_Socr._ Do you know, Theodorus, what I wonder at in your friend
Protagoras?
_Theo._ What?
_Socr._ In other respects I thought what he said was very acceptable,
that what appears to each person, really exists, but I wondered at the
beginning of his essay, that he did not say at the commencement of his
book on Truth that a pig or a cynocephalus or some other more monstrous
creature that possesses perception, is the measure of all things, in
order that he might begin by speaking grandly and very contemptuously to
us, shewing that we indeed admire him as if he were a god, for his
wisdom, whereas with respect to understanding, he is no better than a
tadpole, let alone any other man. What are we to say, Theodorus? 49. For
if that opinion which is formed from perception will be true to each
person, and no one will be able to decide better on the way in which
another is affected, nor one more competent to examine the opinion of
another, whether it is true or false, but, as we have often said, each
person by himself alone will form opinions for himself, and all these
are right and true, why in the world, my friend, should Protagoras be so
wise as to be thought justly worthy to teach others for high pay, while
we are more ignorant and must have recourse to him, though each person
is to himself the measure of his own wisdom? How can we avoid saying
that Protagoras speaks thus out of joke? As to myself and my art of
midwifery, I say nothing of the ridicule we should be exposed to, and I
think, so would the whole study of reasoning; for will it not be great
and signal vanity to examine and endeavour to confute the fancies and
opinions of others, each person’s being true, if the Truth of Protagoras
is true, and he has not uttered his oracles in sport from the sanctuary
of his book?
50. _Theo._ Socrates, he is my friend, as you just now said; I cannot,
therefore, allow Protagoras to be confuted by my concessions, nor yet
can I oppose you contrary to my own opinion. Again, therefore, take
Theætetus; for he certainly appears to have listened to you just now
very attentively.
_Socr._ If you went to Lacedæmon, Theodorus, to the wrestling grounds,
and were to see others naked, some of them mean, should you hesitate to
strip yourself and shew your own form in turn?
_Theo._ Why do you think I should not, at least if they would permit me
and be persuaded by me? as I think I shall now persuade you to allow me
to be a spectator, and not drag me to the gymnasium, now that my limbs
are stiff, but for you to wrestle with one who is younger and more
supple.
51. _Socr._ But if this is agreeable to you, Theodorus, it is not
disagreeable to me, as the vulgar saying goes. I must have recourse
again, therefore, to the wise Theætetus. Tell me, then, Theætetus, first
of all as to what we just now discussed, do you not wonder with me, that
you have so suddenly discovered yourself to be not inferior in wisdom to
any man or god? or do you think that the measure of Protagoras has less
to do with gods than men?
_Theæ._ Not I, by Jupiter: and I very much wonder at your question. For
when we discussed in what manner they said, that what appears to each
person is true to him to whom it appears, it seemed to me to be well
said, but now the very contrary has speedily occurred to me.
_Socr._ For you are young, my dear boy, and quickly give ear to and are
persuaded by plausible speeches. For to these things Protagoras or some
one on his behalf would say: “Noble boys and old men, you here sit and
converse together, dragging gods into the question, of whom, whether
they exist or not, I do not think proper either to speak or write, and
what the multitude hear and admit, this you assert, as if it were
strange if every man did not excel any beast whatever in wisdom, but you
do not adduce any proof, or conclusive argument, but have recourse to
likelihood, which if Theodorus or any other geometrician were to employ
in geometry, he would be deemed unworthy of notice.” 52. Do you,
therefore, and Theodorus, consider, whether on such matters you will
admit of arguments deduced from probability and likelihood.
_Theæ._ But, Socrates, neither would you nor we say that this is right.
_Socr._ We must therefore consider it in another way, as it appears,
according to what you and Theodorus says.
_Theæ._ In another way, certainly.
_Socr._ Let us, then, consider it thus, whether science and perception
are the same or different: for to this surely our whole discourse tends,
and for the sake of this we have mooted these many absurd points; have
we not?
_Theæ._ Assuredly.
