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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: real regard for their fellow-citizens. Granted; then there are two species
of oratory; the one a flattery, another which has a real regard for the
citizens. But where are the orators among whom you find the latter?
Callicles admits that there are none remaining, but there were such in the
days when Themistocles, Cimon, Miltiades, and the great Pericles were still
alive. Socrates replies that none of these were true artists, setting
before themselves the duty of bringing order out of disorder. The good man
and true orator has a settled design, running through his life, to which he
conforms all his words and actions; he desires to implant justice and
eradicate injustice, to implant all virtue and eradicate all vice in the
minds of his citizens. He is the physician who will not allow the sick man
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