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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Theaetetus, by Plato
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Theaetetus
+
+Author: Plato
+
+Posting Date: November 17, 2008 [EBook #1726]
+Release Date: April, 1999
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THEAETETUS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sue Asscher
+
+
+
+
+
+THEAETETUS
+
+By Plato
+
+
+Translated by Benjamin Jowett
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS.
+
+Some dialogues of Plato are of so various a character that their
+relation to the other dialogues cannot be determined with any degree of
+certainty. The Theaetetus, like the Parmenides, has points of similarity
+both with his earlier and his later writings. The perfection of style,
+the humour, the dramatic interest, the complexity of structure, the
+fertility of illustration, the shifting of the points of view, are
+characteristic of his best period of authorship. The vain search, the
+negative conclusion, the figure of the midwives, the constant profession
+of ignorance on the part of Socrates, also bear the stamp of the early
+dialogues, in which the original Socrates is not yet Platonized. Had we
+no other indications, we should be disposed to range the Theaetetus with
+the Apology and the Phaedrus, and perhaps even with the Protagoras and
+the Laches.
+
+But when we pass from the style to an examination of the subject,
+we trace a connection with the later rather than with the earlier
+dialogues. In the first place there is the connexion, indicated by Plato
+himself at the end of the dialogue, with the Sophist, to which in
+many respects the Theaetetus is so little akin. (1) The same persons
+reappear, including the younger Socrates, whose name is just mentioned
+in the Theaetetus; (2) the theory of rest, which Socrates has declined
+to consider, is resumed by the Eleatic Stranger; (3) there is a similar
+allusion in both dialogues to the meeting of Parmenides and Socrates
+(Theaet., Soph.); and (4) the inquiry into not-being in the Sophist
+supplements the question of false opinion which is raised in the
+Theaetetus. (Compare also Theaet. and Soph. for parallel turns of
+thought.) Secondly, the later date of the dialogue is confirmed by the
+absence of the doctrine of recollection and of any doctrine of ideas
+except that which derives them from generalization and from reflection
+of the mind upon itself. The general character of the Theaetetus is
+dialectical, and there are traces of the same Megarian influences which
+appear in the Parmenides, and which later writers, in their matter of
+fact way, have explained by the residence of Plato at Megara. Socrates
+disclaims the character of a professional eristic, and also, with a sort
+of ironical admiration, expresses his inability to attain the Megarian
+precision in the use of terms. Yet he too employs a similar sophistical
+skill in overturning every conceivable theory of knowledge.
+
+The direct indications of a date amount to no more than this: the
+conversation is said to have taken place when Theaetetus was a youth,
+and shortly before the death of Socrates. At the time of his own death
+he is supposed to be a full-grown man. Allowing nine or ten years for
+the interval between youth and manhood, the dialogue could not have been
+written earlier than 390, when Plato was about thirty-nine years of age.
+No more definite date is indicated by the engagement in which Theaetetus
+is said to have fallen or to have been wounded, and which may have taken
+place any time during the Corinthian war, between the years 390-387.
+The later date which has been suggested, 369, when the Athenians and
+Lacedaemonians disputed the Isthmus with Epaminondas, would make the
+age of Theaetetus at his death forty-five or forty-six. This a little
+impairs the beauty of Socrates' remark, that 'he would be a great man if
+he lived.'
+
+In this uncertainty about the place of the Theaetetus, it seemed better,
+as in the case of the Republic, Timaeus, Critias, to retain the order in
+which Plato himself has arranged this and the two companion dialogues.
+We cannot exclude the possibility which has been already noticed in
+reference to other works of Plato, that the Theaetetus may not have
+been all written continuously; or the probability that the Sophist and
+Politicus, which differ greatly in style, were only appended after a
+long interval of time. The allusion to Parmenides compared with the
+Sophist, would probably imply that the dialogue which is called by his
+name was already in existence; unless, indeed, we suppose the passage in
+which the allusion occurs to have been inserted afterwards. Again,
+the Theaetetus may be connected with the Gorgias, either dialogue from
+different points of view containing an analysis of the real and apparent
+(Schleiermacher); and both may be brought into relation with the Apology
+as illustrating the personal life of Socrates. The Philebus, too, may
+with equal reason be placed either after or before what, in the language
+of Thrasyllus, may be called the Second Platonic Trilogy. Both the
+Parmenides and the Sophist, and still more the Theaetetus, have points
+of affinity with the Cratylus, in which the principles of rest and
+motion are again contrasted, and the Sophistical or Protagorean theory
+of language is opposed to that which is attributed to the disciple
+of Heracleitus, not to speak of lesser resemblances in thought and
+language. The Parmenides, again, has been thought by some to hold an
+intermediate position between the Theaetetus and the Sophist; upon this
+view, the Sophist may be regarded as the answer to the problems about
+One and Being which have been raised in the Parmenides. Any of these
+arrangements may suggest new views to the student of Plato; none of them
+can lay claim to an exclusive probability in its favour.
+
+The Theaetetus is one of the narrated dialogues of Plato, and is
+the only one which is supposed to have been written down. In a short
+introductory scene, Euclides and Terpsion are described as meeting
+before the door of Euclides' house in Megara. This may have been a
+spot familiar to Plato (for Megara was within a walk of Athens), but no
+importance can be attached to the accidental introduction of the founder
+of the Megarian philosophy. The real intention of the preface is to
+create an interest about the person of Theaetetus, who has just been
+carried up from the army at Corinth in a dying state. The expectation
+of his death recalls the promise of his youth, and especially the famous
+conversation which Socrates had with him when he was quite young, a few
+days before his own trial and death, as we are once more reminded at the
+end of the dialogue. Yet we may observe that Plato has himself forgotten
+this, when he represents Euclides as from time to time coming to Athens
+and correcting the copy from Socrates' own mouth. The narrative, having
+introduced Theaetetus, and having guaranteed the authenticity of the
+dialogue (compare Symposium, Phaedo, Parmenides), is then dropped. No
+further use is made of the device. As Plato himself remarks, who in this
+as in some other minute points is imitated by Cicero (De Amicitia), the
+interlocutory words are omitted.
+
+Theaetetus, the hero of the battle of Corinth and of the dialogue, is
+a disciple of Theodorus, the great geometrician, whose science is thus
+indicated to be the propaedeutic to philosophy. An interest has been
+already excited about him by his approaching death, and now he is
+introduced to us anew by the praises of his master Theodorus. He is a
+youthful Socrates, and exhibits the same contrast of the fair soul and
+the ungainly face and frame, the Silenus mask and the god within, which
+are described in the Symposium. The picture which Theodorus gives of
+his courage and patience and intelligence and modesty is verified in
+the course of the dialogue. His courage is shown by his behaviour in the
+battle, and his other qualities shine forth as the argument proceeds.
