Soc. Thank you, friend ; and I hope that you observed Protagoras bidding us be serious, as the text, “Man is the measure of all things,” was a solemn one ; and he reproached us with making a boy the medium of discourse, and said that the boy’s timidity was made to tell against his argument ; he also declared that we made a joke of him.
Theod. How could I fail to observe all that, Socrates ?
Soc. Well, and shall we do as he says ?
Theod. By all means.
Soc. But if his wishes are to be regarded, you and I must take up the argument, and in all seriousness, and ask and answer one another, for you see that the rest of us are nothing but boys. In no other way can we escape the imputation, that in our fresh analysis of his thesis we are making fun with boys.
Theod. Well, but is not Theaetetus better able to follow a philosophical enquiry than a great many men who have long beards ?
Soc. Yes, Theodorus, but not better than you ; and therefore please not to imagine that I am to defend by every means in my power your departed friend ; and that you are to defend nothing and nobody. At any rate, my good man, do not sheer off until we know whether you are a true measure of diagrams, or whether all men are equally measures and sufficient for themselves in astronomy and geometry, and the other branches of knowledge in which you are supposed to excel them.
Theod. He who is sitting by you, Socrates, will not easily avoid being drawn into an argument ; and when I said just now that you would excuse me, and not, like the Lacedaemonians, compel me to strip and fight, I was talking nonsense — I should rather compare you to Scirrhon, who threw travellers from the rocks ; for the Lacedaemonian rule is “strip or depart,” but you seem to go about your work more after the fashion of Antaeus : you will not allow any one who approaches you to depart until you have stripped him, and he has been compelled to try a fall with you in argument.
Soc. There, Theodorus, you have hit off precisely the nature of my complaint ; but I am even more pugnacious than the giants of old, for I have met with no end of heroes ; many a Heracles, many a Theseus, mighty in words, has broken my head ; nevertheless I am always at this rough exercise, which inspires me like a passion. Please, then, to try a fall with me, whereby you will do yourself good as well as me.
Theod. I consent ; lead me whither you will, for I know that you are like destiny ; no man can escape from any argument which you may weave for him. But I am not disposed to go further than you suggest.
Soc. Once will be enough ; and now take particular care that we do not again unwittingly expose ourselves to the reproach of talking childishly.
Theod. I will do my best to avoid that error.
Soc. In the first place, let us return to our old objection, and see whether we were right in blaming and taking offence at Protagoras on the ground that he assumed all to be equal and sufficient in wisdom ; although he admitted that there was a better and worse, and that in respect of this, some who as he said were the wise excelled others.
Theod. Very true.
Soc. Had Protagoras been living and answered for himself, instead of our answering for him, there would have been no need of our reviewing or reinforcing the argument. But as he is not here, and some one may accuse us of speaking without authority on his behalf, had we not better come to a clearer agreement about his meaning, for a great deal may be at stake ?
Theod. True.
Soc. Then let us obtain, not through any third person, but from his own statement and in the fewest words possible, the basis of agreement.
Theod. In what way ?
Soc. In this way : — His words are, “What seems to a man, is to him.”
Theod. Yes, so he says.
Soc. And are not we, Protagoras, uttering the opinion of man, or rather of all mankind, when we say that every one thinks himself wiser than other men in some things, and their inferior in others ? In the hour of danger, when they are in perils of war, or of the sea, or of sickness, do they not look up to their commanders as if they were gods, and expect salvation from them, only because they excel them in knowledge ? Is not the world full of men in their several employments, who are looking for teachers and rulers of themselves and of the animals ? and there are plenty who think that they are able to teach and able to rule. Now, in all this is implied that ignorance and wisdom exist among them, least in their own opinion.
Theod. Certainly.
Soc. And wisdom is assumed by them to be true thought, and ignorance to be false opinion.
Theod. Exactly.
Soc. How then, Protagoras, would you have us treat the argument ? Shall we say that the opinions of men are always true, or sometimes true and sometimes false ? In either case, the result is the same, and their opinions are not always true, but sometimes true and sometimes false. For tell me, Theodorus, do you suppose that you yourself, or any other follower of Protagoras, would contend that no one deems another ignorant or mistaken in his opinion ?
Theod. The thing is incredible, Socrates.
Soc. And yet that absurdity is necessarily involved in the thesis which declares man to be the measure of all things.
Theod. How so ?
Soc. Why, suppose that you determine in your own mind something to be true, and declare your opinion to me ; let us assume, as he argues, that this is true to you. Now, if so, you must either say that the rest of us are not the judges of this opinion or judgment of yours, or that we judge you always to have a true opinion : But are there not thousands upon thousands who, whenever you form a judgment, take up arms against you and are of an opposite judgment and opinion, deeming that you judge falsely ?
Theod. Yes, indeed, Socrates, thousands and tens of thousands, as Homer says, who give me a world of trouble.
Soc. Well, but are we to assert that what you think is true to you and false to the ten thousand others ?
Theod. No other inference seems to be possible.
Soc. And how about Protagoras himself ? If neither he nor the multitude thought, as indeed they do not think, that man is the measure of all things, must it not follow that the truth of which Protagoras wrote would be true to no one ? But if you suppose that he himself thought this, and that the multitude does not agree with him, you must begin by allowing that in whatever proportion the many are more than one, in that proportion his truth is more untrue than true.
Theod. That would follow if the truth is supposed to vary with individual opinion.
Soc. And the best of the joke is, that he acknowledges the truth of their opinion who believe his own opinion to be false ; for he admits that the opinions of all men are true.
Theod. Certainly.
Soc. And does he not allow that his own opinion is false, if he admits that the opinion of those who think him false is true ?
Theod. Of course.
Soc. Whereas the other side do not admit that they speak falsely ?
Theod. They do not.
Soc. And he, as may be inferred from his writings, agrees that this opinion is also true.
Theod. Clearly.
Soc. Then all mankind, beginning with Protagoras, will contend, or rather, I should say that he will allow, when he concedes that his adversary has a true opinion — Protagoras, I say, will himself allow that neither a dog nor any ordinary man is the measure of anything which he has not learned — am I not right ?
Theod. Yes.
Soc. And the truth of Protagoras being doubted by all, will be true neither to himself to any one else ?
Theod. I think, Socrates, that we are running my old friend too hard.
Soc. But do not know that we are going beyond the truth. Doubtless, as he is older, he may be expected to be wiser than we are. And if he could only just get his head out of the world below, he would have overthrown both of us again and again, me for talking nonsense and you for assenting to me, and have been off and underground in a trice. But as he is not within call, we must make the best use of our own faculties, such as they are, and speak out what appears to us to be true. And one thing which no one will deny is, that there are great differences in the understandings of men.
Theod. In that opinion I quite agree.
Soc. And is there not most likely to be firm ground in the distinction which we were indicating on behalf of Protagoras, viz., that most things, and all immediate sensations, such as hot, dry, sweet, are only such as they appear ; if however difference of opinion is to be allowed at all, surely we must allow it in respect of health or disease ? for every woman, child, or living creature has not such a knowledge of what conduces to health as to enable them to cure themselves.
Theod. I quite agree.