gorgias   

Soc. Not so, my simple friend, but because you will refute me

after the manner which rhetoricians practise in courts of law. For

there the one party think that they refute the other when they bring

forward a number of witnesses of good repute in proof of their

allegations, and their adversary has only a single one or none at all.

But this kind of proof is of no value where truth is the aim; a man

may often be sworn down by a multitude of false witnesses who have a

great air of respectability. And in this argument nearly every one,

Athenian and stranger alike, would be on your side, if you should

bring witnesses in disproof of my statement-you may, if you will,

summon Nicias the son of Niceratus, and let his brothers, who gave the

row of tripods which stand in the precincts of Dionysus, come with

him; or you may summon Aristocrates, the son of Scellius, who is the

giver of that famous offering which is at Delphi; summon, if you will,

the whole house of Pericles, or any other great Athenian family whom

you choose-they will all agree with you: I only am left alone and

cannot agree, for you do not convince me; although you produce many

false witnesses against me, in the hope of depriving me of my

inheritance, which is the truth. But I consider that nothing worth

speaking of will have been effected by me unless I make you the one

witness of my words; nor by you, unless you make me the one witness of

yours; no matter about the rest of the world. For there are two ways

of refutation, one which is yours and that of the world in general;

but mine is of another sort-let us compare them, and see in what

they differ. For, indeed, we are at issue about matters which to

know is honourable and not to know disgraceful; to know or not to know

happiness and misery-that is the chief of them. And what knowledge can

be nobler? or what ignorance more disgraceful than this? And therefore

I will begin by asking you whether you do not think that a man who

is unjust and doing injustice can be happy, seeing that you think

Archelaus unjust, and yet happy? May I assume this to be your opinion?

Pol. Certainly.