+Socrates takes an evident delight in 'the wise Theaetetus,' who has more
+in him than 'many bearded men'; he is quite inspired by his answers. At
+first the youth is lost in wonder, and is almost too modest to speak,
+but, encouraged by Socrates, he rises to the occasion, and grows full of
+interest and enthusiasm about the great question. Like a youth, he has
+not finally made up his mind, and is very ready to follow the lead of
+Socrates, and to enter into each successive phase of the discussion
+which turns up. His great dialectical talent is shown in his power of
+drawing distinctions, and of foreseeing the consequences of his own
+answers. The enquiry about the nature of knowledge is not new to him;
+long ago he has felt the 'pang of philosophy,' and has experienced the
+youthful intoxication which is depicted in the Philebus. But he
+has hitherto been unable to make the transition from mathematics to
+metaphysics. He can form a general conception of square and oblong
+numbers, but he is unable to attain a similar expression of knowledge
+in the abstract. Yet at length he begins to recognize that there are
+universal conceptions of being, likeness, sameness, number, which the
+mind contemplates in herself, and with the help of Socrates is conducted
+from a theory of sense to a theory of ideas.
+
+There is no reason to doubt that Theaetetus was a real person, whose
+name survived in the next generation. But neither can any importance be
+attached to the notices of him in Suidas and Proclus, which are probably
+based on the mention of him in Plato. According to a confused statement
+in Suidas, who mentions him twice over, first, as a pupil of Socrates,
+and then of Plato, he is said to have written the first work on the Five
+Solids. But no early authority cites the work, the invention of which
+may have been easily suggested by the division of roots, which Plato
+attributes to him, and the allusion to the backward state of solid
+geometry in the Republic. At any rate, there is no occasion to recall
+him to life again after the battle of Corinth, in order that we may
+allow time for the completion of such a work (Muller). We may also
+remark that such a supposition entirely destroys the pathetic interest
+of the introduction.
+
+Theodorus, the geometrician, had once been the friend and disciple of
+Protagoras, but he is very reluctant to leave his retirement and defend
+his old master. He is too old to learn Socrates' game of question and
+answer, and prefers the digressions to the main argument, because he
+finds them easier to follow. The mathematician, as Socrates says in the
+Republic, is not capable of giving a reason in the same manner as the
+dialectician, and Theodorus could not therefore have been appropriately
+introduced as the chief respondent. But he may be fairly appealed to,
+when the honour of his master is at stake. He is the 'guardian of his
+orphans,' although this is a responsibility which he wishes to throw
+upon Callias, the friend and patron of all Sophists, declaring that
+he himself had early 'run away' from philosophy, and was absorbed in
+mathematics. His extreme dislike to the Heraclitean fanatics, which may
+be compared with the dislike of Theaetetus to the materialists, and his
+ready acceptance of the noble words of Socrates, are noticeable traits
+of character.
+
+The Socrates of the Theaetetus is the same as the Socrates of the
+earlier dialogues. He is the invincible disputant, now advanced in
+years, of the Protagoras and Symposium; he is still pursuing his divine
+mission, his 'Herculean labours,' of which he has described the origin
+in the Apology; and he still hears the voice of his oracle, bidding him
+receive or not receive the truant souls. There he is supposed to have
+a mission to convict men of self-conceit; in the Theaetetus he has
+assigned to him by God the functions of a man-midwife, who delivers men
+of their thoughts, and under this character he is present throughout the
+dialogue. He is the true prophet who has an insight into the natures
+of men, and can divine their future; and he knows that sympathy is the
+secret power which unlocks their thoughts. The hit at Aristides, the son
+of Lysimachus, who was specially committed to his charge in the Laches,
+may be remarked by the way. The attempt to discover the definition
+of knowledge is in accordance with the character of Socrates as he
+is described in the Memorabilia, asking What is justice? what is
+temperance? and the like. But there is no reason to suppose that he
+would have analyzed the nature of perception, or traced the connexion
+of Protagoras and Heracleitus, or have raised the difficulty respecting
+false opinion. The humorous illustrations, as well as the serious
+thoughts, run through the dialogue. The snubnosedness of Theaetetus, a
+characteristic which he shares with Socrates, and the man-midwifery
+of Socrates, are not forgotten in the closing words. At the end of the
+dialogue, as in the Euthyphro, he is expecting to meet Meletus at the
+porch of the king Archon; but with the same indifference to the result
+which is everywhere displayed by him, he proposes that they shall
+reassemble on the following day at the same spot. The day comes, and
+in the Sophist the three friends again meet, but no further allusion is
+made to the trial, and the principal share in the argument is assigned,
+not to Socrates, but to an Eleatic stranger; the youthful Theaetetus
+also plays a different and less independent part. And there is no
+allusion in the Introduction to the second and third dialogues, which
+are afterwards appended. There seems, therefore, reason to think that
+there is a real change, both in the characters and in the design.
+
+The dialogue is an enquiry into the nature of knowledge, which is
+interrupted by two digressions. The first is the digression about the
+midwives, which is also a leading thought or continuous image, like the
+wave in the Republic, appearing and reappearing at intervals. Again and
+again we are reminded that the successive conceptions of knowledge are
+extracted from Theaetetus, who in his turn truly declares that Socrates
+has got a great deal more out of him than ever was in him. Socrates is
+never weary of working out the image in humorous details,--discerning
+the symptoms of labour, carrying the child round the hearth, fearing
+that Theaetetus will bite him, comparing his conceptions to wind-eggs,
+asserting an hereditary right to the occupation. There is also a serious
+side to the image, which is an apt similitude of the Socratic theory
+of education (compare Republic, Sophist), and accords with the ironical
+spirit in which the wisest of men delights to speak of himself.
+
+The other digression is the famous contrast of the lawyer and
+philosopher. This is a sort of landing-place or break in the middle of
+the dialogue. At the commencement of a great discussion, the reflection
+naturally arises, How happy are they who, like the philosopher, have
+time for such discussions (compare Republic)! There is no reason for the
+introduction of such a digression; nor is a reason always needed, any
+more than for the introduction of an episode in a poem, or of a topic in
+conversation. That which is given by Socrates is quite sufficient, viz.
+that the philosopher may talk and write as he pleases. But though not
+very closely connected, neither is the digression out of keeping with
+the rest of the dialogue. The philosopher naturally desires to pour
+forth the thoughts which are always present to him, and to discourse of
+the higher life. The idea of knowledge, although hard to be defined, is
+realised in the life of philosophy. And the contrast is the favourite
+antithesis between the world, in the various characters of sophist,
+lawyer, statesman, speaker, and the philosopher,--between opinion and
+knowledge,--between the conventional and the true.
+
+The greater part of the dialogue is devoted to setting up and throwing
+down definitions of science and knowledge. Proceeding from the lower to
+the higher by three stages, in which perception, opinion, reasoning are
+successively examined, we first get rid of the confusion of the idea of
+knowledge and specific kinds of knowledge,--a confusion which has been
+already noticed in the Lysis, Laches, Meno, and other dialogues. In
+the infancy of logic, a form of thought has to be invented before the
+content can be filled up. We cannot define knowledge until the nature of
+definition has been ascertained. Having succeeded in making his meaning
+plain, Socrates proceeds to analyze (1) the first definition which
+Theaetetus proposes: 'Knowledge is sensible perception.' This is
+speedily identified with the Protagorean saying, 'Man is the measure
+of all things;' and of this again the foundation is discovered in the
+perpetual flux of Heracleitus. The relativeness of sensation is then
+developed at length, and for a moment the definition appears to be
+accepted. But soon the Protagorean thesis is pronounced to be suicidal;
+for the adversaries of Protagoras are as good a measure as he is, and
+they deny his doctrine. He is then supposed to reply that the perception
+may be true at any given instant. But the reply is in the end shown to
+be inconsistent with the Heraclitean foundation, on which the doctrine
+has been affirmed to rest. For if the Heraclitean flux is extended to
+every sort of change in every instant of time, how can any thought
+or word be detained even for an instant? Sensible perception, like
+everything else, is tumbling to pieces. Nor can Protagoras himself
+maintain that one man is as good as another in his knowledge of the
+future; and 'the expedient,' if not 'the just and true,' belongs to the
+sphere of the future.
