_Gor._ Some answers, Socrates, are of necessity longer; but I will do my best to make them as short as possible; for a part of my profession is that I can be as short as any one. _Soc._ That is what is wanted, Gorgias; exhibit the shorter method now, and the longer one at some other time. _Gor._ Well, I will; and you will certainly say, that you never heard a man use fewer words. _Soc._ Very good then; as you profess to be a rhetorician, and a maker of rhetoricians, let me ask you, with what is rhetoric concerned: I might ask with what is weaving concerned, and you would reply (would you not?), with the making of garments? _Gor._ Yes. _Soc._ And music is concerned with the composition of melodies? _Gor._ It is. _Soc._ By Herè, Gorgias, I admire the surpassing brevity of your answers. _Gor._ Yes, Socrates, I do think myself good at that. [Sidenote: And rhetoric is concerned with discourse.] _Soc._ I am glad to hear it; answer me in like manner about rhetoric: with what is rhetoric concerned? _Gor._ With discourse. _Soc._ What sort of discourse, Gorgias?—such discourse as would teach the sick under what treatment they might get well? _Gor._ No. _Soc._ Then rhetoric does not treat of all kinds of discourse? _Gor._ Certainly not. _Soc._ And yet rhetoric makes men able to speak? _Gor._ Yes. [Sidenote: _How is rhetoric distinguished from more special arts?_] _Soc._ And to understand that about which they speak? _Gor._ Of course. _Soc._ But does not the art of medicine, which we were just now mentioning, also make men able to understand and 450 speak about the sick? _Gor._ Certainly. _Soc._ Then medicine also treats of discourse? _Gor._ Yes. _Soc._ Of discourse concerning diseases? _Gor._ Just so. _Soc._ And does not gymnastic also treat of discourse concerning the good or evil condition of the body? _Gor._ Very true. [Sidenote: But so are all the other arts.] _Soc._ And the same, Gorgias, is true of the other arts:—all of them treat of discourse concerning the subjects with which they severally have to do. _Gor._ Clearly. _Soc._ Then why, if you call rhetoric the art which treats of discourse, and all the other arts treat of discourse, do you not call them arts of rhetoric? _Gor._ Because, Socrates, the knowledge of the other arts has only to do with some sort of external action, as of the hand; but there is no such action of the hand in rhetoric which works and takes effect only through the medium of discourse. And therefore I am justified in saying that rhetoric treats of discourse. _Soc._ I am not sure whether I entirely understand you, but I dare say I shall soon know better; please to answer me a question:—you would allow that there are arts? _Gor._ Yes.