Peculiar ethical views of Sokrates — Rhetorical or dogmatical character of the Gorgias.
“Dicuntur ista magnifice,”[115] — we may exclaim, in Ciceronian words, on reaching the close of the Gorgias. It is pre-eminently solemn and impressive; all the more so, from the emphasis of Sokrates, when proclaiming the isolation in which he stands at Athens, and the contradiction between his ethico-political views and those of his fellow-citizens. In this respect it harmonises with the Apology, the Kriton, Republic, and Leges: in all which, the peculiarity of his ethical points of view stands proclaimed — especially in the Kriton, where he declares that his difference with his opponents is fundamental, and that there can be between them no common ground for debate — nothing but reciprocal contempt.[116]
[115] Cicero, De Finib. iii. 3, 11.
[116] Plato, Kriton, p. 49 D.
He merges politics in Ethics — he conceives the rulers as spiritual teachers and trainers of the community.
The argument of Sokrates in the Gorgias is interesting, not merely as extolling the value of ethical self-restraint, but also as considering political phenomena under this point of view: that is, merging politics in ethics. The proper and paramount function of statesmen (we find it eloquently proclaimed) is to serve as spiritual teachers in the community: for the purpose of amending the lives and characters of the citizens, and of converting them from bad dispositions to good. We are admonished that until this is effected, more is lost than gained by realising the actual wants and wishes of the community, which are disorderly and distempered: like the state of a sick man, who would receive harm and not benefit from a sumptuous banquet.
Idéal of Plato — a despotic lawgiver or man-trainer, on scientific principles, fashioning all characters pursuant to certain types of his own.
This is the conception of Plato in the Gorgias, speaking through the person of Sokrates, respecting the ends for which the political magistrate ought to employ his power. The magistrate, as administering law and justice, is to the minds of the community what the trainer and the physician are to their bodies: he produces goodness of mind, as the two latter produce health and strength of body. The Platonic idéal is that of a despotic law-giver and man-trainer, wielding the compulsory force of the secular arm for what he believes to be spiritual improvement. However instructive it is to study the manner in which a mind like that of Plato works out such a purpose in theory, there is no reason for regret that he never had an opportunity of carrying it into practice. The manner in which he always keeps in view the standing mental character, as an object of capital importance to be attended to, and as the analogon of health in the body — deserves all esteem. But when he assumes the sceptre of King Nomos (as in Republic and Leges) to fix by unchangeable authority what shall be the orthodox type of character, and to suppress all the varieties of emotion and intellect, except such as will run into a few predetermined moulds — he oversteps all the reasonable aims and boundaries of the political office.
Platonic analogy between mental goodness and bodily health — incomplete analogy — circumstances of difference.