+
+And so we must ask again, What is knowledge? The comparison of
+sensations with one another implies a principle which is above
+sensation, and which resides in the mind itself. We are thus led to look
+for knowledge in a higher sphere, and accordingly Theaetetus, when again
+interrogated, replies (2) that 'knowledge is true opinion.' But how is
+false opinion possible? The Megarian or Eristic spirit within us revives
+the question, which has been already asked and indirectly answered in
+the Meno: 'How can a man be ignorant of that which he knows?' No answer
+is given to this not unanswerable question. The comparison of the mind
+to a block of wax, or to a decoy of birds, is found wanting.
+
+But are we not inverting the natural order in looking for opinion before
+we have found knowledge? And knowledge is not true opinion; for the
+Athenian dicasts have true opinion but not knowledge. What then
+is knowledge? We answer (3), 'True opinion, with definition or
+explanation.' But all the different ways in which this statement may be
+understood are set aside, like the definitions of courage in the Laches,
+or of friendship in the Lysis, or of temperance in the Charmides. At
+length we arrive at the conclusion, in which nothing is concluded.
+
+There are two special difficulties which beset the student of the
+Theaetetus: (1) he is uncertain how far he can trust Plato's account of
+the theory of Protagoras; and he is also uncertain (2) how far, and in
+what parts of the dialogue, Plato is expressing his own opinion.
+The dramatic character of the work renders the answer to both these
+questions difficult.
+
+1. In reply to the first, we have only probabilities to offer. Three
+main points have to be decided: (a) Would Protagoras have identified
+his own thesis, 'Man is the measure of all things,' with the other,
+'All knowledge is sensible perception'? (b) Would he have based the
+relativity of knowledge on the Heraclitean flux? (c) Would he have
+asserted the absoluteness of sensation at each instant? Of the work of
+Protagoras on 'Truth' we know nothing, with the exception of the two
+famous fragments, which are cited in this dialogue, 'Man is the measure
+of all things,' and, 'Whether there are gods or not, I cannot tell.' Nor
+have we any other trustworthy evidence of the tenets of Protagoras, or
+of the sense in which his words are used. For later writers, including
+Aristotle in his Metaphysics, have mixed up the Protagoras of Plato, as
+they have the Socrates of Plato, with the real person.
+
+Returning then to the Theaetetus, as the only possible source from which
+an answer to these questions can be obtained, we may remark, that Plato
+had 'The Truth' of Protagoras before him, and frequently refers to the
+book. He seems to say expressly, that in this work the doctrine of the
+Heraclitean flux was not to be found; 'he told the real truth' (not
+in the book, which is so entitled, but) 'privately to his
+disciples,'--words which imply that the connexion between the doctrines
+of Protagoras and Heracleitus was not generally recognized in Greece,
+but was really discovered or invented by Plato. On the other hand,
+the doctrine that 'Man is the measure of all things,' is expressly
+identified by Socrates with the other statement, that 'What appears to
+each man is to him;' and a reference is made to the books in which the
+statement occurs;--this Theaetetus, who has 'often read the books,' is
+supposed to acknowledge (so Cratylus). And Protagoras, in the speech
+attributed to him, never says that he has been misunderstood: he rather
+seems to imply that the absoluteness of sensation at each instant was
+to be found in his words. He is only indignant at the 'reductio ad
+absurdum' devised by Socrates for his 'homo mensura,' which Theodorus
+also considers to be 'really too bad.'
+
+The question may be raised, how far Plato in the Theaetetus could
+have misrepresented Protagoras without violating the laws of dramatic
+probability. Could he have pretended to cite from a well-known writing
+what was not to be found there? But such a shadowy enquiry is not worth
+pursuing further. We need only remember that in the criticism which
+follows of the thesis of Protagoras, we are criticizing the Protagoras
+of Plato, and not attempting to draw a precise line between his real
+sentiments and those which Plato has attributed to him.
+
+2. The other difficulty is a more subtle, and also a more important one,
+because bearing on the general character of the Platonic dialogues. On
+a first reading of them, we are apt to imagine that the truth is only
+spoken by Socrates, who is never guilty of a fallacy himself, and is the
+great detector of the errors and fallacies of others. But this natural
+presumption is disturbed by the discovery that the Sophists are
+sometimes in the right and Socrates in the wrong. Like the hero of a
+novel, he is not to be supposed always to represent the sentiments
+of the author. There are few modern readers who do not side with
+Protagoras, rather than with Socrates, in the dialogue which is
+called by his name. The Cratylus presents a similar difficulty: in
+his etymologies, as in the number of the State, we cannot tell how
+far Socrates is serious; for the Socratic irony will not allow him
+to distinguish between his real and his assumed wisdom. No one is the
+superior of the invincible Socrates in argument (except in the first
+part of the Parmenides, where he is introduced as a youth); but he is by
+no means supposed to be in possession of the whole truth. Arguments are
+often put into his mouth (compare Introduction to the Gorgias) which
+must have seemed quite as untenable to Plato as to a modern writer.
+In this dialogue a great part of the answer of Protagoras is just
+and sound; remarks are made by him on verbal criticism, and on the
+importance of understanding an opponent's meaning, which are conceived
+in the true spirit of philosophy. And the distinction which he is
+supposed to draw between Eristic and Dialectic, is really a criticism of
+Plato on himself and his own criticism of Protagoras.
+
+The difficulty seems to arise from not attending to the dramatic
+character of the writings of Plato. There are two, or more, sides to
+questions; and these are parted among the different speakers. Sometimes
+one view or aspect of a question is made to predominate over the rest,
+as in the Gorgias or Sophist; but in other dialogues truth is divided,
+as in the Laches and Protagoras, and the interest of the piece consists
+in the contrast of opinions. The confusion caused by the irony of
+Socrates, who, if he is true to his character, cannot say anything
+of his own knowledge, is increased by the circumstance that in the
+Theaetetus and some other dialogues he is occasionally playing both
+parts himself, and even charging his own arguments with unfairness. In
+the Theaetetus he is designedly held back from arriving at a conclusion.
+For we cannot suppose that Plato conceived a definition of knowledge to
+be impossible. But this is his manner of approaching and surrounding a
+question. The lights which he throws on his subject are indirect, but
+they are not the less real for that. He has no intention of proving a
+thesis by a cut-and-dried argument; nor does he imagine that a great
+philosophical problem can be tied up within the limits of a definition.
+If he has analyzed a proposition or notion, even with the severity of
+an impossible logic, if half-truths have been compared by him with
+other half-truths, if he has cleared up or advanced popular ideas, or
+illustrated a new method, his aim has been sufficiently accomplished.
