Chapter XVII: Part 17

_Soc._ I mean to say, that what is most disgraceful has been
already admitted to be most painful or hurtful, or both.

_Pol._ Certainly.

[Sidenote: _Analogy of soul and body._]

_Soc._ And now injustice and all evil in the soul has been
admitted by us to be most disgraceful?

_Pol._ It has been admitted.

_Soc._ And most disgraceful either because most painful and
causing excessive pain, or most hurtful, or both?

_Pol._ Certainly.

_Soc._ And therefore to be unjust and intemperate, and
cowardly and ignorant, is more painful than to be poor and
sick?

[Sidenote: Polus stumbles at the notion which he has already admitted, that the evil of the soul is more painful than that of the body.]

_Pol._ Nay, Socrates; the painfulness does not appear to
me to follow from your premises.

_Soc._ 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.

_Pol._ Clearly.

_Soc._ And that which exceeds most in hurtfulness will be
the greatest of evils?

_Pol._ Yes.

_Soc._ Then injustice and intemperance, and in general the
depravity of the soul, are the greatest of evils?

_Pol._ That is evident.

_Soc._ Now, what art is there which delivers us from
poverty? Does not the art of making money?

_Pol._ Yes.

_Soc._ And what art frees us from disease? Does not the
art of medicine?

_Pol._ Very true.

_Soc._ And what from vice and injustice? If you are not 478
able to answer at once, ask yourself whither we go with the
sick, and to whom we take them.

_Pol._ To the physicians, Socrates.

_Soc._ And to whom do we go with the unjust and intemperate?

_Pol._ To the judges, you mean.

_Soc._ —Who are to punish them?

_Pol._ Yes.

_Soc._ And do not those who rightly punish others, punish
them in accordance with a certain rule of justice?

_Pol._ Clearly.

[Sidenote: _The judge and the physician._]

_Soc._ Then the art of money-making frees a man from
poverty; medicine from disease; and justice from intemperance
and injustice?

_Pol._ That is evident.

_Soc._ Which, then, is the best of these three?

_Pol._ Will you enumerate them?

_Soc._ Money-making, medicine, and justice.

_Pol._ Justice, Socrates, far excels the two others.

_Soc._ And justice, if the best, gives the greatest pleasure or
advantage or both?

_Pol._ Yes.

_Soc._ But is the being healed a pleasant thing, and are
those who are being healed pleased?

_Pol._ I think not.

_Soc._ A useful thing, then?

_Pol._ Yes.

[Sidenote: Punishment is the deliverance from evil, and he who is punished, like him who is healed, is happier than he who is not punished or not healed.]

_Soc._ Yes, because the patient is delivered from a great
evil; and this is the advantage of enduring the pain—that
you get well?

_Pol._ Certainly.

_Soc._ And would he be the happier man in his bodily condition,
who is healed, or who never was out of health?

_Pol._ Clearly he who was never out of health.

_Soc._ Yes; for happiness surely does not consist in being
delivered from evils, but in never having had them.

_Pol._ True.

_Soc._ 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?

_Pol._ Clearly he who is not healed.

_Soc._ And was not punishment said by us to be a deliverance
from the greatest of evils, which is vice?

_Pol._ True.

_Soc._ And justice punishes us, and makes us more just, and
is the medicine of our vice?

_Pol._ True.

[Sidenote: Happiest of all is he who is just; happy in the second degree he who is delivered from injustice by punishment, most deluded and most unhappy of all he who lives on, enjoying the fruit of his crimes.]

_Soc._ He, then, has the first place in the scale of happiness
who has never had vice in his soul; for this has been shown
to be the greatest of evils.

[Sidenote: _The escape from punishment an evil._]

_Pol._ Clearly.

_Soc._ And he has the second place, who is delivered from
vice?

_Pol._ True.

_Soc._ That is to say, he who receives admonition and
rebuke and punishment?

_Pol._ Yes.

_Soc._ Then he lives worst, who, having been unjust, has no
deliverance from injustice?

_Pol._ Certainly.

_Soc._ That is, he lives worst who commits the greatest 479
crimes, and who, being the most unjust of men, succeeds in
escaping rebuke or correction or punishment; and this, as
you say, has been accomplished by Archelaus and other
tyrants and rhetoricians and potentates[32]?

_Pol._ True.

_Soc._ May not their way of proceeding, my friend, be compared
to the conduct of a person who is afflicted with the
worst of diseases and yet contrives not to pay the penalty to
the physician for his sins against his constitution, and will
not be cured, because, like a child, he is afraid of the pain of
being burned or cut:—Is not that a parallel case?

_Pol._ Yes, truly.

_Soc._ He would seem as if he did not know the nature of
health and bodily vigour; and if we are right, Polus, in our
previous conclusions, they are in a like case who strive to
evade justice, which they see to be painful, but are blind to
the advantage which ensues from it, not knowing how far
more miserable a companion a diseased soul is than a
diseased body; a soul, I say, which is corrupt and unrighteous
and unholy. And hence they do all that they
can to avoid punishment and to avoid being released from
the greatest of evils; they provide themselves with money
and friends, and cultivate to the utmost their powers of
persuasion. But if we, Polus, are right, do you see what
follows, or shall we draw out the consequences in form?

_Pol._ If you please.

_Soc._ Is it not a fact that injustice, and the doing of injustice,
is the greatest of evils?

