Part 48

Gorg. After this, Socrates, it would be shameful in me not to be willing, especially as I myself announced that any one might ask what he pleased. But, if it is agreeable to the company, continue the discussion, and ask any question you please.

Socr. Hear then, Gorgias, what I wonder at in what you said. For, perhaps, you spoke correctly, and I did not rightly apprehend you. You say that you can make any one a rhetorician, who is willing to be instructed by you?

Gorg. Yes.

Socr. So that he can speak persuasively on any subject to the multitude, not teaching, but persuading?

Gorg. Exactly so.

Socr. You said too, that a rhetorician is able to speak more persuasively than a physician, on the subject of health.

Gorg. I did say so, at least to a multitude.

Socr. Does not, then, this expression “to a multitude” mean to the ignorant? for, surely, among the well-informed he will not be better able to persuade than the physician.

Gorg. You say truly.

33. Socr. If then he shall be better able to persuade than the physician, he is better able to persuade than one who possesses knowledge?

Gorg. Certainly.

Socr. Although he is not a physician? is it not so?

Gorg. Yes.

Socr. But he who is not a physician must, surely, be unskilled in those things in which a physician is skilled.

Gorg. Clearly so.

Socr. He, therefore, who is ignorant will be more capable than one who possesses knowledge of persuading the ignorant, since a rhetorician is better able to persuade than a physician. Is this the result, or something else?

Gorg. That is the result in this instance.

Socr. The case therefore is the same as concerns a rhetorician and rhetoric with respect to all other arts: I mean, there is no need for it to know the subjects themselves, how they are circumstanced, but only to discover some means of persuasion, so as to appear to the ignorant to know more than those who possess knowledge.

Gorg. Is it not a great advantage, Socrates, without having other arts, but this one only, to be in no respect inferior to artificers?

34. Socr. Whether from this being the case, a rhetorician is inferior, or not inferior to others, we will presently consider, if our argument requires it. But first let us consider this: Whether a rhetorician is in the same condition with reference to the just and the unjust, the base and the honourable, the good and the evil, as he is with reference to health, and other things with which other arts are concerned; I mean, that he does not know them, what is good, or what is evil, what is honourable or what is base, what is just, or what is unjust, but is able to devise some means of persuasion respecting them, so that, though he is ignorant, he appears to the ignorant to know more than one who possesses knowledge; or is it necessary that he should know these, and is it requisite that he who is about to learn rhetoric should have acquired these things before he comes to you; if not, will you, who are a teacher of rhetoric, teach him who comes to you none of these things (for it is not your province), but make him appear to the multitude to know these things, though he does not know them, and to seem to be a good man when he is not so? or shall you be unable to teach him rhetoric at all, unless he knows beforehand the truth respecting these things? What is the case in this respect, Gorgias? And, by Jupiter, as you just now promised, unfold the whole power of rhetoric.

35. Gorg. I think, Socrates, that any one, if he did not know, would learn these things from me.

Socr. Stay; for you say well. If then you make any one a rhetorician, it is necessary that he should know what is just and unjust, either before, or afterwards from your instructions.

Gorg. Certainly.

Socr. What then? Is he who has learnt carpentering, a carpenter, or not?

Gorg. He is.

Socr. And is not he who has learnt music, a musician?

Gorg. Yes.

Socr. And he who has learnt medicine, a physician? And so, in the same way, with regard to other things, is not he who has learnt any particular art such a person as each science respectively makes its proficient?