+
+The writings of Plato belong to an age in which the power of analysis
+had outrun the means of knowledge; and through a spurious use of
+dialectic, the distinctions which had been already 'won from the void
+and formless infinite,' seemed to be rapidly returning to their original
+chaos. The two great speculative philosophies, which a century earlier
+had so deeply impressed the mind of Hellas, were now degenerating into
+Eristic. The contemporaries of Plato and Socrates were vainly trying to
+find new combinations of them, or to transfer them from the object to
+the subject. The Megarians, in their first attempts to attain a severer
+logic, were making knowledge impossible (compare Theaet.). They were
+asserting 'the one good under many names,' and, like the Cynics, seem
+to have denied predication, while the Cynics themselves were depriving
+virtue of all which made virtue desirable in the eyes of Socrates and
+Plato. And besides these, we find mention in the later writings of
+Plato, especially in the Theaetetus, Sophist, and Laws, of certain
+impenetrable godless persons, who will not believe what they 'cannot
+hold in their hands'; and cannot be approached in argument, because they
+cannot argue (Theat; Soph.). No school of Greek philosophers exactly
+answers to these persons, in whom Plato may perhaps have blended some
+features of the Atomists with the vulgar materialistic tendencies of
+mankind in general (compare Introduction to the Sophist).
+
+And not only was there a conflict of opinions, but the stage which the
+mind had reached presented other difficulties hardly intelligible to
+us, who live in a different cycle of human thought. All times of mental
+progress are times of confusion; we only see, or rather seem to see
+things clearly, when they have been long fixed and defined. In the
+age of Plato, the limits of the world of imagination and of pure
+abstraction, of the old world and the new, were not yet fixed. The
+Greeks, in the fourth century before Christ, had no words for 'subject'
+and 'object,' and no distinct conception of them; yet they were always
+hovering about the question involved in them. The analysis of sense, and
+the analysis of thought, were equally difficult to them; and hopelessly
+confused by the attempt to solve them, not through an appeal to facts,
+but by the help of general theories respecting the nature of the
+universe.
+
+Plato, in his Theaetetus, gathers up the sceptical tendencies of his
+age, and compares them. But he does not seek to reconstruct out of them
+a theory of knowledge. The time at which such a theory could be framed
+had not yet arrived. For there was no measure of experience with which
+the ideas swarming in men's minds could be compared; the meaning of
+the word 'science' could scarcely be explained to them, except from the
+mathematical sciences, which alone offered the type of universality and
+certainty. Philosophy was becoming more and more vacant and abstract,
+and not only the Platonic Ideas and the Eleatic Being, but all
+abstractions seemed to be at variance with sense and at war with one
+another.
+
+The want of the Greek mind in the fourth century before Christ was
+not another theory of rest or motion, or Being or atoms, but rather a
+philosophy which could free the mind from the power of abstractions
+and alternatives, and show how far rest and how far motion, how far the
+universal principle of Being and the multitudinous principle of atoms,
+entered into the composition of the world; which could distinguish
+between the true and false analogy, and allow the negative as well as
+the positive a place in human thought. To such a philosophy Plato, in
+the Theaetetus, offers many contributions. He has followed philosophy
+into the region of mythology, and pointed out the similarities of
+opposing phases of thought. He has also shown that extreme abstractions
+are self-destructive, and, indeed, hardly distinguishable from one
+another. But his intention is not to unravel the whole subject of
+knowledge, if this had been possible; and several times in the course
+of the dialogue he rejects explanations of knowledge which have germs of
+truth in them; as, for example, 'the resolution of the compound into the
+simple;' or 'right opinion with a mark of difference.'
+
+...
+
+Terpsion, who has come to Megara from the country, is described as
+having looked in vain for Euclides in the Agora; the latter explains
+that he has been down to the harbour, and on his way thither had met
+Theaetetus, who was being carried up from the army to Athens. He was
+scarcely alive, for he had been badly wounded at the battle of Corinth,
+and had taken the dysentery which prevailed in the camp. The mention of
+his condition suggests the reflection, 'What a loss he will be!' 'Yes,
+indeed,' replies Euclid; 'only just now I was hearing of his noble
+conduct in the battle.' 'That I should expect; but why did he not remain
+at Megara?' 'I wanted him to remain, but he would not; so I went with
+him as far as Erineum; and as I parted from him, I remembered that
+Socrates had seen him when he was a youth, and had a remarkable
+conversation with him, not long before his own death; and he then
+prophesied of him that he would be a great man if he lived.' 'How true
+that has been; how like all that Socrates said! And could you repeat the
+conversation?' 'Not from memory; but I took notes when I returned home,
+which I afterwards filled up at leisure, and got Socrates to correct
+them from time to time, when I came to Athens'...Terpsion had long
+intended to ask for a sight of this writing, of which he had already
+heard. They are both tired, and agree to rest and have the conversation
+read to them by a servant...'Here is the roll, Terpsion; I need
+only observe that I have omitted, for the sake of convenience, the
+interlocutory words, "said I," "said he"; and that Theaetetus, and
+Theodorus, the geometrician of Cyrene, are the persons with whom
+Socrates is conversing.'
+
+Socrates begins by asking Theodorus whether, in his visit to Athens, he
+has found any Athenian youth likely to attain distinction in science.
+'Yes, Socrates, there is one very remarkable youth, with whom I have
+become acquainted. He is no beauty, and therefore you need not imagine
+that I am in love with him; and, to say the truth, he is very like you,
+for he has a snub nose, and projecting eyes, although these features are
+not so marked in him as in you. He combines the most various qualities,
+quickness, patience, courage; and he is gentle as well as wise, always
+silently flowing on, like a river of oil. Look! he is the middle one of
+those who are entering the palaestra.'
+
+Socrates, who does not know his name, recognizes him as the son of
+Euphronius, who was himself a good man and a rich. He is informed by
+Theodorus that the youth is named Theaetetus, but the property of his
+father has disappeared in the hands of trustees; this does not, however,
+prevent him from adding liberality to his other virtues. At the desire
+of Socrates he invites Theaetetus to sit by them.
+
+'Yes,' says Socrates, 'that I may see in you, Theaetetus, the image
+of my ugly self, as Theodorus declares. Not that his remark is of any
+importance; for though he is a philosopher, he is not a painter, and
+therefore he is no judge of our faces; but, as he is a man of science,
+he may be a judge of our intellects. And if he were to praise the mental
+endowments of either of us, in that case the hearer of the eulogy ought
+to examine into what he says, and the subject should not refuse to be
+examined.' Theaetetus consents, and is caught in a trap (compare the
+similar trap which is laid for Theodorus). 'Then, Theaetetus, you will
+have to be examined, for Theodorus has been praising you in a style of
+which I never heard the like.' 'He was only jesting.' 'Nay, that is not
+his way; and I cannot allow you, on that pretence, to retract the assent
+which you have already given, or I shall make Theodorus repeat your
+praises, and swear to them.' Theaetetus, in reply, professes that he is
+willing to be examined, and Socrates begins by asking him what he learns
+of Theodorus. He is himself anxious to learn anything of anybody; and
+now he has a little question to which he wants Theaetetus or Theodorus
+(or whichever of the company would not be 'donkey' to the rest) to find
+an answer. Without further preface, but at the same time apologizing
+for his eagerness, he asks, 'What is knowledge?' Theodorus is too old
+to answer questions, and begs him to interrogate Theaetetus, who has the
+advantage of youth.
