Gorgias, by Plato 5

Gorgias, by Plato 5

SOCRATES: And is not this universally true? If a man does something for the sake of something else, he wills not that which he does, but that for the sake of which he does it. POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And are not all things either good or evil, or intermediate and indifferent? POLUS: To be sure, Socrates. SOCRATES: Wisdom and health and wealth and the like you would call goods, and their opposites evils? POLUS: I should. SOCRATES: And the things which are neither good nor evil, and which partake sometimes of the nature of good and at other times of evil, or of neither, are such as sitting, walking, running, sailing; or, again, wood, stones, and the like:--these are the things which you call neither good nor evil? POLUS: Exactly so. SOCRATES: Are these indifferent things done for the sake of the good, or the good for the sake of the indifferent? POLUS: Clearly, the indifferent for the sake of the good. SOCRATES: When we walk we walk for the sake of the good, and under the idea that it is better to walk, and when we stand we stand equally for the sake of the good? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And when we kill a man we kill him or exile him or despoil him of his goods, because, as we think, it will conduce to our good? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Men who do any of these things do them for the sake of the good? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And did we not admit that in doing something for the sake of something else, we do not will those things which we do, but that other thing for the sake of which we do them? POLUS: Most true. SOCRATES: Then we do not will simply to kill a man or to exile him or to despoil him of his goods, but we will to do that which conduces to our good, and if the act is not conducive to our good we do not will it; for we will, as you say, that which is our good, but that which is neither good nor evil, or simply evil, we do not will. Why are you silent, Polus? Am I not right? POLUS: You are right. SOCRATES: Hence we may infer, that if any one, whether he be a tyrant or a rhetorician, kills another or exiles another or deprives him of his property, under the idea that the act is for his own interests when really not for his own interests, he may be said to do what seems best to him? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: But does he do what he wills if he does what is evil? Why do you not answer? POLUS: Well, I suppose not. SOCRATES: Then if great power is a good as you allow, will such a one have great power in a state? POLUS: He will not. SOCRATES: Then I was right in saying that a man may do what seems good to him in a state, and not have great power, and not do what he wills? POLUS: As though you, Socrates, would not like to have the power of doing what seemed good to you in the state, rather than not; you would not be jealous when you saw any one killing or despoiling or imprisoning whom he pleased, Oh, no! SOCRATES: Justly or unjustly, do you mean? POLUS: In either case is he not equally to be envied? SOCRATES: Forbear, Polus! POLUS: Why 'forbear'? SOCRATES: Because you ought not to envy wretches who are not to be envied, but only to pity them. POLUS: And are those of whom I spoke wretches? SOCRATES: Yes, certainly they are. POLUS: And so you think that he who slays any one whom he pleases, and justly slays him, is pitiable and wretched? SOCRATES: No, I do not say that of him: but neither do I think that he is to be envied. POLUS: Were you not saying just now that he is wretched? SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, if he killed another unjustly, in which case he is also to be pitied; and he is not to be envied if he killed him justly. POLUS: At any rate you will allow that he who is unjustly put to death is wretched, and to be pitied? SOCRATES: Not so much, Polus, as he who kills him, and not so much as he who is justly killed. POLUS: How can that be, Socrates? SOCRATES: That may very well be, inasmuch as doing injustice is the greatest of evils. POLUS: But is it the greatest? Is not suffering injustice a greater evil? SOCRATES: Certainly not. POLUS: Then would you rather suffer than do injustice? SOCRATES: I should not like either, but if I must choose between them, I would rather suffer than do. POLUS: Then you would not wish to be a tyrant? SOCRATES: Not if you mean by tyranny what I mean. POLUS: I mean, as I said before, the power of doing whatever seems good to you in a state, killing, banishing, doing in all things as you like. SOCRATES: Well then, illustrious friend, when I have said my say, do you reply to me. Suppose that I go into a crowded Agora, and take a dagger under my arm. Polus, I say to you, I have just acquired rare power, and become a tyrant; for if I think that any of these men whom you see ought to be put to death, the man whom I have a mind to kill is as good as dead; and if I am disposed to break his head or tear his garment, he will have his head broken or his garment torn in an instant. Such is my great power in this city. And if you do not believe me, and I show you the dagger, you would probably reply: Socrates, in that sort of way any one may have great power--he may burn any house which he pleases, and the docks and triremes of the Athenians, and all their other vessels, whether public or private--but can you believe that this mere doing as you think best is great power? POLUS: Certainly not such doing as this. SOCRATES: But can you tell me why you disapprove of such a power? POLUS: I can. SOCRATES: Why then? POLUS: Why, because he who did as you say would be certain to be punished. SOCRATES: And punishment is an evil? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And you would admit once more, my good sir, that great power is a benefit to a man if his actions turn out to his advantage, and that this is the meaning of great power; and if not, then his power is an evil and is no power. But let us look at the matter in another way:--do we not acknowledge that the things of which we were speaking, the infliction of death, and exile, and the deprivation of property are sometimes a good and sometimes not a good? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: About that you and I may be supposed to agree? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Tell me, then, when do you say that they are good and when that they are evil--what principle do you lay down? POLUS: I would rather, Socrates, that you should answer as well as ask that question. SOCRATES: Well, Polus, since you would rather have the answer from me, I say that they are good when they are just, and evil when they are unjust. POLUS: You are hard of refutation, Socrates, but might not a child refute that statement? SOCRATES: Then I shall be very grateful to the child, and equally grateful to you if you will refute me and deliver me from my foolishness. And I hope that refute me you will, and not weary of doing good to a friend. POLUS: Yes, Socrates, and I need not go far or appeal to antiquity; events which happened only a few days ago are enough to refute you, and to prove that many men who do wrong are happy. SOCRATES: What events? POLUS: You see, I presume, that Archelaus the son of Perdiccas is now the ruler of Macedonia? SOCRATES: At any rate I hear that he is. POLUS: And do you think that he is happy or miserable? SOCRATES: I cannot say, Polus, for I have never had any acquaintance with him. POLUS: And cannot you tell at once, and without having an acquaintance with him, whether a man is happy? SOCRATES: Most certainly not. POLUS: Then clearly, Socrates, you would say that you did not even know whether the great king was a happy man? SOCRATES: And I should speak the truth; for I do not know how he stands in the matter of education and justice. POLUS: What! and does all happiness consist in this? SOCRATES: Yes, indeed, Polus, that is my doctrine; the men and women who are gentle and good are also happy, as I maintain, and the unjust and evil are miserable. POLUS: Then, according to your doctrine, the said Archelaus is miserable? SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, if he is wicked. POLUS: That he is wicked I cannot deny; for he had no title at all to the throne which he now occupies, he being only the son of a woman who was the slave of Alcetas the brother of Perdiccas; he himself therefore in strict right was the slave of Alcetas; and if he had meant to do rightly he would have remained his slave, and then, according to your doctrine, he would have been happy. But now he is unspeakably miserable, for he has been guilty of the greatest crimes: in the first place he invited his uncle and master, Alcetas, to come to him, under the pretence that he would restore to him the throne which Perdiccas has usurped, and after entertaining him and his son Alexander, who was his own cousin, and nearly of an age with him, and making them drunk, he threw them into a waggon and carried them off by night, and slew them, and got both of them out of the way; and when he had done all this wickedness he never discovered that he was the most miserable of all men, and was very far from repenting: shall I tell you how he showed his remorse? he had a younger brother, a child of seven years old, who was the legitimate son of Perdiccas, and to him of right the kingdom belonged; Archelaus, however, had no mind to bring him up as he ought and restore the kingdom to him; that was not his notion of happiness; but not long afterwards he threw him into a well and drowned him, and declared to his mother Cleopatra that he had fallen in while running after a goose, and had been killed. And now as he is the greatest criminal of all the Macedonians, he may be supposed to be the most miserable and not the happiest of them, and I dare say that there are many Athenians, and you would be at the head of them, who would rather be any other Macedonian than Archelaus! SOCRATES: I praised you at first, Polus, for being a rhetorician rather than a reasoner. And this, as I suppose, is the sort of argument with which you fancy that a child might refute me, and by which I stand refuted when I say that the unjust man is not happy. But, my good friend, where is the refutation? I cannot admit a word which you have been saying. POLUS: That is because you will not; for you surely must think as I do. SOCRATES: Not so, my simple friend, but because you will refute me after the manner which rhetoricians practise in courts of law. For there the one party think that they refute the other when they bring forward a number of witnesses of good repute in proof of their allegations, and their adversary has only a single one or none at all. But this kind of proof is of no value where truth is the aim; a man may often be sworn down by a multitude of false witnesses who have a great air of respectability. And in this argument nearly every one, Athenian and stranger alike, would be on your side, if you should bring witnesses in disproof of my statement;--you may, if you will, summon Nicias the son of Niceratus, and let his brothers, who gave the row of tripods which stand in the precincts of Dionysus, come with him; or you may summon Aristocrates, the son of Scellius, who is the giver of that famous offering which is at Delphi; summon, if you will, the whole house of