Body, soul and a seeming good condition
PolusWell then? Do you say it is fine or shameful?
SocratesShameful, I say—for I call bad things shameful—since I must answer you as if you already knew what I mean.
GorgiasBy Zeus, Socrates, I myself don’t understand what you mean either.
SocratesNo wonder, Gorgias: I’m not saying anything clear yet, and Polus here is young and frisky.
GorgiasBut leave him be, and tell me instead: how do you mean, rhetoric is a phantom of a part of politics?
SocratesWell, I’ll try to explain what, to me at least, rhetoric appears to be; and if it isn’t in fact that, Polus here will refute me. There’s something you call body, I suppose, and something you call soul?
GorgiasHow could I not?
SocratesThen do you also think that there is a good condition of each of these?
GorgiasI do.
SocratesAnd what about this: a good condition that seems to be one, but is not? I mean something like this: many people seem to have their bodies in good condition, and no one could easily perceive that they are not in good condition, except a doctor or one of the gymnastic trainers.
GorgiasWhat you say is true.
SocratesSomething of this kind, I say, exists both in the body and in the soul: something that makes the body and the soul seem to be in good condition, while they are no more in good condition for it.
GorgiasThat is so.