Page - 178 - in The Complete Plato

POLUS: And that is what I do mean to say. SOCRATES: Then, if so, I think that they have the least power of all the citizens. POLUS: What! are they not like tyrants? They kill and despoil and exile any one whom they please. SOCRATES: By the dog, Polus, I cannot make out at each deliverance of yours, whether you are giving an opinion of your own, or asking a question of me. POLUS: I am asking a question of you. SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, but you ask two questions at once. POLUS: How two questions? SOCRATES: Why, did you not say just now that the rhetoricians are like tyrants, and that they kill and despoil or exile any one whom they please? POLUS: I did. SOCRATES: Well then, I say to you that here are two questions in one, and I will answer both of them. And I tell you, Polus, that rhetoricians and tyrants have the least possible power in states, as I was just now saying; for they do literally nothing which they will, but only what they think best. POLUS: And is not that a great power? SOCRATES: Polus has already said the reverse. POLUS: Said the reverse! nay, that is what I assert. SOCRATES: No, by the great—what do you call him?—not you, for you say that power is a good to him who has the power. POLUS: I do. SOCRATES: And would you maintain that if a fool does what he thinks best, this is a good, and would you call this great power? POLUS: I should not. SOCRATES: Then you must prove that the rhetorician is not a fool, and that rhetoric is an art and not a flattery—and so you will have refuted me; but if you leave me unrefuted, why, the rhetoricians who do what they think best in states, and the tyrants, will have nothing upon which to congratulate themselves, if as you say, power be indeed a good, admitting at the same time that what is done without sense is an evil. POLUS: Yes; I admit that. 178