d he who has learned medicine is a physician, in like
manner? He who has learned anything whatever is that which his knowledge
makes him.

GORGIAS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And in the same way, he who has learned what is just is just?

GORGIAS: To be sure.

SOCRATES: And he who is just may be supposed to do what is just?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And must not the just man always desire to do what is just?

GORGIAS: That is clearly the inference.

SOCRATES: Surely, then, the just man will never consent to do injustice?

GORGIAS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: And according to the argument the rhetorician must be a just
man?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And will therefore never be willing to do injustice?

GORGIAS: Clearly not.

SOCRATES: But do you remember saying just now that the trainer is not
to be accused or banished if the pugilist makes a wrong use of his
pugilistic art; and in like manner, if the rhetorician makes a bad and
unjust use of his rhetoric, that is not to be laid to the charge of his
teacher, who is not to be banished, but the wrong-doer himself who made
a bad use of his rhetoric--he is to be banished--was not that said?

GORGIAS: Yes, it was.

SOCRATES: But now we are affirming that the aforesaid rhetorician will
never have done injustice at all?

GORGIAS: True.

SOCRATES: And at the very outset, Gorgias, it was said that rhetoric
treated of discourse, not (like arithmetic) about odd and even, but
about just and unjust? Was not this said?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: I was thinking at the time, when I heard you saying so, that
rhetoric, which is always discoursing about justice, could not possibly
be an unjust thing. But when you added, shortly afterwards, that the
rhetorician might make a bad use of rhetoric I noted with surprise
the inconsistency into which you had fallen; and I said, that if you
thought, as I did, that there was a gain in being refuted, there would
be an advantage in going on with the question, but if not, I would leave
off. And in the course of our investigations, as you will see yourself,
the rhetorician has been acknowledged to be incapable of making an
unjust use of rhetoric, or of willingness to do injustice. By the dog,
Gorgias, there will be a great deal of discussion, before we get at the
truth of all this.

POLUS: And do even you, Socrates, seriously believe what you are now
saying about rhetoric? What! because Gorgias was ashamed to deny that
the rhetoricia