_Socr._ Thus. Does he not say that what appears to each person exists to
him to whom it appears?
_Theo._ He does say so.
_Socr._ Now, Protagoras, we speak the opinions of a man, or rather of
all men, and say that there is no one who does not think himself in some
respects wiser than others, and in other respects others wiser than
himself, and in the greatest dangers, when men are in peril, in wars, or
diseases, or storms at sea, they behave towards those who have power in
each several case as towards gods, looking up to them as their saviours,
though they excel them in nothing else than in knowledge; and the whole
world is almost full of men seeking for masters and governors of
themselves and other animals and works, and again of men who think
themselves competent to teach and competent to rule. And in all these
cases what else shall we say, than that men themselves think that there
is wisdom and ignorance among themselves?
_Theo._ Nothing else.
_Socr._ Do they not, then, think that wisdom is true opinion, and
ignorance false opinion?
_Theo._ How should they not?
71. _Socr._ How then, Protagoras, shall we deal with the assertion?
Whether shall we say that men always form true opinions, or sometimes
true and sometimes false? For in either way the result is that they do
not always form true opinions, but both true and false. For consider,
Theodorus, whether any one of the followers of Protagoras, or you
yourself, would contend that no one thinks that there is another who is
ignorant, and forms false opinions.
_Theo._ That is incredible, Socrates.
_Socr._ Yet the assertion, that man is the measure of all things, of
necessity comes to this?
_Theo._ How so?
_Socr._ When you have determined any thing within yourself, and make
known your opinion to me on any point, then, according to his statement,
your opinion must be true to you; but may not the rest become judges of
your judgment, or must we determine that you always form true opinions?
Will not myriads, who form contrary opinions to yours, continually
oppose you, deeming that you judge and think falsely?
_Theo._ By Jupiter, Socrates, there are myriads, as Homer says, who give
me a vast deal of trouble.
72. _Socr._ What then? Will you allow us to say that you then form
opinions that are true to yourself, but false to innumerable others?
_Theo._ This seems to me necessary, from the assertion.
_Socr._ But what with respect to Protagoras himself? If neither he
thought that man is the measure of all things, nor the multitude, as
indeed they do not, does it not necessarily follow that this truth which
he has described exists to no one? But if he himself thought so, but the
multitude do not agree with him, you must be aware that, in the first
place, by how many more they are to whom it does not appear so, than
those to whom it does so appear, by so much the more it is not than it
is?
_Theo._ Necessarily so, since, according to each several opinion, it
will be or will not be.
_Socr._ In the next place, this is very pleasant; for he, with respect
to his own opinion, admits, that the opinion of those who differ from
him, in that they think he is in error, is true, since he allows that
all men form opinions of things that exist.
_Theo._ Certainly.
_Socr._ Must he not, therefore, admit that his own opinion is false, if
he allows that the opinion of those who think he is in error is true?
_Theo._ Necessarily so.
_Socr._ The others however do not admit that they are in error?
_Theo._ Surely not.
73. _Socr._ He however, from what he has written, allows that this
opinion also is true.
_Theo._ It appears so.
_Socr._ It will therefore be controverted by all men, Protagoras not
excepted, or rather will be allowed by him, that when he admits to one
who differs from him, that he forms a true opinion, then even Protagoras
himself will admit that neither a dog, nor any man whatever, is the
measure of a thing that he has not learnt. Is it not so?
_Theo._ It is.
_Socr._ Therefore, since this is controverted by all men, Protagoras’s
truth will not be true to any one, neither to any one else, nor to
himself.
_Theo._ We run down my friend too severely, Socrates.
_Socr._ But, moreover, my friend, it is uncertain whether we have not
also exceeded the bounds of propriety. For it is probable that he being
older is wiser than we are: and if he should suddenly rise up as far as
his neck, having reproved me much for trifling, as is probable, and you
for assenting, he would sink down again and hurry away. 74. But it is
necessary for us, I think, to make use of our own abilities such as they
are, and to say whatever appears to us to be true. Well then, shall we
now say that any one will grant this, that one man is wiser than
another, and another also more ignorant?
_Theo._ It appears so to me.
_Socr._ Shall we say too that our argument holds good as we have laid it
down in our endeavours to assist Protagoras, that most things are as
they appear to every one, warm, dry, sweet, and all other things of this
kind; but that if in some things he shall admit that one man excels
another, he would say with regard to things wholesome and unwholesome,
that not every silly woman, boy and brute, is competent to cure itself
by knowing what is wholesome for itself, but that here, if any where,
one excels another?
_Theo._ So it appears to me.
75. _Socr._ And with respect to political matters, he will admit that
things honourable and base, just and unjust, holy and unholy, as each
city thinks right to enact laws for itself, are in truth such to each
city, and yet that in these things one individual is not at all wiser
than another, nor one city than another; but in enacting what is
expedient for itself or not expedient, here again, if any where, he will
allow that one counsellor excels another, and the opinion of one city
that of another with regard to truth; nor will he by any means venture
to affirm, that the laws which a city enacts, thinking them to be
expedient for itself, must certainly be so. But here in the matter I am
speaking about, with respect to what is just and unjust, holy and
unholy, men will persist that none of these have by nature an essence of
their own, but that what appears to the community to be true, that
becomes true at the time when it so appears, and so long as it appears.
And those who do not altogether hold the doctrine of Protagoras, deal
with philosophy in some such manner as this. But one topic of
conversation, Theodorus, springs from another, a greater from a less.