this good which you say is the greatest good to men? Gorgias answers, that it is the power of persuading by words. But Socrates objects that other arts do the same, for that every one who teaches any thing persuades what he teaches; you must therefore say of what kind of persuasion, and on what subject rhetoric is the art. It is that which is produced in courts of justice, and other public assemblies, and relates to matters that are just and unjust. But here again Socrates makes Gorgias admit, that there are two kinds of persuasion, one that produces belief without knowledge, the other that produces knowledge; which of these two then does rhetoric produce? doubtless the former. But supposing the question is about the choice of physicians or shipwrights, or the building of walls, or the construction of ports or docks, will a rhetorician be consulted, or a person skilled in these several matters? Here Gorgias answers that on these and all other subjects a rhetorician will speak more persuasively than any other artist whatever: but it is his duty to use his art justly; though if he uses it unjustly, he and not his teacher is to blame[1].
Socrates, here, perceiving an inconsistency in Gorgias statement, after deprecating his being offended at the course the discussion might take, asks whether by saying that a rhetorician can speak more persuasively to the multitude on any art, than a person skilled in that art, he does not mean the ignorant by the multitude; and, that being admitted, whether it does not follow that one who is ignorant will be more capable of persuading the ignorant, than one who possesses knowledge? Gorgias allows this to be the case. Is the case, then, the same with respect to what is just and unjust, base and honourable, good and evil? Can a rhetorician persuade the multitude on these subjects, himself being ignorant of them, or must he know them before he learns rhetoric, or will the teacher of rhetoric instruct him in these? Gorgias professes that if a pupil does not know these things he would learn them from
- ↑ § 8–28.
