'holding a golden sceptre,' which gives verisimilitude to the
tale.

It is scarcely necessary to repeat that Plato is playing 'both sides of
the game,' and that in criticising the characters of Gorgias and Polus,
we are not passing any judgment on historical individuals, but only
attempting to analyze the 'dramatis personae' as they were conceived by
him. Neither is it necessary to enlarge upon the obvious fact that Plato
is a dramatic writer, whose real opinions cannot always be assumed to be
those which he puts into the mouth of Socrates, or any other speaker who
appears to have the best of the argument; or to repeat the observation
that he is a poet as well as a philosopher; or to remark that he is not
to be tried by a modern standard, but interpreted with reference to his
place in the history of thought and the opinion of his time.

It has been said that the most characteristic feature of the Gorgias
is the assertion of the right of dissent, or private judgment. But this
mode of stating the question is really opposed both to the spirit of
Plato and of ancient philosophy generally. For Plato is not asserting
any abstract right or duty of toleration, or advantage to be derived
from freedom of thought; indeed, in some other parts of his writings
(e.g. Laws), he has fairly laid himself open to the charge of
intolerance. No speculations had as yet arisen respecting the 'liberty
of prophesying;' and Plato is not affirming any abstract right of this
nature: but he is asserting the duty and right of the one wise and true
man to dissent from the folly and falsehood of the many. At the same
time he acknowledges the natural result, which he hardly seeks to avert,
that he who speaks the truth to a multitude, regardless of consequences,
will probably share the fate of Socrates.

*****

The irony of Plato sometimes veils from us the height of idealism to
which he soars. When declaring truths which the many will not receive,
he puts on an armour which cannot be pierced by them. The weapons of
ridicule are taken out of their hands and the laugh is turned against
themselves. The disguises which Socrates assumes are like the parables
of the New Testament, or the oracles of the Delphian God; they half
conceal, half reveal, his meaning. The more he is in earnest, the more
ironical he becomes; and he is never more in earnest or more ironical
than in the Gorgias. He hardly troubles himself to answer seriously the
objections of Gorgi