The refutation of Kalliklês by Sokrates in the Gorgias, is unsuccessful — it is only so far successful as he adopts unintentionally the doctrine of Sokrates in the Protagoras.

To me his refutation appears altogether unsuccessful, and the position upon which he rests it incorrect. The only parts of the refutation really forcible, are those in which he unconsciously relinquishes this position, and slides into the doctrine of the Protagoras. Upon this latter doctrine, a refutation might be grounded: you may show that even an omnipotent despot (regard for the comfort of others being excluded by the hypothesis) will gain by limiting the gratification of his appetites to-day so as not to spoil his appetites of tomorrow. Even in his case, prudential restraint is required, though his motives for it would be much less than in the case of ordinary social men. But Good, as laid down by Plato in the Gorgias, entirely disconnected from pleasure — and Evil, entirely disconnected from pain — have no application to this supposed despot. He has no desire for such Platonic Good — no aversion for such Platonic Evil. His happiness is not diminished by missing the former or incurring the latter. In fact, one of the cardinal principles of Plato’s ethical philosophy, which he frequently asserts both in this dialogue and elsewhere,85 — That every man desires Good, and acts for the sake of obtaining Good, and avoiding Evil — becomes untrue, if you conceive Good and Evil according to the Gorgias, as having no reference to pleasure or the avoidance of pain: untrue, not merely in regard to a despot under these exceptional conditions, but in regard to the large majority of social men. They desire to obtain Good and avoid Evil, in the sense of the Protagoras: but not in the sense of the Gorgias.86 Sokrates himself proclaims in this dialogue: “I and philosophy stand opposed to Kalliklês and the Athenian public. What I desire is, to reason consistently with myself.” That is, to speak the language of Sokrates in the Protagoras — “To me, Sokrates, the consciousness of inconsistency with myself and of an unworthy character, the loss of my own self-esteem and the pungency of my own self-reproach, are the greatest of all pains: greater than those which you, Kalliklês, and the Athenians generally, seek to avoid at all price and urge me also to avoid at all price — poverty, political nullity, exposure to false accusation, &c.”87 The noble scheme of life, here recommended by Sokrates, may be correctly described according to the theory of the Protagoras: without any resort to the paradox of the Gorgias, that Good has no kindred or reference to Pleasure, nor Evil to Pain.

Permanent elements — and transient elements — of human agency — how each of them is appreciated in the two dialogues.

In the Protagoras.

Now in the Protagoras, the permanent element is very pointedly distinguished from the transient, and is called Knowledge — the Science or Art of Calculation. Its function also is clearly announced — to take comparative estimate and measurement of the transient elements; which are stated to consist of pleasures and pains, present and future — near and distant — certain and uncertain — faint and strong. To these elements, manifold yet commensurable, the calculation is to apply. “The safety of life” (says Sokrates88) “resides in our keeping up this science or art of calculation.” No present enjoyment must be admitted, which would impair it; no present pain must be shunned, which is essential to uphold it. Yet the whole of its value resides in its application to the comparison of the pleasures and pains.

In the Gorgias.

In the Gorgias the same two elements are differently described, and less clearly explained. The permanent is termed, Order, arrangement, discipline, a lawful, just, and temperate, cast of mind (opposed to the doctrine ascribed to Kalliklês, which negatived this element altogether, in the mind of the despot), parallel to health and strength of body: the unordered mind is again the parallel of the corrupt, distempered, helpless, body; life is not worth having until this is cured.89 This corresponds to the knowledge or Calculating Science in the Protagoras; but we cannot understand what its function is, in the Gorgias, because the calculable elements are incompletely enumerated.

In the Protagoras, these calculable elements are two-fold — immediate pleasures and pains — and future or distant pleasures and pains. Between these two there is intercommunity of nature, so that they are quite commensurable; and the function of the calculating reason is, to make a right estimate of the one against the other.90 But in the Gorgias, no mention is made of future or distant pleasures and pains: the calculable element is represented only by immediate pleasure or pain — and from thence we pass at once to the permanent calculator — the mind, sound or corrupt. You must abstain from a particular enjoyment, because it will taint the soundness of your mind: this is a pertinent reason (and would be admitted as such by Sokrates in the Protagoras, who instead of sound mind would say, calculating intelligence), but it is neither the ultimate reason (since this soundness of mind is itself valuable with a view to future calculations), nor the only reason: for you must also abstain, if it will bring upon yourself (or upon others) preponderating pains in the particular case — if the future pains would preponderate over the present pleasure. Of this last calculation no notice is taken in the Gorgias: which exhibits only the antithesis (not merely marked but even over-done91) between the immediate pleasure or pain and the calculating efficacy of mind, but leaves out the true function which gives value to the sound mind as distinguished from the unsound and corrupt. That function consists in its application to particular cases: in right dealing with actual life, as regards the agent himself and others: in ἐνεργεία, as distinguished from ἕξις, to use Aristotelian language.92 I am far from supposing that this part of the case was absent from Plato’s mind. But the theory laid out in the Gorgias (as compared with that in the Protagoras) leaves no room for it; giving exclusive prominence to the other elements, and acknowledging only the present pleasure or pain, to be set against the permanent condition of mind, bad or good as it may be.