+
+Theaetetus replies, that knowledge is what he learns of Theodorus,
+i.e. geometry and arithmetic; and that there are other kinds of
+knowledge--shoemaking, carpentering, and the like. But Socrates rejoins,
+that this answer contains too much and also too little. For although
+Theaetetus has enumerated several kinds of knowledge, he has not
+explained the common nature of them; as if he had been asked, 'What is
+clay?' and instead of saying 'Clay is moistened earth,' he had answered,
+'There is one clay of image-makers, another of potters, another of
+oven-makers.' Theaetetus at once divines that Socrates means him to
+extend to all kinds of knowledge the same process of generalization
+which he has already learned to apply to arithmetic. For he has
+discovered a division of numbers into square numbers, 4, 9, 16, etc.,
+which are composed of equal factors, and represent figures which have
+equal sides, and oblong numbers, 3, 5, 6, 7, etc., which are composed of
+unequal factors, and represent figures which have unequal sides. But
+he has never succeeded in attaining a similar conception of knowledge,
+though he has often tried; and, when this and similar questions were
+brought to him from Socrates, has been sorely distressed by them.
+Socrates explains to him that he is in labour. For men as well as
+women have pangs of labour; and both at times require the assistance of
+midwives. And he, Socrates, is a midwife, although this is a secret; he
+has inherited the art from his mother bold and bluff, and he ushers into
+light, not children, but the thoughts of men. Like the midwives, who are
+'past bearing children,' he too can have no offspring--the God will not
+allow him to bring anything into the world of his own. He also reminds
+Theaetetus that the midwives are or ought to be the only matchmakers
+(this is the preparation for a biting jest); for those who reap the
+fruit are most likely to know on what soil the plants will grow. But
+respectable midwives avoid this department of practice--they do not want
+to be called procuresses. There are some other differences between the
+two sorts of pregnancy. For women do not bring into the world at one
+time real children and at another time idols which are with difficulty
+distinguished from them. 'At first,' says Socrates in his character of
+the man-midwife, 'my patients are barren and stolid, but after a while
+they "round apace," if the gods are propitious to them; and this is due
+not to me but to themselves; I and the god only assist in bringing their
+ideas to the birth. Many of them have left me too soon, and the result
+has been that they have produced abortions; or when I have delivered
+them of children they have lost them by an ill bringing up, and have
+ended by seeing themselves, as others see them, to be great fools.
+Aristides, the son of Lysimachus, is one of these, and there have been
+others. The truants often return to me and beg to be taken back; and
+then, if my familiar allows me, which is not always the case, I receive
+them, and they begin to grow again. There come to me also those who have
+nothing in them, and have no need of my art; and I am their matchmaker
+(see above), and marry them to Prodicus or some other inspired sage who
+is likely to suit them. I tell you this long story because I suspect
+that you are in labour. Come then to me, who am a midwife, and the son
+of a midwife, and I will deliver you. And do not bite me, as the women
+do, if I abstract your first-born; for I am acting out of good-will
+towards you; the God who is within me is the friend of man, though he
+will not allow me to dissemble the truth. Once more then, Theaetetus,
+I repeat my old question--"What is knowledge?" Take courage, and by the
+help of God you will discover an answer.' 'My answer is, that knowledge
+is perception.' 'That is the theory of Protagoras, who has another way
+of expressing the same thing when he says, "Man is the measure of all
+things." He was a very wise man, and we should try to understand him.
+In order to illustrate his meaning let me suppose that there is the same
+wind blowing in our faces, and one of us may be hot and the other cold.
+How is this? Protagoras will reply that the wind is hot to him who is
+cold, cold to him who is hot. And "is" means "appears," and when you
+say "appears to him," that means "he feels." Thus feeling, appearance,
+perception, coincide with being. I suspect, however, that this was only
+a "facon de parler," by which he imposed on the common herd like you and
+me; he told "the truth" (in allusion to the title of his book, which
+was called "The Truth") in secret to his disciples. For he was really
+a votary of that famous philosophy in which all things are said to be
+relative; nothing is great or small, or heavy or light, or one, but all
+is in motion and mixture and transition and flux and generation, not
+"being," as we ignorantly affirm, but "becoming." This has been the
+doctrine, not of Protagoras only, but of all philosophers, with the
+single exception of Parmenides; Empedocles, Heracleitus, and others, and
+all the poets, with Epicharmus, the king of Comedy, and Homer, the king
+of Tragedy, at their head, have said the same; the latter has these
+words--
+
+"Ocean, whence the gods sprang, and mother Tethys."
+
+And many arguments are used to show, that motion is the source of life,
+and rest of death: fire and warmth are produced by friction, and living
+creatures owe their origin to a similar cause; the bodily frame is
+preserved by exercise and destroyed by indolence; and if the sun ceased
+to move, "chaos would come again." Now apply this doctrine of "All
+is motion" to the senses, and first of all to the sense of sight. The
+colour of white, or any other colour, is neither in the eyes nor out of
+them, but ever in motion between the object and the eye, and varying in
+the case of every percipient. All is relative, and, as the followers of
+Protagoras remark, endless contradictions arise when we deny this; e.g.
+here are six dice; they are more than four and less than twelve; "more
+and also less," would you not say?' 'Yes.' 'But Protagoras will retort:
+"Can anything be more or less without addition or subtraction?"'
+
+'I should say "No" if I were not afraid of contradicting my former
+answer.'
+
+'And if you say "Yes," the tongue will escape conviction but not the
+mind, as Euripides would say?' 'True.' 'The thoroughbred Sophists, who
+know all that can be known, would have a sparring match over this, but
+you and I, who have no professional pride, want only to discover whether
+our ideas are clear and consistent. And we cannot be wrong in saying,
+first, that nothing can be greater or less while remaining equal;
+secondly, that there can be no becoming greater or less without addition
+or subtraction; thirdly, that what is and was not, cannot be without
+having become. But then how is this reconcilable with the case of the
+dice, and with similar examples?--that is the question.' 'I am often
+perplexed and amazed, Socrates, by these difficulties.' 'That is because
+you are a philosopher, for philosophy begins in wonder, and Iris is
+the child of Thaumas. Do you know the original principle on which the
+doctrine of Protagoras is based?' 'No.' 'Then I will tell you; but we
+must not let the uninitiated hear, and by the uninitiated I mean the
+obstinate people who believe in nothing which they cannot hold in their
+hands. The brethren whose mysteries I am about to unfold to you are far
+more ingenious. They maintain that all is motion; and that motion
+has two forms, action and passion, out of which endless phenomena are
+created, also in two forms--sense and the object of sense--which come to
+the birth together. There are two kinds of motions, a slow and a fast;
+the motions of the agent and the patient are slower, because they move
+and create in and about themselves, but the things which are born of
+them have a swifter motion, and pass rapidly from place to place.
+The eye and the appropriate object come together, and give birth to
+whiteness and the sensation of whiteness; the eye is filled with seeing,
+and becomes not sight but a seeing eye, and the object is filled with
+whiteness, and becomes not whiteness but white; and no other compound of
+either with another would have produced the same effect. All sensation
+is to be resolved into a similar combination of an agent and patient.
