whether anyone who has been subjected by the laws of his country to an unjust judgment is right in attempting to escape is a thesis about which casuists might disagree. Shelley is of opinion that Socrates "did well to die," but not for the "sophistical" reasons which Plato has put into his mouth. And there would be no difficulty in arguing that Socrates should have lived and preferred to a glorious death the good which he might still be able to perform. "A skillful rhetorician would have had much to say about that" (50 C). It may be remarked, however, that Plato never intended to answer the question of casuistry, but only to exhibit the ideal of patient virtue which refuses to do the least evil in order to avoid the greatest, and to show Socrates, his master, maintaining in death the opinions which he had professed in his life. Not "the world," but the "one wise man," is still the philosopher’s paradox in his last hours. CRITO

Soc. Then consider the matter in this way : Imagine that I am about to play truant (you may call the proceeding by any name which you like), and the laws and the government come and interrogate me : "Tell us, Socrates," they say ; "what are you about ? are you going by an act of yours to overturn us — the laws and the whole State, as far as in you lies ? Do you imagine that a State can subsist and not be overthrown, in which the decisions of law have no power, but are set aside and overthrown by individuals ?" What will be our answer, Crito, to these and the like words ? Anyone, and especially a clever rhetorician, will have a good deal to urge about the evil of setting aside the law which requires a sentence to be carried out ; and we might reply, "Yes ; but the State has injured us and given an unjust sentence." Suppose I say that ? CRITO

Soc. Then I am to call you a rhetorician ? GORGIAS

Soc. Very good then ; as you profess to be a rhetorician, and a maker of rhetoricians, let me ask you, with what is rhetoric concerned : I might ask with what is weaving concerned, and you would reply (would you not ?), with the making of garments ? GORGIAS

Soc. And the rhetorician does not instruct the courts of law or other assemblies about things just and unjust, but he creates belief about them ; for no one can be supposed to instruct such a vast multitude about such high matters in a short time ? GORGIAS

Soc. Come, then, and let us see what we really mean about rhetoric ; for I do not know what my own meaning is as yet. When the assembly meets to elect a physician or a shipwright or any other craftsman, will the rhetorician be taken into counsel ? Surely not. For at every election he ought to be chosen who is most skilled ; and, again, when walls have to be built or harbours or docks to be constructed, not the rhetorician but the master workman will advise ; or when generals have to be chosen and an order of battle arranged, or a proposition taken, then the military will advise and not the rhetoricians : what do you say, Gorgias ? Since you profess to be a rhetorician and a maker of rhetoricians, I cannot do better than learn the nature of your art from you. And here let me assure you that I have your interest in view as well as my own. For likely enough some one or other of the young men present might desire to become your pupil, and in fact I see some, and a good many too, who have this wish, but they would be too modest to question you. And therefore when you are interrogated by me, I would have you imagine that you are interrogated by them. "What is the use of coming to you, Gorgias ? they will say about what will you teach us to advise the state ? — about the just and unjust only, or about those other things also which Socrates has just mentioned ? How will you answer them ? GORGIAS

Gor. A marvel, indeed, Socrates, if you only knew how rhetoric comprehends and holds under her sway all the inferior arts. Let me offer you a striking example of this. On several occasions I have been with my brother Herodicus or some other physician to see one of his patients, who would not allow the physician to give him medicine, or apply a knife or hot iron to him ; and I have persuaded him to do for me what he would not do for the physician just by the use of rhetoric. And I say that if a rhetorician and a physician were to go to any city, and had there to argue in the Ecclesia or any other assembly as to which of them should be elected state-physician, the physician would have no chance ; but he who could speak would be chosen if he wished ; and in a contest with a man of any other profession the rhetorician more than any one would have the power of getting himself chosen, for he can speak more persuasively to the multitude than any of them, and on any subject. Such is the nature and power of the art of rhetoric And yet, Socrates, rhetoric should be used like any other competitive art, not against everybody — the rhetorician ought not to abuse his strength any more than a pugilist or pancratiast or other master of fence ; because he has powers which are more than a match either for friend or enemy, he ought not therefore to strike, stab, or slay his friends. Suppose a man to have been trained in the palestra and to be a skilful boxer — he in the fulness of his strength goes and strikes his father or mother or one of his familiars or friends ; but that is no reason why the trainers or fencing-masters should be held in detestation or banished from the city — surely not. For they taught their art for a good purpose, to be used against enemies and evil-doers, in self-defence not in aggression, and others have perverted their instructions, and turned to a bad use their own strength and skill. But not on this account are the teachers bad, neither is the art in fault, or bad in itself ; I should rather say that those who make a bad use of the art are to blame. And the same argument holds good of rhetoric ; for the rhetorician can speak against all men and upon any subject — in short, he can persuade the multitude better than any other man of anything which he pleases, but he should not therefore seek to defraud the physician or any other artist of his reputation merely because he has the power ; he ought to use rhetoric fairly, as he would also use his athletic powers. And if after having become a rhetorician he makes a bad use of his strength and skill, his instructor surely ought not on that account to be held in detestation or banished. For he was intended by his teacher to make a good use of his instructions, but he abuses them. And therefore he is the person who ought to be held in detestation, banished, and put to death, and not his instructor. GORGIAS