Character of the Gorgias generally — discrediting all the actualities of life.

Indeed there is nothing more remarkable in the Gorgias, than the manner in which Sokrates not only condemns the unmeasured, exorbitant, maleficent desires, but also depreciates and degrades all the actualities of life — all the recreative and elegant arts, including music and poetry, tragic as well as dithyrambic — all provision for the most essential wants, all protection against particular sufferings and dangers, even all service rendered to another person in the way of relief or of rescue93 — all the effective maintenance of public organised force, such as ships, docks, walls, arms, &c. Immediate satisfaction or relief, and those who confer it, are treated with contempt, and presented as in hostility to the perfection of the mental structure. And it is in this point of view that various Platonic commentators extol in an especial manner the Gorgias: as recognising an Idea of Good superhuman and supernatural, radically disparate from pleasures and pains of any human being, and incommensurable with them: an Universal Idea, which, though it is supposed to cast a distant light upon its particulars, is separated from them by an incalculable space, and is discernible only by the Platonic telescope.

Argument of Sokrates resumed — multifarious arts of flattery, aiming at immediate pleasure.

We have now established (continues Sokrates) that pleasure is essentially different from good, and pain from evil: also, that to obtain good and avoid evil, a scientific choice is required — while to obtain pleasure and avoid pain, is nothing more than blind imitation or irrational knack. There are some arts and pursuits which aim only at procuring immediate pleasure — others which aim at attaining good or the best;94 some arts, for a single person, — others for a multitude. Arts and pursuits which aim only at immediate pleasure, either of one or of a multitude, belong to the general head of Flattery. Among them are all the musical, choric, and dithyrambic representations at the festivals — tragedy as well as comedy — also political and judicial rhetoric. None of these arts aim at any thing except to gratify the public to whom they are addressed: none of them aim at the permanent good: none seek to better the character of the public. They adapt themselves to the prevalent desires: but whether those desires are such as, if realised, will make the public worse or better, they never enquire.95

The Rhetors aim at only flattering the public — even the best past Rhetors have done nothing else — citation of the four great Rhetors by Kallikles.

Sokr. — Do you know any public speakers who aim at anything more than gratifying the public, or who care to make the public better? Kall. — There are some who do, and others who do not. Sokr. — Which are those who do? and which of them has ever made the public better?96 Kall. — At any rate, former statesmen did so; such as Miltiades, Themistokles, Kimon, Perikles. Sokr. — None of them. If they had, you would have seen them devoting themselves systematically and obviously to their one end. As a builder labours to construct a ship or a house, by putting together its various parts with order and symmetry — so these statesmen would have laboured to implant order and symmetry in the minds and bodies of the citizens: that is, justice and temperance in their minds, health and strength in their bodies.97 Unless the statesman can do this, it is fruitless to supply the wants, to fulfil the desires and requirements, to uphold or enlarge the power, of the citizens. This is like supplying ample nourishment to a distempered body: the more such a body takes in, the worse it becomes. The citizens must be treated with refusal of their wishes and with punishment, until their vices are healed, and they become good.98

Necessity for temperance, regulation, order. This is the condition of virtue and happiness.

We ought to do (continues Sokrates) what is pleasing for the sake of what is good: not vice versà. But every thing becomes good by possessing its appropriate virtue or regulation. The regulation appropriate to the mind is to be temperate. The temperate man will do what is just — his duty towards men: and what is holy — his duty towards the Gods. He will be just and holy. He will therefore also be courageous: for he will seek only such pleasures as duty permits, and he will endure all such pains as duty requires. Being thus temperate, just, brave, holy, he will be a perfectly good man, doing well and honourably throughout. The man who does well, will be happy: the man who does ill and is wicked, will be miserable.99 It ought to be our principal aim, both for ourselves individually and for the city, to attain temperance and to keep clear of intemperance: not to let our desires run immoderately (as you, Kallikles, advise), and then seek repletion for them: which is an endless mischief, the life of a pirate. He who pursues this plan can neither be the friend of any other man, nor of the Gods: for he is incapable of communion, and therefore of friendship.100

Impossible to succeed in public life, unless a man be thoroughly akin to and in harmony with the ruling force.