[Sidenote: _The case of Archelaus regarded in a new light._]

_Pol._ That is quite clear.

_Soc._ And further, that to suffer punishment is the way to
be released from this evil?

_Pol._ True.

_Soc._ And not to suffer, is to perpetuate the evil?

_Pol._ Yes.

_Soc._ To do wrong, then, is second only in the scale of
evils; but to do wrong and not to be punished, is first and
greatest of all?

_Pol._ That is true.

[Sidenote: Archelaus then is more miserable than his victims.]

_Soc._ Well, and was not this the point in dispute, my
friend? You deemed Archelaus happy, because he was a
very great criminal and unpunished: I, on the other hand,
maintained that he or any other who like him has done
wrong and has not been punished, is, and ought to be, the
most miserable of all men; and that the doer of injustice is
more miserable than the sufferer; and he who escapes
punishment, more miserable than he who suffers.—Was not
that what I said?

_Pol._ Yes.

_Soc._ And it has been proved to be true?

_Pol._ Certainly.

_Soc._ Well, Polus, but if this is true, where is the great use 480
of rhetoric? If we admit what has been just now said,
every man ought in every way to guard himself against
doing wrong, for he will thereby suffer great evil?

_Pol._ True.

[Sidenote: Injustice, if not removed, will become the cancer of the soul.]

_Soc._ And if he, or any one about whom he cares, does
wrong, he ought of his own accord to go where he will be
immediately punished; he will run to the judge, as he would
to the physician, in order that the disease of injustice may
not be rendered chronic and become the incurable cancer of
the soul; must we not allow this consequence, Polus, if our
former admissions are to stand:—is any other inference
consistent with them?

_Pol._ To that, Socrates, there can be but one answer.

[Sidenote: The only use of rhetoric is that it enables a man to expose his own injustice and to petition for speedy punishment.]

[Sidenote: _Of what use then is rhetoric?_]

_Soc._ Then rhetoric is of no use to us, Polus, in helping a
man to excuse his own injustice, or that of his parents or
friends, or children or country; but may be of use to any
one who holds that instead of excusing he ought to accuse—himself
above all, and in the next degree his family or any of
his friends who may be doing wrong; he should bring to
light the iniquity and not conceal it, that so the wrong-doer
may suffer and be made whole; and he should even force
himself and others not to shrink, but with closed eyes like
brave men to let the physician operate with knife or searing
iron, not regarding the pain, in the hope of attaining the
good and the honourable; let him who has done things
worthy of stripes, allow himself to be scourged, if of bonds,
to be bound, if of a fine, to be fined, if of exile, to be exiled,
if of death, to die, himself being the first to accuse himself
and his own relations, and using rhetoric to this end, that
his and their unjust actions may be made manifest, and that
they themselves may be delivered from injustice, which is
the greatest evil. Then, Polus, rhetoric would indeed be
useful. Do you say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to that?

_Pol._ To me, Socrates, what you are saying appears very
strange, though probably in agreement with your premises.

_Soc._ Is not this the conclusion, if the premises are not disproven?

_Pol._ Yes; it certainly is.

[Sidenote: A slighter and secondary use of rhetoric in self-defence against an enemy, or in preventing the punishment of an enemy.]

_Soc._ And from the opposite point of view, if indeed it be
our duty to harm another, whether an enemy or not—I
except the case of self-defence—then I have to be upon my
guard—but if my enemy injures a third person, then in 481
every sort of way, by word as well as deed, I should try to
prevent his being punished, or appearing before the judge;
and if he appears, I should contrive that he should escape,
and not suffer punishment: if he has stolen a sum of money,
let him keep what he has stolen and spend it on him and his,
regardless of religion and justice; and if he have done
things worthy of death, let him not die, but rather be immortal
in his wickedness; or, if this is not possible, let him
at any rate be allowed to live as long as he can. For such
purposes, Polus, rhetoric may be useful, but is of small if of
any use to him who is not intending to commit injustice; at
least, there was no such use discovered by us in the previous
discussion.

_Cal._ Tell me, Chaerephon, is Socrates in earnest, or is he
joking?

[Sidenote: _Is Socrates in earnest?_]

[Sidenote: Callicles asks in amazement whether Socrates really means what he says.]

_Chaer._ I should say, Callicles, that he is in most profound
earnest; but you may as well ask him.

_Cal._ By the gods, and I will. Tell me, Socrates, are you
in earnest, or only in jest? For if you are in earnest, and
what you say is true, is not the whole of human life turned
upside down; and are we not doing, as would appear, in
everything the opposite of what we ought to be doing?

[Sidenote: I am only repeating the words of philosophy, whose lover I am. For as you love the Athenian people and their namesake Demus, so I have two loves, philosophy and Alcibiades.]

[Sidenote: The son of Cleinias is inconstant, but philosophy is ever the same: she it is whom you have to refute: I am only her mouth-piece.]