Soc. Let me tell you then, Gorgias, what surprises me in your words ; though I dare say that you may be right, and I may have understood your meaning. You say that you can make any man, who will learn of you, a rhetorician ? GORGIAS

Soc. You were saying, in fact, that the rhetorician will have, greater powers of persuasion than the physician even in a matter of health ? GORGIAS

Soc. Then, when the rhetorician is more persuasive than the physician, the ignorant is more persuasive with the ignorant than he who has knowledge ? — is not that the inference ? GORGIAS

Soc. And the same holds of the relation of rhetoric to all the other arts ; the rhetorician need not know the truth about things ; he has only to discover some way of persuading the ignorant that he has more knowledge than those who know ? GORGIAS

Soc. Whether the rhetorician is or not inferior on this account is a question which we will hereafter examine if the enquiry is likely to be of any service to us ; but I would rather begin by asking, whether he is as ignorant of the just and unjust, base and honourable, good and evil, as he is of medicine and the other arts ; I mean to say, does he really know anything of what is good and evil, base or honourable, just or unjust in them ; or has he only a way with the ignorant of persuading them that he not knowing is to be esteemed to know more about these things than some. one else who knows ? Or must the pupil know these things and come to you knowing them before he can acquire the art of rhetoric ? If he is ignorant, you who are the teacher of rhetoric will not teach him — it is not your business ; but you will make him seem to the multitude to know them, when he does not know them ; and seem to be a good man, when he is not. Or will you be unable to teach him rhetoric at all, unless he knows the truth of these things first ? What is to be said about all this ? By heavens, Gorgias, I wish that you would reveal to me the power of rhetoric, as you were saying that you would. GORGIAS

Soc. Say no more, for there you are right ; and so he whom you make a rhetorician must either know the nature of the just and unjust already, or he must be taught by you. GORGIAS

Soc. And according to the argument the rhetorician must be a just man ? GORGIAS

Soc. But do you remember saying just now that the trainer is not to be accused or banished if the pugilist makes a wrong use of his pugilistic art ; and in like manner, if the rhetorician makes a bad and unjust use of rhetoric, that is not to be laid to the charge of his teacher, who is not to be banished, but the wrong-doer himself who made a bad use of his rhetoric — he is to be banished — was not that said ? GORGIAS

Soc. But now we are affirming that the aforesaid rhetorician will never have done injustice at all ? GORGIAS

Soc. I was thinking at the time, when I heard you saying so, that rhetoric, which is always discoursing about justice, could not possibly be an unjust thing. But when you added, shortly afterwards, that the rhetorician might make a bad use of rhetoric I noted with surprise the inconsistency into which you had fallen ; and I said, that if you thought, as I did, that there was a gain in being refuted, there would be an advantage in going on with the question, but if not, I would leave off. And in the course of our investigations, as you will see yourself, the rhetorician has been acknowledged to be incapable of making an unjust use of rhetoric, or of willingness to do injustice. By the dog, Gorgias, there will be a great deal of discussion, before we get at the truth of all this. GORGIAS

Polus. And do even you, Socrates, seriously believe what you are now saying about rhetoric ? What ! because Gorgias was ashamed to deny that the rhetorician knew the just and the honourable and the good, and admitted that to any one who came to him ignorant of them he could teach them, and then out of this admission there arose a contradiction — the thing which you dearly love, and to which not he, but you, brought the argument by your captious questions — [do you seriously believe that there is any truth in all this ?] For will any one ever acknowledge that he does not know, or cannot teach, the nature of justice ? The truth is, that there is great want of manners in bringing the argument to such a pass. GORGIAS

