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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: statesmen, past as well as present, are included in the class of
flatterers. The true and false finally appear before the judgment-seat of
the gods below.
The dialogue naturally falls into three divisions, to which the three
characters of Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles respectively correspond; and
the form and manner change with the stages of the argument. Socrates is
deferential towards Gorgias, playful and yet cutting in dealing with the
youthful Polus, ironical and sarcastic in his encounter with Callicles. In
the first division the question is asked--What is rhetoric? To this there
is no answer given, for Gorgias is soon made to contradict himself by
Socrates, and the argument is transferred to the hands of his disciple
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