_Soc._ O Callicles, if there were not some community of feelings
among mankind, however varying in different persons—I
mean to say, if every man’s feelings were peculiar to himself
and were not shared by the rest of his species—I do not
see how we could ever communicate our impressions to one
another. I make this remark because I perceive that you
and I have a common feeling. For we are lovers both, and
both of us have two loves apiece:—I am the lover of Alcibiades,
the son of Cleinias, and of philosophy; and you of
the Athenian Demus, and of Demus the son of Pyrilampes.
Now, I observe that you, with all your cleverness, do not
venture to contradict your favourite in any word or opinion
of his; but as he changes you change, backwards and forwards.
When the Athenian Demus denies anything that
you are saying in the assembly, you go over to his opinion;
and you do the same with Demus, the fair young son of
Pyrilampes. For you have not the power to resist the words
and ideas of your loves; and if a person were to express
surprise at the strangeness of what you say from time to time
when under their influence, you would probably reply to 482
him, if you were honest, that you cannot help saying what
your loves say unless they are prevented; and that you can
only be silent when they are. Now you must understand
that my words are an echo too, and therefore you need not
wonder at me; but if you want to silence me, silence philosophy,
who is my love, for she is always telling me what I
am now telling you, my friend; neither is she capricious like
my other love, for the son of Cleinias says one thing to-day
and another thing to-morrow, but philosophy is always true.
She is the teacher at whose words you are now wondering,
and you have heard her yourself. Her you must refute, and
either show, as I was saying, that to do injustice and to escape
punishment is not the worst of all evils; or, if you leave her
word unrefuted, by the dog the god of Egypt, I declare, O
Callicles, that Callicles will never be at one with himself, but
that his whole life will be a discord. And yet, my friend, I
would rather that my lyre should be inharmonious, and that
there should be no music in the chorus which I provided;
aye, or that the whole world should be at odds with me, and
oppose me, rather than that I myself should be at odds with
myself, and contradict myself.

[Sidenote: _Polus and Callicles._]

[Sidenote: Polus was vanquished because he refused to take a bold line.]

[Sidenote: Callicles would return to the rule of nature in the lower sense of the term.]

[Sidenote: Convention was only introduced by the weak majority in order to protect themselves against the few strong.]

[Sidenote: A man of courage would easily break down the guards of convention.]

[Sidenote: _Convention and nature._]

[Sidenote: A little philosophy not a bad thing in youth.]

_Cal._ O Socrates, you are a regular declaimer, and seem to
be running riot in the argument. And now you are declaiming
in this way because Polus has fallen into the same
error himself of which he accused Gorgias:—for he said
that when Gorgias was asked by you, whether, if some one
came to him who wanted to learn rhetoric, and did not
know justice, he would teach him justice, Gorgias in his
modesty replied that he would, because he thought that mankind
in general would be displeased if he answered ‘No;’
and then in consequence of this admission, Gorgias was
compelled to contradict himself, that being just the sort of
thing in which you delight. Whereupon Polus laughed at
you, deservedly, as I think; but now he has himself fallen
into the same trap. I cannot say very much for his wit
when he conceded to you that to do is more dishonourable
than to suffer injustice, for this was the admission which
led to his being entangled by you; and because he was
too modest to say what he thought, he had his mouth
stopped. For the truth is, Socrates, that you, who pretend
to be engaged in the pursuit of truth, are appealing now to
the popular and vulgar notions of right, which are not natural,
but only conventional. Convention and nature are generally
at variance with one another: and hence, if a person is too
modest to say what he thinks, he is compelled to contradict 483
himself; and you, in your ingenuity perceiving the advantage
to be thereby gained, slyly ask of him who is arguing conventionally
a question which is to be determined by the rule
of nature; and if he is talking of the rule of nature, you slip
away to custom: as, for instance, you did in this very discussion
about doing and suffering injustice. When Polus
was speaking of the conventionally dishonourable, you
assailed him from the point of view of nature; for by the rule
of nature, to suffer injustice is the greater disgrace because
the greater evil; but conventionally, to do evil is the more
disgraceful. For the suffering of injustice is not the part of
a man, but of a slave, who indeed had better die than live;
since when he is wronged and trampled upon, he is unable
to help himself, or any other about whom he cares. The
reason, as I conceive, is that the makers of laws are the
majority who are weak; and they make laws and distribute
praises and censures with a view to themselves and to their
own interests; and they terrify the stronger sort of men, and
those who are able to get the better of them, in order that
they may not get the better of them; and they say, that
dishonesty is shameful and unjust; meaning, by the word
injustice, the desire of a man to have more than his neighbours;
for knowing their own inferiority, I suspect that they
are too glad of equality. And therefore the endeavour to
have more than the many, is conventionally said to be shameful
and unjust, and is called injustice[33], whereas nature herself
intimates that it is just for the better to have more than the
worse, the more powerful than the weaker; and in many
ways she shows, among men as well as among animals, and
indeed among whole cities and races, that justice consists in
the superior ruling over and having more than the inferior.
For on what principle of justice did Xerxes invade Hellas,
or his father the Scythians? (not to speak of numberless
other examples). Nay, but these are the men who act
according to nature; yes, by Heaven, and according to the
law of nature: not, perhaps, according to that artificial law,
which we invent and impose upon our fellows, of whom we
take the best and strongest from their youth upwards, and
tame them like young lions,—charming them with the sound 484
of the voice, and saying to them, that with equality they must
be content, and that the equal is the honourable and the just.
But if there were a man who had sufficient force, he would
shake off and break through, and escape from all this; he
would trample under foot all our formulas and spells and
charms, and all our laws which are against nature: the slave
would rise in rebellion and be lord over us, and the light of
natural justice would shine forth. And this I take to be the
sentiment of Pindar, when he says in his poem, that

[Sidenote: _Might is right._]

‘Law is the king of all, of mortals as well as of immortals;’

this, as he says,

[Sidenote: Pindar.]