Pericles, or any other great Athenian family whom you choose;--they will all agree with you: I only am left alone and cannot agree, for you do not convince me; although you produce many false witnesses against me, in the hope of depriving me of my inheritance, which is the truth. But I consider that nothing worth speaking of will have been effected by me unless I make you the one witness of my words; nor by you, unless you make me the one witness of yours; no matter about the rest of the world. For there are two ways of refutation, one which is yours and that of the world in general; but mine is of another sort--let us compare them, and see in what they differ. For, indeed, we are at issue about matters which to know is honourable and not to know disgraceful; to know or not to know happiness and misery--that is the chief of them. And what knowledge can be nobler? or what ignorance more disgraceful than this? And therefore I will begin by asking you whether you do not think that a man who is unjust and doing injustice can be happy, seeing that you think Archelaus unjust, and yet happy? May I assume this to be your opinion? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: But I say that this is an impossibility--here is one point about which we are at issue:--very good. And do you mean to say also that if he meets with retribution and punishment he will still be happy? POLUS: Certainly not; in that case he will be most miserable. SOCRATES: On the other hand, if the unjust be not punished, then, according to you, he will be happy? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: But in my opinion, Polus, the unjust or doer of unjust actions is miserable in any case,--more miserable, however, if he be not punished and does not meet with retribution, and less miserable if he be punished and meets with retribution at the hands of gods and men. POLUS: You are maintaining a strange doctrine, Socrates. SOCRATES: I shall try to make you agree with me, O my friend, for as a friend I regard you. Then these are the points at issue between us--are they not? I was saying that to do is worse than to suffer injustice? POLUS: Exactly so. SOCRATES: And you said the opposite? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: I said also that the wicked are miserable, and you refuted me? POLUS: By Zeus, I did. SOCRATES: In your own opinion, Polus. POLUS: Yes, and I rather suspect that I was in the right. SOCRATES: You further said that the wrong-doer is happy if he be unpunished? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And I affirm that he is most miserable, and that those who are punished are less miserable--are you going to refute this proposition also? POLUS: A proposition which is harder of refutation than the other, Socrates. SOCRATES: Say rather, Polus, impossible; for who can refute the truth? POLUS: What do you mean? If a man is detected in an unjust attempt to make himself a tyrant, and when detected is racked, mutilated, has his eyes burned out, and after having had all sorts of great injuries inflicted on him, and having seen his wife and children suffer the like, is at last impaled or tarred and burned alive, will he be happier than if he escape and become a tyrant, and continue all through life doing what he likes and holding the reins of government, the envy and admiration both of citizens and strangers? Is that the paradox which, as you say, cannot be refuted? SOCRATES: There again, noble Polus, you are raising hobgoblins instead of refuting me; just now you were calling witnesses against me. But please to refresh my memory a little; did you say--'in an unjust attempt to make himself a tyrant'? POLUS: Yes, I did. SOCRATES: Then I say that neither of them will be happier than the other,--neither he who unjustly acquires a tyranny, nor he who suffers in the attempt, for of two miserables one cannot be the happier, but that he who escapes and becomes a tyrant is the more miserable of the two. Do you laugh, Polus? Well, this is a new kind of refutation,--when any one says anything, instead of refuting him to laugh at him. POLUS: But do you not think, Socrates, that you have been sufficiently refuted, when you say that which no human being will allow? Ask the company. SOCRATES: O Polus, I am not a public man, and only last year, when my tribe were serving as Prytanes, and it became my duty as their president to take the votes, there was a laugh at me, because I was unable to take them. And as I failed then, you must not ask me to count the suffrages of the company now; but if, as I was saying, you have no better argument than numbers, let me have a turn, and do you make trial of the sort of proof which, as I think, is required; for I shall produce one witness only of the truth of my words, and he is the person with whom I am arguing; his suffrage I know how to take; but with the many I have nothing to do, and do not even address myself to them. May I ask then whether you will answer in turn and have your words put to the proof? For I certainly think that I and you and every man do really believe, that to do is a greater evil than to suffer injustice: and not to be punished than to be punished. POLUS: And I should say neither I, nor any man: would you yourself, for example, suffer rather than do injustice? SOCRATES: Yes, and you, too; I or any man would. POLUS: Quite the reverse; neither you, nor I, nor any man. SOCRATES: But will you answer? POLUS: To be sure, I will; for I am curious to hear what you can have to say. SOCRATES: Tell me, then, and you will know, and let us suppose that I am beginning at the beginning: which of the two, Polus, in your opinion, is the worst?