Gorgias

Gorg.

Why, I suppose, Socrates, if he happens not to know these things he will learn them too from me.

Soc.

Stop there: I am glad of that statement. If you make a man a rhetorician he must needs know what is just and unjust either previously or by learning afterwards from you.

Gorg.

Quite so.

Soc.

Well now, a man who has learnt building is a builder, is he not?

Gorg.

Yes.

Soc.

And he who has learnt music, a musician?

Gorg.

Yes.

Soc.

Then he who has learnt medicine is a medical man, and so on with the rest on the same principle; anyone who has learnt a certain art has the qualification acquired by his particular knowledge?

Gorg.

Certainly.

Soc.

And so, on this principle, he who has learnt what is just is just?

Gorg.

Absolutely, I presume.

Soc.

And the just man, I suppose, does what is just.

Gorg.

Yes.

Soc.

Now the just man must wish to do what is just?

Gorg.

Apparently.

Soc.

Hence the just man will never wish to act unjustly?

Gorg.

That must needs be so.

Soc.

But it follows from our statements[*](i.e. that he must know what is just, and that he who knows this must be just (see ¤¤ A and B above).) that the rhetorician must be just.

Gorg.

Yes.

Soc.

Hence the rhetorician will never wish to do wrong.

Gorg.

Apparently not.

Soc.

Then do you remember saying a little while ago that we ought not to complain against the trainers or expel them from our cities, if a boxer makes not merely use, but an unfair use, of his boxing? So in just the same way, if an orator uses his rhetoric unfairly, we should not complain against his teacher or banish him from our city, but the man who does the wrong and misuses his rhetoric. Was that said or not?

Gorg.

It was.

Soc.

But now we find that this very person, the rhetorician, could never be guilty of wrongdoing, do we not?

Gorg.

We do.

Soc.

And in our first statements, Gorgias, we said that rhetoric dealt with speech, not on even and odd, but on the just and unjust, did we not?

Gorg.

Yes.