‘Makes might to be right, doing violence with highest
hand; as I infer from the deeds of Heracles, for without
buying them—‘[34]

—I do not remember the exact words, but the meaning is,
that without buying them, and without their being given to
him, he carried off the oxen of Geryon, according to the law
of natural right, and that the oxen and other possessions of
the weaker and inferior properly belong to the stronger and
superior. And this is true, as you may ascertain, if you will
leave philosophy and go on to higher things: for philosophy,
Socrates, if pursued in moderation and at the proper age, is
an elegant accomplishment, but too much philosophy is the
ruin of human life. Even if a man has good parts, still, if he
carries philosophy into later life, he is necessarily ignorant
of all those things which a gentleman and a person of honour
ought to know; he is inexperienced in the laws of the State,
and in the language which ought to be used in the dealings
of man with man, whether private or public, and utterly
ignorant of the pleasures and desires of mankind and of human
character in general. And people of this sort, when they
betake themselves to politics or business, are as ridiculous as
I imagine the politicians to be, when they make their appearance
in the arena of philosophy. For, as Euripides says,

[Sidenote: Euripides.]

[Sidenote: _Philosophy not to be carried too far._]

[Sidenote: But the study should not be continued into later life.]

‘Every man shines in that and pursues that, and devotes
the greatest portion of the day to that in which he most
excels[35],’

but anything in which he is inferior, he avoids and depreciates, 485
and praises the opposite from partiality to himself, and
because he thinks that he will thus praise himself. The true
principle is to unite them. Philosophy, as a part of education,
is an excellent thing, and there is no disgrace to a man while
he is young in pursuing such a study; but when he is more
advanced in years, the thing becomes ridiculous, and I feel
towards philosophers as I do towards those who lisp and
imitate children. For I love to see a little child, who is not
of an age to speak plainly, lisping at his play; there is an
appearance of grace and freedom in his utterance, which is
natural to his childish years. But when I hear some small
creature carefully articulating its words, I am offended; the
sound is disagreeable, and has to my ears the twang of slavery.
So when I hear a man lisping, or see him playing like a
child, his behaviour appears to me ridiculous and unmanly
and worthy of stripes. And I have the same feeling about
students of philosophy; when I see a youth thus engaged,—the
study appears to me to be in character, and becoming a
man of a liberal education, and him who neglects philosophy
I regard as an inferior man, who will never aspire to anything
great or noble. But if I see him continuing the study in
later life, and not leaving off, I should like to beat him,
Socrates; for, as I was saying, such a one, even though he
have good natural parts, becomes effeminate. He flies from
the busy centre and the market-place, in which, as the poet
says, men become distinguished; he creeps into a corner for
the rest of his life, and talks in a whisper with three or four
admiring youths, but never speaks out like a freeman in a
satisfactory manner. Now I, Socrates, am very well inclined
towards you, and my feeling may be compared with that of
Zethus towards Amphion, in the play of Euripides, whom I
was mentioning just now: for I am disposed to say to you
much what Zethus said to his brother, that you, Socrates, are
careless about the things of which you ought to be careful;
and that you 486

‘Who have a soul so noble, are remarkable for a puerile exterior;
Neither in a court of justice could you state a case, or give any
reason or proof,
Or offer valiant counsel on another’s behalf.’

And you must not be offended, my dear Socrates, for I am
speaking out of good-will towards you, if I ask whether you
are not ashamed of being thus defenceless; which I affirm
to be the condition not of you only but of all those who will
carry the study of philosophy too far. For suppose that
some one were to take you, or any one of your sort, off to
prison, declaring that you had done wrong when you had
done no wrong, you must allow that you would not know
what to do:—there you would stand giddy and gaping, and
not having a word to say; and when you went up before the
Court, even if the accuser were a poor creature and not good
for much, you would die if he were disposed to claim the
penalty of death. And yet, Socrates, what is the value of

[Sidenote: _Callicles makes an appeal to the poets._]

‘An art which converts a man of sense into a fool,’

who is helpless, and has no power to save either himself or
others, when he is in the greatest danger and is going to be
despoiled by his enemies of all his goods, and has to live,
simply deprived of his rights of citizenship?—he being a
man who, if I may use the expression, may be boxed on the
ears with impunity. Then, my good friend, take my advice,
and refute no more:

‘Learn the philosophy of business, and acquire the reputation of
wisdom.
But leave to others these niceties,’

whether they are to be described as follies or absurdities:

‘For they will only
Give you poverty for the inmate of your dwelling.’

Cease, then, emulating these paltry splitters of words, and
emulate only the man of substance and honour, who is well
to do.

[Sidenote: Callicles the desired touchstone of Socrates.]

_Soc._ If my soul, Callicles, were made of gold, should I not
rejoice to discover one of those stones with which they test
gold, and the very best possible one to which I might bring
my soul; and if the stone and I agreed in approving of her
training, then I should know that I was in a satisfactory
state, and that no other test was needed by me.

_Cal._ What is your meaning, Socrates?

_Soc._ I will tell you; I think that I have found in you the
desired touchstone.

_Cal._ Why?

[Sidenote: _The gain of having an adversary like Callicles._]

[Sidenote: Other men have not the knowledge or frankness or good-will which is required; and they are too modest. His sincerity is shown by his consistency.]

[Sidenote: But still he would ask, What Callicles means by the superior?]

