, having
this and no other business, and that this is her crown and end. Do
you know any other effect of rhetoric over and above that of producing
persuasion?

GORGIAS: No: the definition seems to me very fair, Socrates; for
persuasion is the chief end of rhetoric.

SOCRATES: Then hear me, Gorgias, for I am quite sure that if there ever
was a man who entered on the discussion of a matter from a pure love of
knowing the truth, I am such a one, and I should say the same of you.

GORGIAS: What is coming, Socrates?

SOCRATES: I will tell you: I am very well aware that I do not know what,
according to you, is the exact nature, or what are the topics of that
persuasion of which you speak, and which is given by rhetoric; although
I have a suspicion about both the one and the other. And I am going to
ask--what is this power of persuasion which is given by rhetoric, and
about what? But why, if I have a suspicion, do I ask instead of telling
you? Not for your sake, but in order that the argument may proceed in
such a manner as is most likely to set forth the truth. And I would
have you observe, that I am right in asking this further question: If I
asked, 'What sort of a painter is Zeuxis?' and you said, 'The painter
of figures,' should I not be right in asking, 'What kind of figures, and
where do you find them?'

GORGIAS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And the reason for asking this second question would be, that
there are other painters besides, who paint many other figures?

GORGIAS: True.

SOCRATES: But if there had been no one but Zeuxis who painted them, then
you would have answered very well?

GORGIAS: Quite so.

SOCRATES: Now I want to know about rhetoric in the same way;--is
rhetoric the only art which brings persuasion, or do other arts have the
same effect? I mean to say--Does he who teaches anything persuade men of
that which he teaches or not?

GORGIAS: He persuades, Socrates,--there can be no mistake about that.

SOCRATES: Again, if we take the arts of which we were just now
speaking:--do not arithmetic and the arithmeticians teach us the
properties of number?

GORGIAS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And therefore persuade us of them?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then arithmetic as well as rhetoric is an artificer of
persuasion?

GORGIAS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: And if any one asks us what sort of persuasion, and about
what,--we shall answer, persuasion which teaches the quantity of odd and
even; and we shall be abl