gorgias   

Soc. I will try, then, to explain my notion of rhetoric, and if I am

mistaken, my friend Polus shall refute me. We may assume the existence

of bodies and of souls?

Gor. Of course.

Soc. You would further admit that there is a good condition of

either of them?

Gor. Yes.

Soc. Which condition may not be really good, but good only in

appearance? I mean to say, that there are many persons who appear to

be in good health, and whom only a physician or trainer will discern

at first sight not to be in good health.

Gor. True.

Soc. And this applies not only to the body, but also to the soul: in

either there may be that which gives the appearance of health and

not the reality?

Gor. Yes, certainly.

Soc. And now I will endeavour to explain to you more clearly what

I mean: The soul and body being two, have two arts corresponding to

them: there is the art of politics attending on the soul; and

another art attending on the body, of which I know no single name, but

which may be described as having two divisions, one of them gymnastic,

and the other medicine. And in politics there is a legislative part,

which answers to gymnastic, as justice does to medicine; and the two

parts run into one another, justice having to do with the same subject

as legislation, and medicine with the same subject as gymnastic, but

with a difference. Now, seeing that there are these four arts, two

attending on the body and two on the soul for their highest good;

flattery knowing, or rather guessing their natures, has distributed

herself into four shams or simulations of them; she puts on the

likeness of some one or other of them, and pretends to be that which

she simulates, and having no regard for men's highest interests, is

ever making pleasure the bait of the unwary, and deceiving them into