_Soc._ Because I am sure that if you agree with me in any
of the opinions which my soul forms, I have at last found the
truth indeed. For I consider that if a man is to make a
complete trial of the good or evil of the soul, he ought to 487
have three qualities—knowledge, good-will, outspokenness,
which are all possessed by you. Many whom I meet are unable
to make trial of me, because they are not wise as you are;
others are wise, but they will not tell me the truth, because
they have not the same interest in me which you have;
and these two strangers, Gorgias and Polus, are undoubtedly
wise men and my very good friends, but they are not outspoken
enough, and they are too modest. Why, their
modesty is so great that they are driven to contradict themselves,
first one and then the other of them, in the face of
a large company, on matters of the highest moment. But
you have all the qualities in which these others are deficient,
having received an excellent education; to this many Athenians
can testify. And you are my friend. Shall I tell you
why I think so? I know that you, Callicles, and Tisander of
Aphidnae, and Andron the son of Androtion, and Nausicydes
of the deme of Cholarges, studied together: there were four
of you, and I once heard you advising with one another as
to the extent to which the pursuit of philosophy should be
carried, and, as I know, you came to the conclusion that the
study should not be pushed too much into detail. You were
cautioning one another not to be overwise; you were afraid
that too much wisdom might unconsciously to yourselves be
the ruin of you. And now when I hear you giving the same
advice to me which you then gave to your most intimate
friends, I have a sufficient evidence of your real good-will
to me. And of the frankness of your nature and freedom
from modesty I am assured by yourself, and the assurance
is confirmed by your last speech. Well then, the inference
in the present case clearly is, that if you agree with me in
an argument about any point, that point will have been
sufficiently tested by us, and will not require to be submitted
to any further test. For you could not have agreed with
me, either from lack of knowledge or from superfluity of
modesty, nor yet from a desire to deceive me, for you are
my friend, as you tell me yourself. And therefore when you
and I are agreed, the result will be the attainment of perfect
truth. Now there is no nobler enquiry, Callicles, than that
which you censure me for making,—What ought the character
of a man to be, and what his pursuits, and how far is he to
go, both in maturer years and in youth? For be assured
that if I err in my own conduct I do not err intentionally, 488
but from ignorance. Do not then desist from advising me,
now that you have begun, until I have learned clearly what
this is which I am to practise, and how I may acquire it.
And if you find me assenting to your words, and hereafter
not doing that to which I assented, call me ‘dolt,’ and deem
me unworthy of receiving further instruction. Once more,
then, tell me what you and Pindar mean by natural justice:
Do you not mean that the superior should take the property
of the inferior by force; that the better should rule the
worse, the noble have more than the mean? Am I not
right in my recollection?

[Sidenote: _Callicles is drawn into a contradiction._]

_Cal._ Yes; that is what I was saying, and so I still aver.

_Soc._ And do you mean by the better the same as the
superior? for I could not make out what you were saying
at the time—whether you meant by the superior the stronger,
and that the weaker must obey the stronger, as you seemed
to imply when you said that great cities attack small ones
in accordance with natural right, because they are superior
and stronger, as though the superior and stronger and better
were the same; or whether the better may be also the inferior
and weaker, and the superior the worse, or whether
better is to be defined in the same way as superior:—this is
the point which I want to have cleared up. Are the superior
and better and stronger the same or different?

_Cal._ I say unequivocally that they are the same.

[Sidenote: He means the better and stronger, and therefore the many who make the laws, which are noble because they are made by the better.]

_Soc._ Then the many are by nature superior to the one,
against whom, as you were saying, they make the laws?

_Cal._ Certainly.

_Soc._ Then the laws of the many are the laws of the
superior?

_Cal._ Very true.

_Soc._ Then they are the laws of the better; for the superior
class are far better, as you were saying?

_Cal._ Yes.

_Soc._ And since they are superior, the laws which are made
by them are by nature good?

_Cal._ Yes.

[Sidenote: And the many are also of opinion that to do is more disgraceful than to suffer injustice.]

_Soc._ And are not the many of opinion, as you were lately
saying, that justice is equality, and that to do is more 489
disgraceful than to suffer injustice?—is that so or not? Answer,
Callicles, and let no modesty be found to come in the way[36];
do the many think, or do they not think thus?—I must beg
of you to answer, in order that if you agree with me I may
fortify myself by the assent of so competent an authority.

[Sidenote: _He flounders impatiently._]

_Cal._ Yes; the opinion of the many is what you say.

_Soc._ Then not only custom but nature also affirms that
to do is more disgraceful than to suffer injustice, and that
justice is equality; so that you seem to have been wrong
in your former assertion, when accusing me you said that
nature and custom are opposed, and that I, knowing this,
was dishonestly playing between them, appealing to custom
when the argument is about nature, and to nature when the
argument is about custom?

[Sidenote: ‘Of course I don’t mean the mob.’]

_Cal._ This man will never cease talking nonsense. At
your age, Socrates, are you not ashamed to be catching at
words and chuckling over some verbal slip? do you not
see—have I not told you already, that by superior I mean
better: do you imagine me to say, that if a rabble of slaves
and nondescripts, who are of no use except perhaps for
their physical strength, get together, their ipsissima verba
are laws?

_Soc._ Ho! my philosopher, is that your line?

_Cal._ Certainly.