as cookery : medicine : : rhetoric : justice. And this, I say, is the natural difference between the rhetorician and the sophist, but by reason of their near connection, they are apt to be jumbled up together ; neither do they know what to make of themselves, nor do other men know what to make of them. For if the body presided over itself, and were not under the guidance of the soul, and the soul did not discern and discriminate between cookery and medicine, but the body was made the judge of them, and the rule of judgment was the bodily delight which was given by them, then the word of Anaxagoras, that word with which you, friend Polus, are so well acquainted, would prevail far and wide : "Chaos" would come again, and cookery, health, and medicine would mingle in an indiscriminate mass. And now I have told you my notion of rhetoric, which is, in relation to the soul, what cookery is to the body. I may have been inconsistent in making a long speech, when I would not allow you to discourse at length. But I think that I may be excused, because you did not understand me, and could make no use of my answer when I spoke shortly, and therefore I had to enter into explanation. And if I show an equal inability to make use of yours, I hope that you will speak at equal length ; but if I am able to understand you, let me have the benefit of your brevity, as is only fair : And now you may do what you please with my answer. GORGIAS

Soc. Then you must prove that the rhetorician is not a fool, and that rhetoric is an art and not a flattery — and so you will have refuted me ; but if you leave me unrefuted, why, the rhetoricians who do what they think best in states, and the tyrants, will have nothing upon which to congratulate themselves, if as you say, power be indeed a good, admitting at the same time that what is done without sense is an evil. GORGIAS

Soc. Hence we may infer, that if any one, whether he be a tyrant or a rhetorician, kills another or exiles another or deprives him of his property, under the idea that the act is for his own interests when really not for his own interests, he may be said to do what seems best to him ? GORGIAS

Soc. 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. GORGIAS

Soc. I am contented with the admission that rhetoric is of two sorts ; one, which is mere flattery and disgraceful declamation ; the other, which is noble and aims at the training and improvement of the souls of the citizens, and strives to say what is best, whether welcome or unwelcome, to the audience ; but have you ever known such a rhetoric ; or if you have, and can point out any rhetorician who is of this stamp, who is he ? GORGIAS

Soc. And will not the true rhetorician who is honest and understands his art have his eye fixed upon these, in all the words which he addresses to the souls of men, and in all his actions, both in what he gives and in what he takes away ? Will not his aim be to implant justice in the souls of his citizens mind take away injustice, to implant temperance and take away intemperance, to implant every virtue and take away every vice ? Do you not agree ? GORGIAS

And will not the temperate man do what is proper, both in relation to the gods and to men ; — for he would not be temperate if he did not ? Certainly he will do what is proper. In his relation to other men he will do what is just ; See and in his relation to the gods he will do what is holy ; and he who does what is just and holy must be just and holy ? Very true. And must he not be courageous ? for the duty of a temperate man is not to follow or to avoid what he ought not, but what he ought, whether things or men or pleasures or pains, and patiently to endure when he ought ; and therefore, Callicles, the temperate man, being, as we have described, also just and courageous and holy, cannot be other than a perfectly good man, nor can the good man do otherwise than well and perfectly whatever he does ; and he who does well must of necessity be happy and blessed, and the evil man who does evil, miserable : now this latter is he whom you were applauding — the intemperate who is the opposite of the temperate. Such is my position, and these things I affirm to be true. And if they are true, then I further affirm that he who desires to be happy must pursue and practise temperance and run away from intemperance as fast as his legs will carry him : he had better order his life so as not to need punishment ; but if either he or any of his friends, whether private individual or city, are in need of punishment, then justice must be done and he must suffer punishment, if he would be happy. This appears to me to be the aim which a man ought to have, and towards which he ought to direct all the energies both of himself and of the state, acting so that he may have temperance and justice present with him and be happy, not suffering his lusts to be unrestrained, and in the never-ending desire satisfy them leading a robber’s life. Such ; one is the friend neither of God nor man, for he is incapable of communion, and he who is incapable of communion is also incapable of friendship. And philosophers tell us, Callicles, that communion and friendship and orderliness and temperance and justice bind together heaven and earth and gods and men, and that this universe is therefore called Cosmos or order, not disorder or misrule, my friend. But although you are a philosopher you seem to me never to have observed that geometrical equality is mighty, both among gods and men ; you think that you ought to cultivate inequality or excess, and do not care about geometry. — Well, then, either the principle that the happy are made happy by the possession of justice and temperance, and the miserable the possession of vice, must be refuted, or, if it is granted, what will be the consequences ? All the consequences which I drew before, Callicles, and about which you asked me whether I was in earnest when I said that a man ought to accuse himself and his son and his friend if he did anything wrong, and that to this end he should use his rhetoric — all those consequences are true. And that which you thought that Polus was led to admit out of modesty is true, viz., that, to do injustice, if more disgraceful than to suffer, is in that degree worse ; and the other position, which, according to Polus, Gorgias admitted out of modesty, that he who would truly be a rhetorician ought to be just and have a knowledge of justice, has also turned out to be true. GORGIAS

