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duce diseases , they will reproach and puniah those who happen to be attending on them and advising them at that time , but will eulogize the original authors of their ills . You , Callicles , now do precisely the same thing . You eulogize the men who , having feasted tne Athenians and crammed them with what they desire , are said to have made them a great nation , because it is not perceived that the commonwealth is tumid and hollow , through those men * of antiquity : for , without making us
just or temperate , they have crammed us with ports , and docks , and fortifications , and revenues ,-and such trumpery . When the crisis arrives , the Athenians will lay the blame upon their then advisers ; they will eulogize Themistocles , and Cimon , and Pericles , the authors of their calamity ; but when they have lost their original possessions as well as those more recently acquired , perhaps they will revenge themselves upon you , if you do not take care , and upon my friend Alcibiades , who were not the original authors of their evils , although perhaps you may have assisted in producing them .
* And by the way , I observe that something which is very usual , is very unreasonable . When the state takes hold of any of its statesmen , and treats them as criminals , they are indignant , and represent themselves as ill used men , who having rendered many great services to the state , are unjustly destroyed by it . This is all imposture . A leading man in a state cannot be unjustly destroyed by the state of which he is the leader . Those who call themselves politicians , resemble those who call
themselves sophists . The sophists , in other respects wise men , do one thing which is very absurd : Calling themselves teachers of virtue , they often reproach their disciples for wronging them by not paying their hire , and not showing them gratitude for the good they have done them . What can be more senseless than this , that men who have become virtuous and just , men who have been purified from injustice by their teacher , and imbued with justice , should be unjust ? Do you not
think this absurd ? You have forced me really to harangue , Callicles , not being willing to answer . ' C . ' Cannot you speak , unless some one will answer you V S > 4 It seems I can ; for I have been speaking for a long time , since you will not answer . But tell me , in the name of friendship : Do you not think it very absurd , that he who says he has made some one a good man , should blame him , that having been made by him , and still being , a good man , . he * is nevertheless a bad one ? ' C .
* I think so . ' S . And do you not hear those who profess to instruct men in virtue , speaking in this manner ? ' . C . \ l I do . But why do you talk about men who are good for nothing ? ' * S . ' And what will you say of those , who , professing to have been at the head of the nation , and to
have managed it so that it should become as good as possible , afterwards turn round and reproach it as being wicked r . Do you think that such persons are any better than those whom you despise ? A sophist , and a rhetorician , are the same thing , or very much alike , as I said to Pol us . But you , from ignorance , think the one a fine thing , and despise the other . In reality , the pursuit of the sophist is nobler than that of tie
* Another incidental proof of the contempt in which the aophiita were held by the very peraonf whom ( hey are laid to have corrupted j politician ! and men of the world . We recur frequently to thin topic , becauw it if one on which the Tory writers have uDually enjoyed full liberty of nuirreprcienUtion .
Untitled Article
836 Plato * a Dialogues ; the Gorgias .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1834, page 836, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2640/page/18/
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