_Soc._ I was thinking, Callicles, that something of the kind
must have been in your mind, and that is why I repeated
the question,—What is the superior? I wanted to know
clearly what you meant; for you surely do not think that
two men are better than one, or that your slaves are better
than you because they are stronger? Then please to begin
again, and tell me who the better are, if they are not the
stronger; and I will ask you, great Sir, to be a little milder
in your instructions, or I shall have to run away from you.

_Cal._ You are ironical.

[Sidenote: Then once more,—Who are the better?]

_Soc._ No, by the hero Zethus, Callicles, by whose aid you
were just now saying (486 A) many ironical things against
me, I am not:—tell me, then, whom you mean by the better?

_Cal._ I mean the more excellent.

_Soc._ Do you not see that you are yourself using words
which have no meaning and that you are explaining nothing?—will
you tell me whether you mean by the better and
superior the wiser, or if not, whom?

[Sidenote: _Callicles grows more and more exasperated._]

_Cal._ Most assuredly, I do mean the wiser. 490

[Sidenote: The wiser: the one wise among ten thousand fools,—he ought to rule.]

_Soc._ Then according to you, one wise man may often
be superior to ten thousand fools, and he ought to rule
them, and they ought to be his subjects, and he ought to
have more than they should. This is what I believe that
you mean (and you must not suppose that I am word-catching),
if you allow that the one is superior to the ten
thousand?

_Cal._ Yes; that is what I mean, and that is what I conceive
to be natural justice—that the better and wiser should rule
and have more than the inferior.

[Sidenote: But this is contrary to the analogy of the other arts.]

_Soc._ Stop there, and let me ask you what you would say
in this case: Let us suppose that we are all together as we
are now; there are several of us, and we have a large
common store of meats and drinks, and there are all sorts
of persons in our company having various degrees of strength
and weakness, and one of us, being a physician, is wiser in
the matter of food than all the rest, and he is probably
stronger than some and not so strong as others of us—will
he not, being wiser, be also better than we are, and our
superior in this matter of food?

_Cal._ Certainly.

_Soc._ Either, then, he will have a larger share of the meats
and drinks, because he is better, or he will have the distribution
of all of them by reason of his authority, but he will not
expend or make use of a larger share of them on his own
person, or if he does, he will be punished;—his share will
exceed that of some, and be less than that of others, and if
he be the weakest of all, he being the best of all will have
the smallest share of all, Callicles:—am I not right, my
friend?

[Sidenote: Callicles is disgusted at the commonplace parallels of Socrates.]

_Cal._ You talk about meats and drinks and physicians and
other nonsense; I am not speaking of them.

_Soc._ Well, but do you admit that the wiser is the better?
Answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’

_Cal._ Yes.

_Soc._ And ought not the better to have a larger share?

_Cal._ Not of meats and drinks.

[Sidenote: _Socrates grows more and more ironical._]

_Soc._ I understand: then, perhaps, of coats the skilfullest
weaver ought to have the largest coat, and the greatest
number of them, and go about clothed in the best and finest
of them?

_Cal._ Fudge about coats!

_Soc._ Then the skilfullest and best in making shoes ought
to have the advantage in shoes; the shoemaker, clearly,
should walk about in the largest shoes, and have the greatest
number of them?

_Cal._ Fudge about shoes! What nonsense are you talking?

_Soc._ Or, if this is not your meaning, perhaps you would
say that the wise and good and true husbandman should
actually have a larger share of seeds, and have as much seed
as possible for his own land?

_Cal._ How you go on, always talking in the same way, Socrates!

_Soc._ Yes, Callicles, and also about the same things. 491

_Cal._ Yes, by the Gods, you are literally always talking of
cobblers and fullers and cooks and doctors, as if this had to
do with our argument.

_Soc._ But why will you not tell me in what a man must be
superior and wiser in order to claim a larger share; will you
neither accept a suggestion, nor offer one?

_Cal._ I have already told you. In the first place, I mean
by superiors not cobblers or cooks, but wise politicians who
understand the administration of a state, and who are not
only wise, but also valiant and able to carry out their
designs, and not the men to faint from want of soul.

[Sidenote: Socrates is accused of always saying the same things: he accuses Callicles of never saying the same about the same.]

_Soc._ See now, most excellent Callicles, how different my
charge against you is from that which you bring against me,
for you reproach me with always saying the same; but I reproach
you with never saying the same about the same
things, for at one time you were defining the better and the
superior to be the stronger, then again as the wiser, and now
you bring forward a new notion; the superior and the better
are now declared by you to be the more courageous: I wish,
my good friend, that you would tell me, once for all, whom
you affirm to be the better and superior, and in what they
are better?

[Sidenote: _The delights of successful wickedness._]

_Cal._ I have already told you that I mean those who are
wise and courageous in the administration of a state—they
ought to be the rulers of their states, and justice consists in
their having more than their subjects.

_Soc._ But whether rulers or subjects will they or will they
not have more than themselves, my friend?

_Cal._ What do you mean?

_Soc._ I mean that every man is his own ruler; but perhaps
you think that there is no necessity for him to rule himself;
he is only required to rule others?

_Cal._ What do you mean by his ‘ruling over himself’?

_Soc._ A simple thing enough; just what is commonly said,
that a man should be temperate and master of himself, and
ruler of his own pleasures and passions.

_Cal._ What innocence! you mean those fools,—the temperate?

_Soc._ Certainly:—any one may know that to be my
meaning.