Soc. I would rather say, why talk of men who profess to be rulers, and declare that they are devoted to the improvement of the city, and nevertheless upon occasion declaim against the utter vileness of the city : — do you think that there is any difference between one and the other ? My good friend, the sophist and the rhetorician, as I was saying to Polus, are the same, or nearly the same ; but you ignorantly fancy that rhetoric is a perfect thing, sophistry a thing to be despised ; whereas the truth is, that sophistry is as much superior to rhetoric as legislation is to the practice of law, or gymnastic to medicine. The orators and sophists, as I am inclined to think, are the only class who cannot complain of the mischief ensuing to themselves from that which they teach others, without in the same breath accusing themselves of having done no good to those whom they profess to benefit. Is not this a fact ? GORGIAS

Soc. Must we not begin in the same way with letters ; first separating the vowels, and then the consonants and mutes, into classes, according to the received distinctions of the learned ; also the semivowels, which are neither vowels, nor yet mutes ; and distinguishing into classes the vowels themselves ? And when we have perfected the classification of things, we shall give their names, and see whether, as in the case of letters, there are any classes to which they may be all referred ; hence we shall see their natures, and see, too, whether they have in them classes as there are in the letters ; and when we have well considered all this, we shall know how to apply them to what they resemble — whether one letter is used to denote one thing, or whether there is to be an admixture of several of them ; just, as in painting, the painter who wants to depict anything sometimes uses purple only, or any other colour, and sometimes mixes up several colours, as his method is when he has to paint flesh colour or anything of that kind — he uses his colours as his figures appear to require them ; and so, too, we shall apply letters to the expression of objects, either single letters when required, or several letters ; and so we shall form syllables, as they are called, and from syllables make nouns and verbs ; and thus, at last, from the combinations of nouns and verbs arrive at language, large and fair and whole ; and as the painter made a figure, even so shall we make speech by the art of the namer or the rhetorician, or by some other art. Not that I am literally speaking of ourselves, but I was carried away — meaning to say that this was the way in which (not we but) the ancients formed language, and what they put together we must take to pieces in like manner, if we are to attain a scientific view of the whole subject, and we must see whether the primary, and also whether the secondary elements are rightly given or not, for if they are not, the composition of them, my dear Hermogenes, will be a sorry piece of work, and in the wrong direction. CRATYLUS  

Phaedr. What do you mean, my good Socrates ? How can you imagine that my unpractised memory can do justice to an elaborate work, which the greatest rhetorician of the age spent a long time in composing. Indeed, I cannot ; I would give a great deal if I could. PHAEDRUS  

Soc. Then the rhetorician ought to make a regular division, and acquire a distinct notion of both classes, as well of that in which the many err, as of that in which they do not err ? PHAEDRUS

Soc. 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. PHAEDRUS

Soc. He will argue that is no use in putting a solemn face on these matters, or in going round and round, until you arrive at first principles ; for, as I said at first, when the question is of justice and good, or is a question in which men are concerned who are just and good, either by nature or habit, he who would be a skilful rhetorician has ; no need of truth — for that in courts of law men literally care nothing about truth, but only about conviction : and this is based on probability, to which who would be a skilful orator should therefore give his whole attention. And they say also that there are cases in which the actual facts, if they are improbable, ought to be withheld, and only the probabilities should be told either in accusation or defence, and that always in speaking, the orator should keep probability in view, and say good-bye to the truth. And the observance, of this principle throughout a speech furnishes the whole art. PHAEDRUS

Soc. Let us tell him that, before he appeared, you and I were saying that the probability of which he speaks was engendered in the minds of the many by the likeness of the truth, and we had just been affirming that he who knew the truth would always know best how to discover the resemblances of the truth. If he has anything else to say about the art of speaking we should like to hear him ; but if not, we are satisfied with our own view, that unless a man estimates the various characters of his heaters and is able to divide all things into classes and to comprehend them under single ideas he will never be a skilful rhetorician even within the limits of human power. And this skill he will not attain without a great deal of trouble, which a good man ought to undergo, not for the sake of speaking and acting before men, but in order that he may be able to say what is acceptable to God and always to act acceptably to Him as far as in him lies ; for there is a saying of wiser men than ourselves, that a man of sense should not try to please his fellow-servants (at least this should not be his first object) but his good and noble masters ; and therefore if the way is long and circuitous, marvel not at this, for, where the end is great, there we may take the longer road, but not for lesser ends such as yours. Truly, the argument may say, Tisias, that if you do not mind going so far, rhetoric has a fair beginning here. PHAEDRUS