The dialogues of Plato in five volumes, Vol. 2 (of 5) : $b Translated into English with analyses and introductions
Plato · en
them, mere experiences, as they may be termed, because they
give no reason of their own existence. The art of dressing up is
the sham or simulation of gymnastic, the art of cookery, of medicine;
rhetoric is the simulation of justice, and sophistic of 465
legislation. They may be summed up in an arithmetical formula:—
Tiring : gymnastic :: cookery : medicine :: sophistic : legislation.
And,
Cookery : medicine :: rhetoric : the art of justice.
And this is the true scheme of them, but when measured only by
the gratification which they procure, they become jumbled together
and return to their aboriginal chaos. Socrates apologizes for the
length of his speech, which was necessary to the explanation of 466
the subject, and begs Polus not unnecessarily to retaliate on him.
‘Do you mean to say that the rhetoricians are esteemed
flatterers?’ They are not esteemed at all. ‘Why, have they not
great power, and can they not do whatever they desire?’ They have 467
no power, and they only do what they think best, and never what
they desire; for they never attain the true object of desire, which
is the good. ‘As if you, Socrates, would not envy the possessor
of despotic power, who can imprison, exile, kill any one whom he
pleases.’ But Socrates replies that he has no wish to put any one -469
to death; he who kills another, even justly, is not to be envied,
and he who kills him unjustly is to be pitied; it is better to suffer
than to do injustice. He does not consider that going about with
a dagger and putting men out of the way, or setting a house on
fire, is real power. To this Polus assents, on the ground that 470
such acts would be punished, but he is still of opinion that
evil-doers, if they are unpunished, may be happy enough. He
instances Archelaus, son of Perdiccas, the usurper of Macedonia.
Does not Socrates think him happy?—Socrates would like to 471
know more about him; he cannot pronounce even the great king
to be happy, unless he knows his mental and moral condition.
Polus explains that Archelaus was a slave, being the son of a
woman who was the slave of Alcetas, brother of Perdiccas king
of Macedon—and he, by every species of crime, first murdering
his uncle and cousin and then his half-brother, obtained the
kingdom. This was very wicked, and yet all the world, including
Socrates, would like to have his place. Socrates dismisses the 472
appeal to numbers; Polus, if he will, may summon all the rich
men of Athens, Nicias and his brothers, Aristocrates, the house of
Pericles, or any other great family—this is the kind of evidence
which is adduced in courts of justice, where truth depends upon
numbers. But Socrates employs proof of another sort; his
appeal is to one witness only,—that is to say, the person with