Page:The works of Plato, A new and literal version, (vol 1) (Cary, 1854).djvu/140



and Polus, two friends of Gorgias, the famous orator of Leontium in Sicily, happening to meet with Socrates and Chærephon, tell the former that he has sustained a great loss in not having been just new present when Gorgias was exhibiting his art. Chærephon admits that the fault is his, but adds that as Gorgias is his friend he can easily persuade him to exhibit to them either then, or at a future time. They accordingly, all four, adjourn to the house of Callicles, where Gorgias is staying. When arrived there, Chærephon, at the suggestion of Socrates, proposes to question Gorgias as to the art he professes; but Polus, his pupil, somewhat impertinently offers to answer for him, on the ground that Gorgias is fatigued. Chærephon therefore asks, what is the art in which Gorgias is skilled, and what he ought to be called? To which Polus answers, "the finest of the arts." Socrates, not satisfied with this, as being no answer at all, begs Gorgias himself to answer. He says, that rhetoric is the art he professes, and that he is a rhetorician, and able to make others rhetoricians.

Socrates, having got Gorgias to promise that he would answer briefly, proceeds to ask him about what rhetoric is employed, and of what it is the science. Gorgias says, "of words," but Socrates shews, that other arts, in various degrees, make use of words, and that some, such as arithmetic and geometry, are altogether conversant with words; he therefore requests him to distinguish between these arts and rhetoric, and to explain about what particular thing these words are employed. Gorgias confidently answers, about "the greatest of all human concerns and the best." But the physician, the teacher of gymnastics, the money-getter, in short all men, would say that the end which their own art aims at is the best; what then is