gorgias   

match either for friend or enemy, he ought not therefore to strike,

stab, or slay his friends. Suppose a man to have been trained in the

palestra and to be a skilful boxer-he in the fulness of his strength

goes and strikes his father or mother or one of his familiars or

friends; but that is no reason why the trainers or fencing-masters

should be held in detestation or banished from the city-surely not.

For they taught their art for a good purpose, to be used against

enemies and evil-doers, in self-defence not in aggression, and

others have perverted their instructions, and turned to a bad use

their own strength and skill. But not on this account are the teachers

bad, neither is the art in fault, or bad in itself; I should rather

say that those who make a bad use of the art are to blame. And the

same argument holds good of rhetoric; for the rhetorician can speak

against all men and upon any subject-in short, he can persuade the

multitude better than any other man of anything which he pleases,

but he should not therefore seek to defraud the physician or any other

artist of his reputation merely because he has the power; he ought

to use rhetoric fairly, as he would also use his athletic powers.

And if after having become a rhetorician he makes a bad use of his

strength and skill, his instructor surely ought not on that account to

be held in detestation or banished. For he was intended by his teacher

to make a good use of his instructions, but he abuses them. And

therefore he is the person who ought to be held in detestation,

banished, and put to death, and not his instructor.

Soc. You, Gorgias, like myself, have had great experience of

disputations, and you must have observed, I think, that they do not

always terminate in mutual edification, or in the definition by either

party of the subjects which they are discussing; but disagreements are

apt to arise-somebody says that another has not spoken truly or

clearly; and then they get into a passion and begin to quarrel, both

parties conceiving that their opponents are arguing from personal

feeling only and jealousy of themselves, not from any interest in