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right in saying that we knew of no man who had been a good statesman in this nation . You allowed that there was none in our own day , but affirmed that there were such persons formerly , and instanced these men . But these , it appears , are on a level with those of the present day ; so that , if they were rhetoricians , they neither possessed the true rhetoric , nor even that which is a kind of adulation , otherwise they
would not have been so unsuccessful . ' 'But / said Callicles , ' no one in the present day has approached to these men in the works which they accomplished . ' Neither do I disparage them , ' replied Socrates , * in the character of ministrators to the people ' s inclinations ; I think that they were much more skilful ministrators than the men of our day , and more
capable of providing for the nation what it desired . But in respect of changing its desires , and not giving way to them , but exhorting and impelling the nation to those courses by which the citizens might become better men , they did not differ from our own contemporaries : and this alone is the business of a good citizen . In providing ships , and walls , and docks , and so forth , I grant that these men were abler than ours .
You and I are acting very ridiculously . All this time we continually return to the same point , and never know each other ' s meaning . I think you have often admitted that there are two kinds of pursuits relating to the body and the mind , one of them merely ministrative , which can provide food for our bodies if they are hungry , drink if they are thirsty , clothes if they are cold , and in short whatever the body desires . I
purposely repeat the same illustrations constantly , that you may the more easily understand me . It is no wonder that any one who is capable of providing these things , whether he be a dealer or a producer , a cook , or weaver , and so forth , should think himself and be thought by others to be the proper guardian of the body ; so long as they do not know that there is , besides all this , an art of gymnastics and medicine , which is the real guardian , of the body ; and which it is fit should govern all these other arts , and make use of them as instruments , because this art knows
what food or drink is good and bad , with reference to the excellence of the body , but the others do not know ; for which reason these are all slavish and illiberal , and simply ministerial , and gymnastics and medicine ought in justice to be sovereign over them . You sometimes appear to know , that I assert this to be true likewise of the mind , and you assent , as if you understood my meaning : but you presently turn back , and say that there have been excellent citizens in this state , and when I ask
who , you name to me exactly such a kind of politicians , as if , when I asked you what good gymnasts and superintendents of the body there are or have been , you were gravely to answer , Thearion the baker , and Mithaecus the author of the cookery book , and Sarambua the tavern keeper , saying that these were surprisingly good in the care and treatment of the body , by providing excellent bread , and meat , and wine You would perhaps be angry , if I were to answer , My friend , you know
nothing of gymnastics ; you tell me of people who can only minister to me and supply-my desires , having no sound knowledge respecting them ; and who perhaps , after swelling and fattening men ' s bodies , and being praised by them , will end by destroying even tneir original flesh . They , indeed , from inexperience , will not perhaps lay upon these men who crammed them , the blame of their diseases and loss of flesh ; but when their former repletion , not being of a healthy kind , shall long after pro-
Untitled Article
Plato s Dialogues j the Gorgias . 885
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1834, page 835, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2640/page/17/
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