Now, Kallikles (pursues Sokrates), you have reproached me with standing aloof from public life in order to pursue philosophy. You tell me that by not cultivating public speaking and public action, I am at the mercy of any one who chooses to accuse me unjustly and to bring upon me severe penalties. But I tell you, that it is a greater evil to do wrong than to suffer wrong; and that my first business is, to provide for myself such power and such skill as shall guard me against doing wrong.101 Next, as to suffering wrong, there is only one way of taking precautions against it. You must yourself rule in the city: or you must be a friend of the ruling power. Like is the friend of like:102 a cruel despot on the throne will hate and destroy any one who is better than himself, and will despise any one worse than himself. The only person who will have influence is, one of the same dispositions as the despot: not only submitting to him with good will, but praising and blaming the same things as he does — accustomed from youth upwards to share in his preferences and aversions, and assimilated to him as much as possible.103 Now if the despot be a wrong-doer, he who likens himself to the despot will become a wrong-doer also. And thus, in taking precautions against suffering wrong, he will incur the still greater mischief and corruption of doing wrong, and will be worse off instead of better.

Danger of one who dissents from the public, either for better or for worse.

Kall. — But if he does not liken himself to the despot, the despot may put him to death, if he chooses? Sokr. — Perhaps he may: but it will be death inflicted by a bad man upon a good man.104 To prolong life is not the foremost consideration, but to decide by rational thought what is the best way of passing that length of life which the Fates allot.105 Is it my best plan to do as you recommend, and to liken myself as much as possible to the Athenian people — in order that I may become popular and may acquire power in the city? For it will be impossible for you to acquire power in the city, if you dissent from the prevalent political character and practice, be it for the better or for the worse. Even imitation will not be sufficient: you must be, by natural disposition, homogeneous with the Athenians, if you intend to acquire much favour with them. Whoever makes you most like to them, will help you forward most towards becoming an effective statesman and speaker: for every assembly delight in speeches suited to their own dispositions, and reject speeches of an opposite tenor.106

Sokrates resolves upon a scheme of life for himself — to study permanent good, and not immediate satisfaction.

Such are the essential conditions of political success and popularity. But I, Kalliklês, have already distinguished two schemes of life; one aiming at pleasure, the other aiming at good: one, that of the statesman who studies the felt wants, wishes, and impulses of the people, displaying his genius in providing for them effective satisfaction — the other, the statesman who makes it his chief or sole object to amend the character and disposition of the people. The last scheme is the only one which I approve: and if it be that to which you invite me, we must examine whether either you, Kallikles, or I, have ever yet succeeded in amending or improving the character of any individuals privately, before we undertake the task of amending the citizens collectively.107 None of the past statesmen whom you extol, Miltiades, Kimon, Themistokles, Perikles, has produced any such amendment.108 Considered as ministers, indeed, they were skilful and effective; better than the present statesmen. They were successful in furnishing satisfaction to the prevalent wants and desires of the citizens: they provided docks, walls, ships, tribute, and other such follies, abundantly:109 but they did nothing to amend the character of the people — to transfer the desires of the people from worse things to better things — or to create in them justice and temperance. They thus did no real good by feeding the desires of the people: no more good than would be done by a skilful cook for a sick man, in cooking for him a sumptuous meal before the physician had cured him.

Sokrates announces himself as almost the only man at Athens, who follows out the true political art. Danger of doing this.

I believe myself (continues Sokrates) to be the only man in Athens, — or certainly one among a very few, — who am a true statesman, following out the genuine purposes of the political art.110 I aim at what is best for the people, not at what is most agreeable. I do not value those captivating accomplishments which tell in the Dikastery. If I am tried, I shall be like a physician arraigned by the confectioner before a jury of children. I shall not be able to refer to any pleasures provided for them by me: pleasures which they call benefits, but which I regard as worthless. If any one accuses me of corrupting the youth by making them sceptical, or of libelling the older men in my private and public talk — it will be in vain for me to justify myself by saying the real truth. — Dikasts, I do and say all these things justly, for your real benefit. I shall not be believed when I say this, and I have nothing else to say: so that I do not know what sentence may be passed on me.111 My only refuge and defence will be, the innocence of my life. As for death, no one except a fool or a coward fears that: the real evil, and the greatest of all evils, is to pass into Hades with a corrupt and polluted mind.112

Mythe respecting Hades, and the treatment of deceased persons therein, according to their merits during life — the philosopher who stood aloof from public affairs, will then be rewarded.