+Of either, taken separately, no idea can be formed; and the agent may
+become a patient, and the patient an agent. Hence there arises a general
+reflection that nothing is, but all things become; no name can detain or
+fix them. Are not these speculations charming, Theaetetus, and very good
+for a person in your interesting situation? I am offering you specimens
+of other men's wisdom, because I have no wisdom of my own, and I want
+to deliver you of something; and presently we will see whether you
+have brought forth wind or not. Tell me, then, what do you think of the
+notion that "All things are becoming"?'
+
+'When I hear your arguments, I am marvellously ready to assent.'
+
+'But I ought not to conceal from you that there is a serious objection
+which may be urged against this doctrine of Protagoras. For there are
+states, such as madness and dreaming, in which perception is false; and
+half our life is spent in dreaming; and who can say that at this instant
+we are not dreaming? Even the fancies of madmen are real at the time.
+But if knowledge is perception, how can we distinguish between the true
+and the false in such cases? Having stated the objection, I will now
+state the answer. Protagoras would deny the continuity of phenomena;
+he would say that what is different is entirely different, and whether
+active or passive has a different power. There are infinite agents and
+patients in the world, and these produce in every combination of them a
+different perception. Take myself as an instance:--Socrates may be ill
+or he may be well,--and remember that Socrates, with all his accidents,
+is spoken of. The wine which I drink when I am well is pleasant to
+me, but the same wine is unpleasant to me when I am ill. And there
+is nothing else from which I can receive the same impression, nor can
+another receive the same impression from the wine. Neither can I and the
+object of sense become separately what we become together. For the one
+in becoming is relative to the other, but they have no other relation;
+and the combination of them is absolute at each moment. (In modern
+language, the act of sensation is really indivisible, though capable of
+a mental analysis into subject and object.) My sensation alone is true,
+and true to me only. And therefore, as Protagoras says, "To myself I
+am the judge of what is and what is not." Thus the flux of Homer and
+Heracleitus, the great Protagorean saying that "Man is the measure of
+all things," the doctrine of Theaetetus that "Knowledge is perception,"
+have all the same meaning. And this is thy new-born child, which by my
+art I have brought to light; and you must not be angry if instead of
+rearing your infant we expose him.'
+
+'Theaetetus will not be angry,' says Theodorus; 'he is very
+good-natured. But I should like to know, Socrates, whether you mean to
+say that all this is untrue?'
+
+'First reminding you that I am not the bag which contains the arguments,
+but that I extract them from Theaetetus, shall I tell you what amazes me
+in your friend Protagoras?'
+
+'What may that be?'
+
+'I like his doctrine that what appears is; but I wonder that he did
+not begin his great work on Truth with a declaration that a pig, or a
+dog-faced baboon, or any other monster which has sensation, is a measure
+of all things; then, while we were reverencing him as a god, he might
+have produced a magnificent effect by expounding to us that he was no
+wiser than a tadpole. For if sensations are always true, and one man's
+discernment is as good as another's, and every man is his own judge,
+and everything that he judges is right and true, then what need of
+Protagoras to be our instructor at a high figure; and why should we
+be less knowing than he is, or have to go to him, if every man is the
+measure of all things? My own art of midwifery, and all dialectic, is
+an enormous folly, if Protagoras' "Truth" be indeed truth, and the
+philosopher is not merely amusing himself by giving oracles out of his
+book.'
+
+Theodorus thinks that Socrates is unjust to his master, Protagoras; but
+he is too old and stiff to try a fall with him, and therefore refers him
+to Theaetetus, who is already driven out of his former opinion by the
+arguments of Socrates.
+
+Socrates then takes up the defence of Protagoras, who is supposed to
+reply in his own person--'Good people, you sit and declaim about the
+gods, of whose existence or non-existence I have nothing to say, or you
+discourse about man being reduced to the level of the brutes; but what
+proof have you of your statements? And yet surely you and Theodorus had
+better reflect whether probability is a safe guide. Theodorus would be
+a bad geometrician if he had nothing better to offer.'...Theaetetus is
+affected by the appeal to geometry, and Socrates is induced by him to
+put the question in a new form. He proceeds as follows:--'Should we say
+that we know what we see and hear,--e.g. the sound of words or the sight
+of letters in a foreign tongue?'
+
+'We should say that the figures of the letters, and the pitch of the
+voice in uttering them, were known to us, but not the meaning of them.'
+
+'Excellent; I want you to grow, and therefore I will leave that answer
+and ask another question: Is not seeing perceiving?' 'Very true.' 'And
+he who sees knows?' 'Yes.' 'And he who remembers, remembers that which
+he sees and knows?' 'Very true.' 'But if he closes his eyes, does he not
+remember?' 'He does.' 'Then he may remember and not see; and if seeing
+is knowing, he may remember and not know. Is not this a "reductio ad
+absurdum" of the hypothesis that knowledge is sensible perception? Yet
+perhaps we are crowing too soon; and if Protagoras, "the father of the
+myth," had been alive, the result might have been very different. But he
+is dead, and Theodorus, whom he left guardian of his "orphan," has not
+been very zealous in defending him.'
+
+Theodorus objects that Callias is the true guardian, but he hopes that
+Socrates will come to the rescue. Socrates prefaces his defence by
+resuming the attack. He asks whether a man can know and not know at the
+same time? 'Impossible.' Quite possible, if you maintain that seeing is
+knowing. The confident adversary, suiting the action to the word, shuts
+one of your eyes; and now, says he, you see and do not see, but do
+you know and not know? And a fresh opponent darts from his ambush, and
+transfers to knowledge the terms which are commonly applied to sight.
+He asks whether you can know near and not at a distance; whether you can
+have a sharp and also a dull knowledge. While you are wondering at his
+incomparable wisdom, he gets you into his power, and you will not escape
+until you have come to an understanding with him about the money which
+is to be paid for your release.
+
+But Protagoras has not yet made his defence; and already he may be heard
+contemptuously replying that he is not responsible for the admissions
+which were made by a boy, who could not foresee the coming move, and
+therefore had answered in a manner which enabled Socrates to raise a
+laugh against himself. 'But I cannot be fairly charged,' he will say,
+'with an answer which I should not have given; for I never maintained
+that the memory of a feeling is the same as a feeling, or denied that a
+man might know and not know the same thing at the same time. Or, if you
+will have extreme precision, I say that man in different relations is
+many or rather infinite in number. And I challenge you, either to show
+that his perceptions are not individual, or that if they are, what
+appears to him is not what is. As to your pigs and baboons, you are
+yourself a pig, and you make my writings a sport of other swine. But
+I still affirm that man is the measure of all things, although I admit
+that one man may be a thousand times better than another, in proportion
+as he has better impressions. Neither do I deny the existence of wisdom
+or of the wise man. But I maintain that wisdom is a practical remedial
+power of turning evil into good, the bitterness of disease into the
+sweetness of health, and does not consist in any greater truth or
+superior knowledge. For the impressions of the sick are as true as the
+impressions of the healthy; and the sick are as wise as the healthy. Nor
+can any man be cured of a false opinion, for there is no such thing;
+but he may be cured of the evil habit which generates in him an evil
+opinion. This is effected in the body by the drugs of the physician, and
+in the soul by the words of the Sophist; and the new state or opinion
+is not truer, but only better than the old. And philosophers are not
+tadpoles, but physicians and husbandmen, who till the soil and infuse
+health into animals and plants, and make the good take the place of the
+evil, both in individuals and states. Wise and good rhetoricians make
+the good to appear just in states (for that is just which appears just
+to a state), and in return, they deserve to be well paid. And you,
+Socrates, whether you please or not, must continue to be a measure.
