Page:The works of Plato, A new and literal version, (vol 1) (Cary, 1854).djvu/143

Rh tice; and so being proximate to each other, sophists and rhetoricians are confounded with legislators and judges.

Are good rhetoricians, then, asks Polus, to be esteemed as vile flatterers in cities? Socrates replies that they appear to him to be of no estimation at all. But have they not the greatest power in cities? Not, if to have power is a good to him who possesses it. For what is it to have power? is it to do what one wishes, or what appears to one to be best? Polus admits that it is not good for a person devoid of understanding to do what appears to him to be best. He must therefore prove that rhetoricians possess understanding, otherwise, since to have power is a good, they cannot do what they wish. Polus, however, is unable to distinguish between doing what one wishes and doing what appears to be best, and therefore agrees to change positions with Socrates, and to answer instead of asking questions.

Socrates, then, asks, do men wish what they do for the sake of the thing itself, or for some other end? for instance, do men take medicine because they wish to take it, or in order to health? Again, do men incur the perils of the sea because they wish to be in peril, or for the sake of riches? Clearly the latter, in both and all similar cases. Now some things, such as wisdom, health, and riches, are good, but their contraries evil; but whatever we do, we do for the sake of that which is good. So that if we kill or banish a person, if it is good to do so, we wish it, and do what we wish; but if it is really evil, though it appears to us to be good, we do not what we wish. Polus sees the force of Socrates argument, and can only object to it that Socrates himself would like to do what he pleased, and would envy another whom he saw slaying, or spoiling, or imprisoning whom he pleased. But Socrates resolutely denies this, and insists that if he must necessarily either act unjustly or suffer unjustly, he should choose the latter; for that it is better to suffer than to commit injustices.