Platos Gorgias
CALLICLES: No, indeed, I cannot.
CALLICLES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Yet, surely, Callicles, if you look you will find SOCRATES: And the same may be said of the human such a one. Suppose that we just calmly consider whether body?
any of these was such as I have described. Will not the good man, who says whatever he says with a view to the CALLICLES: Yes.
best, speak with a reference to some standard and not at random; just as all other artists, whether the painter, the SOCRATES: And what would you say of the soul? Will builder, the shipwright, or any other look all of them to the good soul be that in which disorder is prevalent, or that their own work, and do not select and apply at random in which there is harmony and order?
what they apply, but strive to give a definite form to it? The artist disposes all things in order, and compels the one part CALLICLES: The latter follows from our previous admis-to harmonize and accord with the other part, until he has sions.
constructed a regular and systematic whole; and this is true of all artists, and in the same way the trainers and physi-SOCRATES: What is the name which is given to the effect cians, of whom we spoke before, give order and regularity of harmony and order in the body?
to the body: do you deny this?
CALLICLES: I suppose that you mean health and strength?
CALLICLES: No; I am ready to admit it.
SOCRATES: Yes, I do; and what is the name which you SOCRATES: Then the house in which order and regular-would give to the effect of harmony and order in the soul?
ity prevail is good; that in which there is disorder, evil?
Try and discover a name for this as well as for the other.
CALLICLES: Yes.
CALLICLES: Why not give the name yourself, Socrates?
SOCRATES: And the same is true of a ship?
SOCRATES: Well, if you had rather that I should, I will; and you shall say whether you agree with me, and if not, 128
Platos Gorgias
you shall refute and answer me. Healthy, as I conceive, is quantity of the most delightful food or drink or any other the name which is given to the regular order of the body, pleasant thing, which may be really as bad for him as if you whence comes health and every other bodily excellence: is gave him nothing, or even worse if rightly estimated. Is not that true or not?
that true?
CALLICLES: True.
CALLICLES: I will not say No to it.
SOCRATES: And lawful and law are the names which SOCRATES: For in my opinion there is no profit in a mans are given to the regular order and action of the soul, and life if his body is in an evil plightin that case his life also is these make men lawful and orderly:and so we have tem-evil: am I not right?
perance and justice: have we not?
CALLICLES: Yes.
CALLICLES: Granted.
SOCRATES: When a man is in health the physicians will SOCRATES: And will not the true rhetorician who is hon-generally allow him to eat when he is hungry and drink est and understands his art have his eye fixed upon these, when he is thirsty, and to satisfy his desires as he likes, but in all the words which he addresses to the souls of men, when he is sick they hardly suffer him to satisfy his desires and in all his actions, both in what he gives and in what he at all: even you will admit that?
takes away? Will not his aim be to implant justice in the souls of his citizens and take away injustice, to implant tem-CALLICLES: Yes.
perance and take away intemperance, to implant every virtue and take away every vice? Do you not agree?
SOCRATES: And does not the same argument hold of the soul, my good sir? While she is in a bad state and is CALLICLES: I agree.
senseless and intemperate and unjust and unholy, her desires ought to be controlled, and she ought to be prevented SOCRATES: For what use is there, Callicles, in giving to from doing anything which does not tend to her own im-the body of a sick man who is in a bad state of health a provement.