Sokrates then winds up the dialogue, by reciting a Νέκυια, a mythe or hypothesis about judgment in Hades after death, and rewards and punishments to be apportioned to deceased men, according to their merits during life, by Rhadamanthus and Minos. The greatest sufferers by these judgments (he says) will be the kings, despots, and men politically powerful, who have during their lives committed the greatest injustices, — which indeed few of them avoid.113 The man most likely to fare well and to be rewarded, will be the philosopher, “who has passed through life minding his own business, and not meddling with the affairs of others”.114

Peculiar ethical views of Sokrates — Rhetorical or dogmatical character of the Gorgias.

“Dicuntur ista magnifice,”115 — we may exclaim, in Ciceronian words, on reaching the close of the Gorgias. It is pre-eminently solemn and impressive; all the more so, from the emphasis of Sokrates, when proclaiming the isolation in which he stands at Athens, and the contradiction between his ethico-political views and those of his fellow-citizens. In this respect it harmonises with the Apology, the Kriton, Republic, and Leges: in all which, the peculiarity of his ethical points of view stands proclaimed — especially in the Kriton, where he declares that his difference with his opponents is fundamental, and that there can be between them no common ground for debate — nothing but reciprocal contempt.116

He merges politics in Ethics — he conceives the rulers as spiritual teachers and trainers of the community.

The argument of Sokrates in the Gorgias is interesting, not merely as extolling the value of ethical self-restraint, but also as considering political phenomena under this point of view: that is, merging politics in ethics. The proper and paramount function of statesmen (we find it eloquently proclaimed) is to serve as spiritual teachers in the community: for the purpose of amending the lives and characters of the citizens, and of converting them from bad dispositions to good. We are admonished that until this is effected, more is lost than gained by realising the actual wants and wishes of the community, which are disorderly and distempered: like the state of a sick man, who would receive harm and not benefit from a sumptuous banquet.

Idéal of Plato — a despotic lawgiver or man-trainer, on scientific principles, fashioning all characters pursuant to certain types of his own.

Platonic analogy between mental goodness and bodily health — incomplete analogy — circumstances of difference.

Plato forgets two important points of difference, in that favourite and very instructive analogy which he perpetually reproduces, between mental goodness and bodily health. First, good health and strength of the body (as I have observed already) are states which every man knows when he has got them. Though there is much doubt and dispute about causes, preservative, destructive, and restorative, there is none about the present fact. Every sick man derives from his own sensations an anxiety to get well. But virtue is not a point thus fixed, undisputed, indubitable: it is differently conceived by different persons, and must first be discovered and settled by a process of enquiry; the Platonic Sokrates himself, in many of the dialogues — after declaring that neither he nor any one else within his knowledge, knows what it is — tries to find it out without success. Next, the physician, who is the person actively concerned in imparting health and strength, exercises no coercive power over any one: those who consult him have the option whether they will follow the advice given, or not. To put himself upon the same footing with the physician, the political magistrate ought to confine himself to the function of advice; a function highly useful, but in which he will be called upon to meet argumentative opposition, and frequent failure, together with the mortification of leaving those whom he cannot convince, to follow their own mode of life. Here are two material differences, modifying the applicability of that very analogy on which Plato so frequently rests his proof.

Sokrates in the Gorgias speaks like a dissenter among a community of fixed opinions and habits. Impossible that a dissenter, on important points, should acquire any public influence.

In Plato’s two imaginary commonwealths, where he is himself despotic law-giver, there would have been no tolerable existence possible for any one not shaped upon the Platonic spiritual model. But in the Gorgias, Plato (speaking in the person of Sokrates) is called upon to define his plan of life in a free state, where he was merely a private citizen. Sokrates receives from Kallikles the advice, to forego philosophy and to aspire to the influence and celebrity of an active public speaker. His reply is instructive, as revealing the interior workings of every political society. No man (he says) can find favour as an adviser — either of a despot, where there is one, or of a people where there is free government — unless he be in harmony with the sentiments and ideas prevalent, either with the ruling Many or the ruling One. He must be moulded, from youth upwards, on the same spiritual pattern as they are:117 his love and hate, his praise and blame, must turn towards the same things: he must have the same tastes, the same morality, the same idéal, as theirs: he must be no imitator, but a chip of the same block. If he be either better than they or worse than they,118 he will fail in acquiring popularity, and his efforts as a competitor for public influence will be not only abortive, but perhaps dangerous to himself.