Gorgias

Call.

Let it be as you would have it, Socrates, in order that you may come to a conclusion of your argument.

Soc.

Then for this purpose also, of not doing wrong, it seems we must provide ourselves with a certain power or art.

Call.

To be sure.

Soc.

Now what can be the art of providing so that we suffer no wrong, or as little as possible? Consider if you take the same view of it as I do. For in my view it is this: one must either be a ruler, or even a despot, in one’s city, or else an associate of the existing government.

Call.

Do you note, Socrates, how ready I am to praise, when you say a good thing? This seems to me excellently spoken.

Soc.

Then see if this next statement of mine strikes you as a good one too. It seems to me that the closest possible friendship between man and man is that mentioned by the sages of old time as like to like. Do you not agree?

Call.

I do.

Soc.

So where you have a savage, uneducated ruler as despot, if there were some one in the city far better than he, I suppose the despot would be afraid of him and could never become a friend to him with all his heart?

Call.

That is so.

Soc.

Nor a friend to anyone who was much inferior to him either; for the despot would despise him and never show him the attention due to a friend.

Call.

That is true also.

Soc.

Then the only friend of any account that remains for such a person is a man of his own temper, who blames and praises the same things, and is thus willing to be governed by him and to be subject to his rule. He is a man who will have great power in that state; him none will wrong with impunity. Is it not so?

Call.

Yes.

Soc.

Hence if one of the young men in that city should reflect: In what way can I have great power, and no one may do me wrong?—this, it would seem, is the path he must take, to accustom himself from his earliest youth to be delighted and annoyed by the same things as his master, and contrive to be as like the other as possible. Is it not so?

Call.

Yes.

Soc.

And so this man will have attained to a condition of suffering no wrong and having great power—as your party maintain—in the city.

Call.

Certainly.

Soc.

And of doing no wrong likewise? Or is it quite the contrary, if he is to be like his unjust ruler, and have great influence with him? Well, for my part, I think his efforts will be all the opposite way, that is, towards enabling himself to do as much wrong as possible and to pay no penalty for the wrong he does; will they not?

Call.

Apparently.