--to do injustice or to suffer? POLUS: I should say that suffering was worst. SOCRATES: And which is the greater disgrace?--Answer. POLUS: To do. SOCRATES: And the greater disgrace is the greater evil? POLUS: Certainly not. SOCRATES: I understand you to say, if I am not mistaken, that the honourable is not the same as the good, or the disgraceful as the evil? POLUS: Certainly not. SOCRATES: Let me ask a question of you: When you speak of beautiful things, such as bodies, colours, figures, sounds, institutions, do you not call them beautiful in reference to some standard: bodies, for example, are beautiful in proportion as they are useful, or as the sight of them gives pleasure to the spectators; can you give any other account of personal beauty? POLUS: I cannot. SOCRATES: And you would say of figures or colours generally that they were beautiful, either by reason of the pleasure which they give, or of their use, or of both? POLUS: Yes, I should. SOCRATES: And you would call sounds and music beautiful for the same reason? POLUS: I should. SOCRATES: Laws and institutions also have no beauty in them except in so far as they are useful or pleasant or both? POLUS: I think not. SOCRATES: And may not the same be said of the beauty of knowledge? POLUS: To be sure, Socrates; and I very much approve of your measuring beauty by the standard of pleasure and utility. SOCRATES: And deformity or disgrace may be equally measured by the opposite standard of pain and evil? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then when of two beautiful things one exceeds in beauty, the measure of the excess is to be taken in one or both of these; that is to say, in pleasure or utility or both? POLUS: Very true. SOCRATES: And of two deformed things, that which exceeds in deformity or disgrace, exceeds either in pain or evil--must it not be so? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: But then again, what was the observation which you just now made, about doing and suffering wrong? Did you not say, that suffering wrong was more evil, and doing wrong more disgraceful? POLUS: I did. SOCRATES: Then, if doing wrong is more disgraceful than suffering, the more disgraceful must be more painful and must exceed in pain or in evil or both: does not that also follow? POLUS: Of course. SOCRATES: First, then, let us consider whether the doing of injustice exceeds the suffering in the consequent pain: Do the injurers suffer more than the injured? POLUS: No, Socrates; certainly not. SOCRATES: Then they do not exceed in pain? POLUS: No. SOCRATES: But if not in pain, then not in both? POLUS: Certainly not. SOCRATES: Then they can only exceed in the other? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: That is to say, in evil? POLUS: True. SOCRATES: Then doing injustice will have an excess of evil, and will therefore be a greater evil than suffering injustice? POLUS: Clearly. SOCRATES: But have not you and the world already agreed that to do injustice is more disgraceful than to suffer? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And that is now discovered to be more evil? POLUS: True. SOCRATES: And would you prefer a greater evil or a greater dishonour to a less one? Answer, Polus, and fear not; for you will come to no harm if you nobly resign yourself into the healing hand of the argument as to a physician without shrinking, and either say 'Yes' or 'No' to me. POLUS: I should say 'No.' SOCRATES: Would any other man prefer a greater to a less evil? POLUS: No, not according to this way of putting the case, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then I said truly, Polus, that neither you, nor I, nor any man, would rather do than suffer injustice; for to do injustice is the greater evil of the two. POLUS: That is the conclusion. SOCRATES: You see, Polus, when you compare the two kinds of refutations, how unlike they are. All men, with the exception of myself, are of your way of thinking; but your single assent and witness are enough for me,--I have no need of any other, I take your suffrage, and am regardless of the rest. Enough of this, and now let us proceed to the next question; which is, Whether the greatest of evils to a guilty man is to suffer punishment, as you supposed, or whether to escape punishment is not a greater evil, as I supposed. Consider:--You would say that to suffer punishment is another name for being justly corrected when you do wrong? POLUS: I should. SOCRATES: And would you not allow that all just things are honourable in so far as they are just? Please to reflect, and tell me your opinion. POLUS: Yes, Socrates, I think that they are. SOCRATES: Consider again:--Where there is an agent, must there not also be a patient? POLUS: I should say so. SOCRATES: And will not the patient suffer that which the agent does, and will not the suffering have the quality of the action? I mean, for example, that if a man strikes, there must be something which is stricken? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And if the striker strikes violently or quickly, that which is struck will be struck violently or quickly? POLUS: True. SOCRATES: And the suffering to him who is stricken is of the same nature as the act of him who strikes? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And if a man burns, there is something which is burned? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And if he burns in excess or so as to cause pain, the thing burned will be burned in the same way? POLUS: Truly. SOCRATES: And if he cuts, the same argument holds--there will be something cut? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And if the cutting be great or deep or such as will cause pain, the cut will be of the same nature? POLUS: That is evident. SOCRATES: Then you would agree generally to the universal proposition which I was just now asserting: that the affection of the patient answers to the affection of the agent? POLUS: I agree. SOCRATES: Then, as this is admitted, let me ask whether being punished is suffering or acting? POLUS: Suffering, Socrates; there can be no doubt of that. SOCRATES: And suffering implies an agent? POLUS: Certainly, Socrates; and he is the punisher. SOCRATES: And he who punishes rightly, punishes justly? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And therefore he acts justly? POLUS: Justly. SOCRATES: Then he who is punished and suffers retribution, suffers justly? POLUS: That is evident. SOCRATES: And that which is just has been admitted to be honourable? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then the punisher does what is honourable, and the punished suffers what is honourable? POLUS: True. SOCRATES: And if what is honourable, then what is good, for the honourable is either pleasant or useful? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then he who is punished suffers what is good? POLUS: That is true. SOCRATES: Then he is benefited? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Do I understand you to mean what I mean by the term 'benefited'? I mean, that if he be justly punished his soul is improved. POLUS: Surely. SOCRATES: Then he who is punished is delivered from the evil of his soul? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And is he not then delivered from the greatest evil? Look at the matter in this way:--In respect of a man's estate, do you see any greater evil than poverty? POLUS: There is no greater evil. SOCRATES: Again, in a man's bodily frame, you would say that the evil is weakness and disease and deformity? POLUS: I should. SOCRATES: And do you not imagine that the soul likewise has some evil of her own? POLUS: Of course. SOCRATES: And this you would call injustice and ignorance and cowardice, and the like? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: So then, in mind, body, and estate, which are three, you have pointed out three corresponding evils--injustice, disease, poverty? POLUS: True. SOCRATES: And which of the evils is the most disgraceful?--Is not the most disgraceful of them injustice, and in general the evil of the soul? POLUS: By far the most. SOCRATES: And if the most disgraceful, then also the worst? POLUS: What do you mean, Socrates? SOCRATES: I mean to say, that is most disgraceful has been already admitted to be most painful or hurtful, or both. POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And now injustice and all evil in the soul has been admitted by us to be most disgraceful? POLUS: It has been admitted. SOCRATES: And most disgraceful either because most painful and causing excessive pain, or most hurtful, or both? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And therefore to be unjust and intemperate, and cowardly and ignorant, is more painful than to be poor and sick? POLUS: Nay, Socrates; the painfulness does not appear to me to follow from your premises. SOCRATES: Then, if, as you would argue, not more painful, the evil of the soul is of all evils the most disgraceful; and the excess of disgrace must be caused by some preternatural greatness, or extraordinary hurtfulness of the evil. POLUS: Clearly. SOCRATES: And that which exceeds most in hurtfulness will be the greatest of evils? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Then injustice and intemperance, and in general the depravity of the soul, are the greatest of evils? POLUS: That is evident. SOCRATES: Now, what art is there which delivers us from poverty? Does not the art of making money? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And what art frees us from disease? Does not the art of medicine? POLUS: Very true. SOCRATES: And what from vice and injustice? If you are not able to answer at once, ask yourself whither we go with the sick, and to whom we take them. POLUS: To the physicians, Socrates. SOCRATES: And to whom do we go with the unjust and intemperate? POLUS: To the judges, you mean. SOCRATES: --Who are to punish them? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And do not those who rightly punish others, punish them in accordance with a certain rule of justice? POLUS: Clearly. SOCRATES: Then the art of money-making frees a man from poverty; medicine from disease; and justice from intemperance and injustice? POLUS: That is evident. SOCRATES: Which, then, is the best of these three? POLUS: Will you enumerate them? SOCRATES: Money-making, medicine, and justice. POLUS: Justice, Socrates, far excels the two others. SOCRATES: And justice, if the best, gives the greatest pleasure or advantage or both? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: But is the being healed a pleasant thing, and are those who are being healed pleased? POLUS: I think not. SOCRATES: A useful thing, then? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Yes, because the patient is delivered from a great evil; and this is the advantage of enduring the pain--that you get well? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And would he be the happier man in his bodily condition, who is healed, or who never was out of health? POLUS: Clearly he who was never out of health. SOCRATES: Yes; for happiness surely does not consist in being delivered from evils, but in never having had them. POLUS: True. SOCRATES: And suppose the case of two persons who have some evil in their bodies, and that one of them is healed and delivered from evil, and another is not healed, but retains the evil--which of them is the most miserable?