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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
also be very ill used if I were not allowed to go away and not listen to you ? If you have a real regard for the discussion which has been commenced , and wish to rectify what was wrong in it , take back ai \ y of the concessions that have been made , and by questioning and answering , refute and be refuted ; for you profess to know what Gorgias knows , do you not V P . ' I do / S . * Then you also invite persons to put questions to you , and undertake to answer them V P . * Certainly . ' S . ' Then do which you please ; interrogate , or answer / P . ' So I will . Tell me , Socrates , since you think that Gorgias cannot tell what rhetoric is , pray what do you consider it to be ? * S . * Do you ask me what art I consider it to be ?* P . * I do / S . * No art at all , to tell you the truth / P . ' What thing , then , do you call it ? S . 'A thing which you , in a book which I lately read , profess to erect 4 ¦ 4
into an art . ' P . And what is it ? ' S . ' A kind of skill . ' P . Rhetoric , then , according to you , is a kind of skill V S . ' Yes , if you have no objection / P . A ^ Skill in what ? ' S . 'In gratification , and the production of pleasiire / ^ ^ P . ' Is not rhetoric , then , a fine thing , since it is capable of causing gratification ^ - ' S . 4 What , Polus ! have I yet told you what I say it is , so that ypu should already ask me whether I do not think it a fine thing ? ' P . Did yen not tell me that it was a kind of skill ? ' S . 'Since you set such a value on gratification , will
you gratify me a little V P . ' I will / S . * Ask me , then , what art I consider cookery to be / P . I ask you , what art is cookery ?* S . - None at all / P . ' What is it then ? ' S . * A kind of skill / P . Skill in what V S . * In gratification , and the production of pleasure . ' P . Are cookery and rhetoric , then , the same thing ? ' S . ' No ; but they are branches of the same pursuit / P . What pursuit is that ?' S . * I am afraid it would be ill bred to say the truth : I do not like to say it , on Gorgias ' s account , lest he should think that I am satirizing his profession . I do not know whether this is the rhetoric which Gorgias professes : for we could not make out clearly in the former discussion what he understands by it : but what I call rhetoric , is a branch of a thing which is not very admirable / 'What thing ?* asked Gorgias . * Speak ; and do not have any reluctance on my account /
< S . ' 1 think , ( jrorgias , that it is a pursuit , not governed by art , but belonging to a mind of great tact and boldness , and greatly fitted by nature for intercourse with ^ rnen : and I call it , in one word , Adulation . Of this pursuit there are many other branches , and cookery is o ** e , which is thought to be an art , but , in my opinion , is no art , but a skill * and a routine . I call rhetoric , and cosmetics , ( the toilet , ) and the pursuit of the sophist , other species of the same pursuit . There are thus four branches of it , conversant with four different things . If Polus wishes to question me further , let him do eo ; for I have told him that I consider rhetoric to be a branch of adulation , but not wkat branch ; and he has overlooked that I have not yet answered his first question , though he goes on pressing me with a second , and asks me whether I think rhetoric a fine thing , before I have answered what it i ? . This is not fair , Polus ; if you wish to know , ask me what branch of adulation I affirm rhetoric to be / P . I do ask ; answer what branch it is V S . * Do you think you Bhall understand my answer ? Rhetoric , in my view of the matter , is the counterfeit of a branch of politics / P . Well then ,
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700 Plato ' s Dialogues ; the Gorgias .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1834, page 700, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2638/page/24/
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