[Sidenote: Callicles reasserts his doctrine that the esteem in which virtue and justice are held is due only to men’s fear for themselves. No man who has the power to enjoy himself practises self-control.]

[Sidenote: _The soul of the ignorant._]

_Cal._ Quite so, Socrates; and they are really fools, for how
can a man be happy who is the servant of anything? On
the contrary, I plainly assert, that he who would truly live
ought to allow his desires to wax to the uttermost, and not to
chastise them; but when they have grown to their greatest
he should have courage and intelligence to minister to 492
them and to satisfy all his longings. And this I affirm to be
natural justice and nobility. To this however the many cannot
attain; and they blame the strong man because they are
ashamed of their own weakness, which they desire to conceal,
and hence they say that intemperance is base. As I
have remarked already, they enslave the nobler natures, and
being unable to satisfy their pleasures, they praise temperance
and justice out of their own cowardice. For if a man
had been originally the son of a king, or had a nature
capable of acquiring an empire or a tyranny or sovereignty,
what could be more truly base or evil than temperance—to a
man like him, I say, who might freely be enjoying every
good, and has no one to stand in his way, and yet has
admitted custom and reason and the opinion of other men to
be lords over him?—must not he be in a miserable plight
whom the reputation of justice and temperance hinders from
giving more to his friends than to his enemies, even though
he be a ruler in his city? Nay, Socrates, for you profess to
be a votary of the truth, and the truth is this:—that luxury
and intemperance and licence, if they be provided with
means, are virtue and happiness—all the rest is a mere
bauble, agreements contrary to nature, foolish talk of men,
nothing worth[37].

_Soc._ There is a noble freedom, Callicles, in your way of
approaching the argument; for what you say is what the
rest of the world think, but do not like to say. And I must
beg of you to persevere, that the true rule of human life may
become manifest. Tell me, then:—you say, do you not, that
in the rightly-developed man the passions ought not to be
controlled, but that we should let them grow to the utmost
and somehow or other satisfy them, and that this is virtue?

_Cal._ Yes; I do.

_Soc._ Then those who want nothing are not truly said to
be happy?

[Sidenote: To live without pleasure or passion is to be dead.]

[Sidenote: No; the true death, as Pythagorean philosophy tells us, is to pour water out of a vessel full of holes into a colander full of holes.]

[Sidenote: _The sound and leaky vessels._]

_Cal._ No indeed, for then stones and dead men would be
the happiest of all.

_Soc._ But surely life according to your view is an awful
thing; and indeed I think that Euripides may have been
right in saying,

‘Who knows if life be not death and death life;’

and that we are very likely dead; I have heard a philosopher 493
say that at this moment we are actually dead, and that the
body (σῶμα) is our tomb (σῆμα[38]), and that the part of the soul
which is the seat of the desires is liable to be tossed about by
words and blown up and down; and some ingenious person,
probably a Sicilian or an Italian, playing with the word,
invented a tale in which he called the soul—because of its
believing and make-believe nature—a vessel[39], and the ignorant
he called the uninitiated or leaky, and the place in
the souls of the uninitiated in which the desires are seated,
being the intemperate and incontinent part, he compared to
a vessel full of holes, because it can never be satisfied. He
is not of your way of thinking, Callicles, for he declares, that
of all the souls in Hades, meaning the invisible world (ἀειδὲς),
these uninitiated or leaky persons are the most miserable,
and that they pour water into a vessel which is full of holes
out of a colander which is similarly perforated. The colander,
as my informer assures me, is the soul, and the soul
which he compares to a colander is the soul of the ignorant,
which is likewise full of holes, and therefore incontinent,
owing to a bad memory and want of faith. These notions
are strange enough, but they show the principle which, if I
can, I would fain prove to you; that you should change your
mind, and, instead of the intemperate and insatiate life, choose
that which is orderly and sufficient and has a due provision
for daily needs. Do I make any impression on you, and are
you coming over to the opinion that the orderly are happier
than the intemperate? Or do I fail to persuade you, and,
however many tales I rehearse to you, do you continue of
the same opinion still?

_Cal._ The latter, Socrates, is more like the truth.

[Sidenote: The temperate man is the sound, the intemperate the leaky vessel.]

_Soc._ Well, I will tell you another image, which comes out
of the same school:—Let me request you to consider how
far you would accept this as an account of the two lives of
the temperate and intemperate in a figure:—There are two
men, both of whom have a number of casks; the one man
has his casks sound and full, one of wine, another of honey,
and a third of milk, besides others filled with other liquids,
and the streams which fill them are few and scanty, and he
can only obtain them with a great deal of toil and difficulty;
but when his casks are once filled he has no need to feed
them any more, and has no further trouble with them or care
about them. The other, in like manner, can procure streams,
though not without difficulty; but his vessels are leaky and
unsound, and night and day he is compelled to be filling
them, and if he pauses for a moment, he is in an agony of 494
pain. Such are their respective lives:—And now would you
say that the life of the intemperate is happier than that of
the temperate? Do I not convince you that the opposite is
the truth?

[Sidenote: The life of desire and pleasure is not to be compared to a full vessel, but to an ever-running stream.]

_Cal._ You do not convince me, Socrates, for the one who
has filled himself has no longer any pleasure left; and this,
as I was just now saying, is the life of a stone: he has
neither joy nor sorrow after he is once filled; but the pleasure
depends on the superabundance of the influx.