_Socr._ Shall we allow then that whatever we perceive by sight or
hearing, this we at the same time know? for instance, before we have
learnt the language of barbarians, whether shall we deny that we hear
them when they speak, or that we both hear and know what they say? And
again, when unacquainted with letters, on looking at them, whether shall
we insist that we do not see, or know them, though we do see them?
53. _Theæ._ Whichever of them, Socrates, we see and hear, we shall say
that we know, for that of the latter we see and know the form and
colour, and of the former, that we both hear and know the sharpness and
flatness of the sounds; but that what grammarians and interpreters teach
about them, we neither perceive by sight or hearing, nor know.
_Socr._ Admirable, Theætetus, and it is not worth while to dispute with
you about these things, in order that you may make a greater
proficiency. But observe also this other difficulty that stands in our
way, and consider how we can repel it.
_Theæ._ What is that?
_Socr._ This: if any one should ask, whether it is possible for a person
who still possesses and retains the memory of a thing which he once
knew, at the very time when he remembers it, not to know the very thing
that he remembers. But I am becoming prolix, as it seems, through a wish
to ask whether a person who has learnt any thing and remembers it, does
not know it.
_Theæ._ How should he not, Socrates? for, otherwise, what you say would
be a prodigy.
_Socr._ Am I then trifling? Consider. 54. Do you not then say that to
see is to perceive, and that sight is perception?
_Theæ._ I do.
_Socr._ Has not he, then, who sees any thing, obtained a scientific
knowledge of that which he sees, according to our late argument?
_Theæ._ Yes.
_Socr._ What then? do you not say that memory is something?
_Theæ._ Yes.
_Socr._ Whether of nothing or something?
_Theæ._ Of something, surely.
_Socr._ Is it not, then, of the things which he learns and perceives, of
some such things as these?
_Theæ._ What else?
_Socr._ And what a person sees, does he not sometimes remember?
_Theæ._ He does remember.
_Socr._ When he shuts his eyes too? or, when he does this, does he
forget?
_Theæ._ It would be strange to say that, Socrates.
_Socr._ We must say it though, if we would keep to our former argument,
otherwise it is gone.
_Theæ._ And I suspect so, by Jupiter, though I do not clearly understand
it; but tell me how.
55. _Socr._ Thus. We say that a person who sees has obtained a
scientific knowledge of that which he sees; for sight and perception and
science are allowed to be the same.
_Theæ._ Certainly.
_Socr._ But he who sees, and has obtained a scientific knowledge of that
which he sees, if he shuts his eyes, remembers it indeed, but does not
see it. Is it not so?
_Theæ._ Yes.
_Socr._ But to say that he does not see is as much as to say he does not
know, since to see is the same thing as to know.
_Theæ._ True.
_Socr._ It follows, therefore, that a person who still remembers a thing
of which he had a scientific knowledge, does not know it, because he
does not see it; which we have said would be a prodigy, if it happened.
_Theæ._ You say most truly.
_Socr._ An impossibility, then, appears to result, if any one should say
that science and perception are the same.
_Theæ._ It seems so.
_Socr._ Each, then, must be confessed to be different.
_Theæ._ So it seems.
56. _Socr._ What then is science? must again, as it appears, be enquired
from the beginning. What however shall we do, Theætetus?
_Theæ._ About what?
_Socr._ We appear to me, like a dunghill cock, to have jumped from our
argument and begun to crow, before we have gained the victory.
_Theæ._ How so?
_Socr._ Like disputants we seem to have come to an agreement about the
allowed meaning of words, and, having got the better thus far in the
discussion, to be content, and though we say we are not wranglers but
lovers of wisdom, we do the same as those shrewd men.
_Theæ._ I do not yet understand what you mean.
_Socr._ But I will endeavour to explain what I mean on this point. We
enquired whether a person who has learnt and remembers any thing, does
not know it, and having shewn that a person who has seen a thing and
then shut his eyes, remembers it, but does not see it, we proved that he
does not know it and remembers it at the same time; but that this is
impossible. And so the Protagorean fable is destroyed, and yours at the
same time of science and perception, that they are the same.