Gorgias

Soc.

Then will you prove that the orators have intelligence, and that rhetoric is an art, not a flattery, and so refute me ? Else, if you are going to leave me unrefuted, the orators who do what they think fit in their cities, and the despots, will find they have got no good in doing that, if indeed power is, as you say, a good, but doing what one thinks fit without intelligence is—as you yourself admit, do you not?—an evil.

Pol.

Yes, I do.

Soc.

How then can the orators or the despots have great power in their cities, unless Socrates is refuted by Polus, and admits that they do what they wish?

Pol.

Hark at the man————!

Soc.

I deny that they do what they wish: there, refute me.

Pol.

Did you not admit just now that they do what they think best?

Soc.

Yes, and I admit it now.

Pol.

Then do they not do what they wish?

Soc.

I say no.

Pol.

When they do what they think fit?

Soc.

Yes.

Pol.

What shocking, nay, monstrous answers, Socrates!

Soc.

Spare your invective, peerless Polus—if I may address you in your own style:[*](The assonance in ὦ λῷστε Πῶλε is a mocking allusion to the nicely balanced clauses and jingling phrases which Polus imitated from his master Gorgias. Something of this style appears in Polus’s speech above, 448c.) but if you have a question to ask me, expose my error otherwise, make answer yourself.

Pol.

Well, I am ready to answer, in order that I may know what you mean.

Soc.

Then is it your view that people wish merely that which they do each time, or that which is the object of their doing what they do? For instance, do those who take medicine by doctor’s orders wish, in your opinion, merely what they do,—to take the medicine and suffer the pain of it,—or rather to be healthy, which is the object of their taking it?

Pol.

To be healthy, without a doubt.

Soc.

And so with seafarers and such as pursue profit generally in trade; what they wish is not what they are doing at each moment—for who wishes to go on a voyage, and incur all its danger and trouble? It is rather, I conceive, the object of their voyage—to get wealth; since it is for wealth that they go on it.

Pol.

Certainly.

Soc.

And is it not just the same in every case? If a man does something for an object, he does not wish the thing that he does, but the thing for which he does it.

Pol.

Yes.

Soc.

Now is there any existent thing that is not either good or bad or between these—neither good nor bad?

Pol.

Most assuredly nothing, Socrates.

Soc.

Well, do you call wisdom and health and wealth and everything else of that kind good, and their opposites bad?

Pol.

I do.