+This is my defence, and I must request you to meet me fairly. We are
+professing to reason, and not merely to dispute; and there is a great
+difference between reasoning and disputation. For the disputer is always
+seeking to trip up his opponent; and this is a mode of argument which
+disgusts men with philosophy as they grow older. But the reasoner is
+trying to understand him and to point out his errors to him, whether
+arising from his own or from his companion's fault; he does not argue
+from the customary use of names, which the vulgar pervert in all manner
+of ways. If you are gentle to an adversary he will follow and love you;
+and if defeated he will lay the blame on himself, and seek to escape
+from his own prejudices into philosophy. I would recommend you,
+Socrates, to adopt this humaner method, and to avoid captious and verbal
+criticisms.'
+
+Such, Theodorus, is the very slight help which I am able to afford to
+your friend; had he been alive, he would have helped himself in far
+better style.
+
+'You have made a most valorous defence.'
+
+Yes; but did you observe that Protagoras bade me be serious, and
+complained of our getting up a laugh against him with the aid of a boy?
+He meant to intimate that you must take the place of Theaetetus, who may
+be wiser than many bearded men, but not wiser than you, Theodorus.
+
+'The rule of the Spartan Palaestra is, Strip or depart; but you are like
+the giant Antaeus, and will not let me depart unless I try a fall with
+you.'
+
+Yes, that is the nature of my complaint. And many a Hercules, many a
+Theseus mighty in deeds and words has broken my head; but I am always at
+this rough game. Please, then, to favour me.
+
+'On the condition of not exceeding a single fall, I consent.'
+
+Socrates now resumes the argument. As he is very desirous of doing
+justice to Protagoras, he insists on citing his own words,--'What
+appears to each man is to him.' And how, asks Socrates, are these words
+reconcileable with the fact that all mankind are agreed in thinking
+themselves wiser than others in some respects, and inferior to them in
+others? In the hour of danger they are ready to fall down and worship
+any one who is their superior in wisdom as if he were a god. And the
+world is full of men who are asking to be taught and willing to be
+ruled, and of other men who are willing to rule and teach them. All
+which implies that men do judge of one another's impressions, and think
+some wise and others foolish. How will Protagoras answer this argument?
+For he cannot say that no one deems another ignorant or mistaken. If you
+form a judgment, thousands and tens of thousands are ready to maintain
+the opposite. The multitude may not and do not agree in Protagoras'
+own thesis that 'Man is the measure of all things;' and then who is to
+decide? Upon his own showing must not his 'truth' depend on the number
+of suffrages, and be more or less true in proportion as he has more or
+fewer of them? And he must acknowledge further, that they speak truly
+who deny him to speak truly, which is a famous jest. And if he admits
+that they speak truly who deny him to speak truly, he must admit that
+he himself does not speak truly. But his opponents will refuse to admit
+this of themselves, and he must allow that they are right in their
+refusal. The conclusion is, that all mankind, including Protagoras
+himself, will deny that he speaks truly; and his truth will be true
+neither to himself nor to anybody else.
+
+Theodorus is inclined to think that this is going too far. Socrates
+ironically replies, that he is not going beyond the truth. But if the
+old Protagoras could only pop his head out of the world below, he would
+doubtless give them both a sound castigation and be off to the shades
+in an instant. Seeing that he is not within call, we must examine the
+question for ourselves. It is clear that there are great differences in
+the understandings of men. Admitting, with Protagoras, that immediate
+sensations of hot, cold, and the like, are to each one such as they
+appear, yet this hypothesis cannot be extended to judgments or opinions.
+And even if we were to admit further,--and this is the view of some who
+are not thorough-going followers of Protagoras,--that right and wrong,
+holy and unholy, are to each state or individual such as they appear,
+still Protagoras will not venture to maintain that every man is equally
+the measure of expediency, or that the thing which seems is expedient
+to every one. But this begins a new question. 'Well, Socrates, we have
+plenty of leisure. Yes, we have, and, after the manner of philosophers,
+we are digressing; I have often observed how ridiculous this habit of
+theirs makes them when they appear in court. 'What do you mean?' I mean
+to say that a philosopher is a gentleman, but a lawyer is a servant.
+The one can have his talk out, and wander at will from one subject
+to another, as the fancy takes him; like ourselves, he may be long or
+short, as he pleases. But the lawyer is always in a hurry; there is the
+clepsydra limiting his time, and the brief limiting his topics, and his
+adversary is standing over him and exacting his rights. He is a servant
+disputing about a fellow-servant before his master, who holds the cause
+in his hands; the path never diverges, and often the race is for his
+life. Such experiences render him keen and shrewd; he learns the arts of
+flattery, and is perfect in the practice of crooked ways; dangers have
+come upon him too soon, when the tenderness of youth was unable to meet
+them with truth and honesty, and he has resorted to counter-acts of
+dishonesty and falsehood, and become warped and distorted; without any
+health or freedom or sincerity in him he has grown up to manhood, and is
+or esteems himself to be a master of cunning. Such are the lawyers; will
+you have the companion picture of philosophers? or will this be too much
+of a digression?
+
+'Nay, Socrates, the argument is our servant, and not our master. Who is
+the judge or where is the spectator, having a right to control us?'
+
+I will describe the leaders, then: for the inferior sort are not worth
+the trouble. The lords of philosophy have not learned the way to the
+dicastery or ecclesia; they neither see nor hear the laws and votes of
+the state, written or recited; societies, whether political or festive,
+clubs, and singing maidens do not enter even into their dreams. And the
+scandals of persons or their ancestors, male and female, they know no
+more than they can tell the number of pints in the ocean. Neither
+are they conscious of their own ignorance; for they do not practise
+singularity in order to gain reputation, but the truth is, that the
+outer form of them only is residing in the city; the inner man, as
+Pindar says, is going on a voyage of discovery, measuring as with line
+and rule the things which are under and in the earth, interrogating the
+whole of nature, only not condescending to notice what is near them.
+
+'What do you mean, Socrates?'
+
+I will illustrate my meaning by the jest of the witty maid-servant, who
+saw Thales tumbling into a well, and said of him, that he was so eager
+to know what was going on in heaven, that he could not see what was
+before his feet. This is applicable to all philosophers. The philosopher
+is unacquainted with the world; he hardly knows whether his neighbour is
+a man or an animal. For he is always searching into the essence of man,
+and enquiring what such a nature ought to do or suffer different from
+any other. Hence, on every occasion in private life and public, as I was
+saying, when he appears in a law-court or anywhere, he is the joke, not
+only of maid-servants, but of the general herd, falling into wells
+and every sort of disaster; he looks such an awkward, inexperienced
+creature, unable to say anything personal, when he is abused, in answer
+to his adversaries (for he knows no evil of any one); and when he hears
+the praises of others, he cannot help laughing from the bottom of
+his soul at their pretensions; and this also gives him a ridiculous
+appearance. A king or tyrant appears to him to be a kind of swine-herd
+or cow-herd, milking away at an animal who is much more troublesome and
+dangerous than cows or sheep; like the cow-herd, he has no time to be
+educated, and the pen in which he keeps his flock in the mountains is
+surrounded by a wall. When he hears of large landed properties of ten
+thousand acres or more, he thinks of the whole earth; or if he is
+told of the antiquity of a family, he remembers that every one has had
+myriads of progenitors, rich and poor, Greeks and barbarians, kings
+and slaves. And he who boasts of his descent from Amphitryon in the
+twenty-fifth generation, may, if he pleases, add as many more, and
+double that again, and our philosopher only laughs at his inability to
+do a larger sum. Such is the man at whom the vulgar scoff; he seems to
+them as if he could not mind his feet. 'That is very true, Socrates.'
