RGIAS: You are quite right, Socrates, in your apprehension of my
meaning.

SOCRATES: Well, then, let me now have the rest of my answer:--seeing
that rhetoric is one of those arts which works mainly by the use of
words, and there are other arts which also use words, tell me what is
that quality in words with which rhetoric is concerned:--Suppose that a
person asks me about some of the arts which I was mentioning just now;
he might say, 'Socrates, what is arithmetic?' and I should reply to him,
as you replied to me, that arithmetic is one of those arts which take
effect through words. And then he would proceed to ask: 'Words about
what?' and I should reply, Words about odd and even numbers, and how
many there are of each. And if he asked again: 'What is the art of
calculation?' I should say, That also is one of the arts which is
concerned wholly with words. And if he further said, 'Concerned with
what?' I should say, like the clerks in the assembly, 'as aforesaid' of
arithmetic, but with a difference, the difference being that the art of
calculation considers not only the quantities of odd and even numbers,
but also their numerical relations to themselves and to one another.
And suppose, again, I were to say that astronomy is only words--he would
ask, 'Words about what, Socrates?' and I should answer, that astronomy
tells us about the motions of the stars and sun and moon, and their
relative swiftness.

GORGIAS: You would be quite right, Socrates.

SOCRATES: And now let us have from you, Gorgias, the truth about
rhetoric: which you would admit (would you not?) to be one of those arts
which act always and fulfil all their ends through the medium of words?

GORGIAS: True.

SOCRATES: Words which do what? I should ask. To what class of things do
the words which rhetoric uses relate?

GORGIAS: To the greatest, Socrates, and the best of human things.

SOCRATES: That again, Gorgias is ambiguous; I am still in the dark: for
which are the greatest and best of human things? I dare say that you
have heard men singing at feasts the old drinking song, in which the
singers enumerate the goods of life, first health, beauty next, thirdly,
as the writer of the song says, wealth honestly obtained.

GORGIAS: Yes, I know the song; but what is your drift?

SOCRATES: I mean to say, that the producers of those things which the
author of the song praises, that is to say, the physician, the trainer,
the money-maker, will at once come to