[Sidenote: _Callicles no longer a test,_]

_Soc._ But the more you pour in, the greater the waste; and
the holes must be large for the liquid to escape.

_Cal._ Certainly.

_Soc._ The life which you are now depicting is not that of a
dead man, or of a stone, but of a cormorant; you mean that
he is to be hungering and eating?

_Cal._ Yes.

_Soc._ And he is to be thirsting and drinking?

_Cal._ Yes, that is what I mean; he is to have all his desires
about him, and to be able to live happily in the gratification
of them.

_Soc._ Capital, excellent; go on as you have begun, and
have no shame; I, too, must disencumber myself of shame:
and first, will you tell me whether you include itching and
scratching, provided you have enough of them and pass your
life in scratching, in your notion of happiness?

_Cal._ What a strange being you are, Socrates! a regular
mob-orator.

_Soc._ That was the reason, Callicles, why I scared Polus
and Gorgias, until they were too modest to say what they
thought; but you will not be too modest and will not be
scared, for you are a brave man. And now, answer my
question.

_Cal._ I answer, that even the scratcher would live pleasantly.

_Soc._ And if pleasantly, then also happily?

_Cal._ To be sure.

_Soc._ But what if the itching is not confined to the head?
Shall I pursue the question? And here, Callicles, I would
have you consider how you would reply if consequences are
pressed upon you, especially if in the last resort you are
asked, whether the life of a catamite is not terrible, foul,
miserable? Or would you venture to say, that they too are
happy, if they only get enough of what they want?

[Sidenote: Callicles professes a virtuous indignation at the very mention of the consequences of his own doctrine.]

_Cal._ Are you not ashamed, Socrates, of introducing such
topics into the argument?

_Soc._ Well, my fine friend, but am I the introducer of these
topics, or he who says without any qualification that all who
feel pleasure in whatever manner are happy, and who admits
of no distinction between good and bad pleasures? And I 495
would still ask, whether you say that pleasure and good are
the same, or whether there is some pleasure which is not a
good?

[Sidenote: _because he will not say what he thinks._]

_Cal._ Well, then, for the sake of consistency, I will say that
they are the same.

_Soc._ You are breaking the original agreement, Callicles,
and will no longer be a satisfactory companion in the search
after truth, if you say what is contrary to your real opinion.

_Cal._ Why, that is what you are doing too, Socrates.

_Soc._ Then we are both doing wrong. Still, my dear friend,
I would ask you to consider whether pleasure, from whatever
source derived, is the good; for, if this be true, then the
disagreeable consequences which have been darkly intimated
must follow, and many others.

_Cal._ That, Socrates, is only your opinion.

_Soc._ And do you, Callicles, seriously maintain what you
are saying?

_Cal._ Indeed I do.

_Soc._ Then, as you are in earnest, shall we proceed with
the argument?

_Cal._ By all means[40].

[Sidenote: Callicles, having admitted that pleasure and good are the same, is led to make the further admission that pleasure and knowledge and courage are different.]

_Soc._ Well, if you are willing to proceed, determine this
question for me:—There is something, I presume, which you
would call knowledge?

_Cal._ There is.

_Soc._ And were you not saying just now, that some courage
implied knowledge?

_Cal._ I was.

_Soc._ And you were speaking of courage and knowledge as
two things different from one another?

_Cal._ Certainly I was.

_Soc._ And would you say that pleasure and knowledge are
the same, or not the same?

_Cal._ Not the same, O man of wisdom.

_Soc._ And would you say that courage differed from
pleasure?

_Cal._ Certainly.

_Soc._ Well, then, let us remember that Callicles, the Acharnian,
says that pleasure and good are the same; but that
knowledge and courage are not the same, either with one
another, or with the good.

[Sidenote: _The law of contradiction._]

_Cal._ And what does our friend Socrates, of Foxton, say—does
he assent to this, or not?

_Soc._ He does not assent; neither will Callicles, when he
sees himself truly. You will admit, I suppose, that good and
evil fortune are opposed to each other?

_Cal._ Yes.

_Soc._ And if they are opposed to each other, then, like
health and disease, they exclude one another; a man cannot
have them both, or be without them both, at the same time?

_Cal._ What do you mean?

_Soc._ Take the case of any bodily affection:—a man may
have the complaint in his eyes which is called ophthalmia?

_Cal._ To be sure. 496

_Soc._ But he surely cannot have the same eyes well and
sound at the same time?

_Cal._ Certainly not.

_Soc._ And when he has got rid of his ophthalmia, has he got
rid of the health of his eyes too? Is the final result, that he
gets rid of them both together?

_Cal._ Certainly not.

_Soc._ That would surely be marvellous and absurd?

_Cal._ Very.

[Sidenote: A man may have good and evil by turns, but not at the same time.]

_Soc._ I suppose that he is affected by them, and gets rid of
them in turns?

_Cal._ Yes.

_Soc._ And he may have strength and weakness in the same
way, by fits?

_Cal._ Yes.

_Soc._ Or swiftness and slowness?

_Cal._ Certainly.

_Soc._ And does he have and not have good and happiness,
and their opposites, evil and misery, in a similar
alternation[41]?

_Cal._ Certainly he has.

_Soc._ If then there be anything which a man has and has
not at the same time, clearly that cannot be good and evil—do
we agree? Please not to answer without consideration.

[Sidenote: _The law of contradiction._]