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 an 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. POLUS: What do you mean? do you think that rhetoric is flattery? SOCRATES: Nay, I said a part of flattery; if at your age, Polus, you cannot remember, what will you do by-and-by, when you get older? POLUS: And are the good rhetoricians meanly regarded in states, under the idea that they are flatterers? SOCRATES: Is that a question or the beginning of a speech? POLUS: I am asking a question. SOCRATES: Then my answer is, that they are not regarded at all. POLUS: How not regarded? Have they not very great power in states? SOCRATES: Not if you mean to say that power is a good to the possessor. POLUS: And that is what I do mean to say. SOCRATES: Then, if so, I think that they have the least power of all the citizens. POLUS: What! are they not like tyrants? They kill and despoil and exile any one whom they please. SOCRATES: By the dog, Polus, I cannot make out at each deliverance of yours, whether you are giving an opinion of your own, or asking a question of me. POLUS: I am asking a question of you. SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, but you ask two questions at once. POLUS: How two questions? SOCRATES: Why, did you not say just now that the rhetoricians are like tyrants, and that they kill and despoil or exile any one whom they please? POLUS: I did. SOCRATES: Well then, I say to you that here are two questions in one, and I will answer both of them. And I tell you, Polus, that rhetoricians and tyrants have the least possible power in states, as I was just now saying; for they do literally nothing which they will, but only what they think best.