+But when he tries to draw the quick-witted lawyer out of his pleas and
+rejoinders to the contemplation of absolute justice or injustice in
+their own nature, or from the popular praises of wealthy kings to the
+view of happiness and misery in themselves, or to the reasons why a man
+should seek after the one and avoid the other, then the situation is
+reversed; the little wretch turns giddy, and is ready to fall over the
+precipice; his utterance becomes thick, and he makes himself ridiculous,
+not to servant-maids, but to every man of liberal education. Such are
+the two pictures: the one of the philosopher and gentleman, who may be
+excused for not having learned how to make a bed, or cook up flatteries;
+the other, a serviceable knave, who hardly knows how to wear his
+cloak,--still less can he awaken harmonious thoughts or hymn virtue's
+praises.
+
+'If the world, Socrates, were as ready to receive your words as I am,
+there would be greater peace and less evil among mankind.'
+
+Evil, Theodorus, must ever remain in this world to be the antagonist of
+good, out of the way of the gods in heaven. Wherefore also we should fly
+away from ourselves to them; and to fly to them is to become like them;
+and to become like them is to become holy, just and true. But many
+live in the old wives' fable of appearances; they think that you should
+follow virtue in order that you may seem to be good. And yet the truth
+is, that God is righteous; and of men, he is most like him who is most
+righteous. To know this is wisdom; and in comparison of this the wisdom
+of the arts or the seeming wisdom of politicians is mean and common. The
+unrighteous man is apt to pride himself on his cunning; when others
+call him rogue, he says to himself: 'They only mean that I am one who
+deserves to live, and not a mere burden of the earth.' But he should
+reflect that his ignorance makes his condition worse than if he knew.
+For the penalty of injustice is not death or stripes, but the fatal
+necessity of becoming more and more unjust. Two patterns of life are set
+before him; the one blessed and divine, the other godless and wretched;
+and he is growing more and more like the one and unlike the other. He
+does not see that if he continues in his cunning, the place of innocence
+will not receive him after death. And yet if such a man has the courage
+to hear the argument out, he often becomes dissatisfied with himself,
+and has no more strength in him than a child.--But we have digressed
+enough.
+
+'For my part, Socrates, I like the digressions better than the argument,
+because I understand them better.'
+
+To return. When we left off, the Protagoreans and Heracliteans were
+maintaining that the ordinances of the State were just, while they
+lasted. But no one would maintain that the laws of the State were always
+good or expedient, although this may be the intention of them. For
+the expedient has to do with the future, about which we are liable to
+mistake. Now, would Protagoras maintain that man is the measure not
+only of the present and past, but of the future; and that there is no
+difference in the judgments of men about the future? Would an untrained
+man, for example, be as likely to know when he is going to have a fever,
+as the physician who attended him? And if they differ in opinion,
+which of them is likely to be right; or are they both right? Is not a
+vine-grower a better judge of a vintage which is not yet gathered, or a
+cook of a dinner which is in preparation, or Protagoras of the probable
+effect of a speech than an ordinary person? The last example speaks 'ad
+hominen.' For Protagoras would never have amassed a fortune if every man
+could judge of the future for himself. He is, therefore, compelled to
+admit that he is a measure; but I, who know nothing, am not equally
+convinced that I am. This is one way of refuting him; and he is refuted
+also by the authority which he attributes to the opinions of others, who
+deny his opinions. I am not equally sure that we can disprove the truth
+of immediate states of feeling. But this leads us to the doctrine of
+the universal flux, about which a battle-royal is always going on in the
+cities of Ionia. 'Yes; the Ephesians are downright mad about the
+flux; they cannot stop to argue with you, but are in perpetual motion,
+obedient to their text-books. Their restlessness is beyond expression,
+and if you ask any of them a question, they will not answer, but dart at
+you some unintelligible saying, and another and another, making no way
+either with themselves or with others; for nothing is fixed in them
+or their ideas,--they are at war with fixed principles.' I suppose,
+Theodorus, that you have never seen them in time of peace, when they
+discourse at leisure to their disciples? 'Disciples! they have none;
+they are a set of uneducated fanatics, and each of them says of the
+other that they have no knowledge. We must trust to ourselves, and not
+to them for the solution of the problem.' Well, the doctrine is old,
+being derived from the poets, who speak in a figure of Oceanus and
+Tethys; the truth was once concealed, but is now revealed by the
+superior wisdom of a later generation, and made intelligible to the
+cobbler, who, on hearing that all is in motion, and not some things
+only, as he ignorantly fancied, may be expected to fall down and worship
+his teachers. And the opposite doctrine must not be forgotten:--
+
+     'Alone being remains unmoved which is the name for all,'
+
+as Parmenides affirms. Thus we are in the midst of the fray; both
+parties are dragging us to their side; and we are not certain which of
+them are in the right; and if neither, then we shall be in a ridiculous
+position, having to set up our own opinion against ancient and famous
+men.
+
+Let us first approach the river-gods, or patrons of the flux.
+
+When they speak of motion, must they not include two kinds of motion,
+change of place and change of nature?--And all things must be supposed
+to have both kinds of motion; for if not, the same things would be at
+rest and in motion, which is contrary to their theory. And did we not
+say, that all sensations arise thus: they move about between the agent
+and patient together with a perception, and the patient ceases to be a
+perceiving power and becomes a percipient, and the agent a quale instead
+of a quality; but neither has any absolute existence? But now we make
+the further discovery, that neither white or whiteness, nor any sense
+or sensation, can be predicated of anything, for they are in a perpetual
+flux. And therefore we must modify the doctrine of Theaetetus and
+Protagoras, by asserting further that knowledge is and is not sensation;
+and of everything we must say equally, that this is and is not, or
+becomes or becomes not. And still the word 'this' is not quite correct,
+for language fails in the attempt to express their meaning.
+
+At the close of the discussion, Theodorus claims to be released from the
+argument, according to his agreement. But Theaetetus insists that they
+shall proceed to consider the doctrine of rest. This is declined by
+Socrates, who has too much reverence for the great Parmenides lightly
+to attack him. (We shall find that he returns to the doctrine of rest
+in the Sophist; but at present he does not wish to be diverted from
+his main purpose, which is, to deliver Theaetetus of his conception of
+knowledge.) He proceeds to interrogate him further. When he says that
+'knowledge is in perception,' with what does he perceive? The first
+answer is, that he perceives sights with the eye, and sounds with the
+ear. This leads Socrates to make the reflection that nice distinctions
+of words are sometimes pedantic, but sometimes necessary; and he
+proposes in this case to substitute the word 'through' for 'with.' For
+the senses are not like the Trojan warriors in the horse, but have
+a common centre of perception, in which they all meet. This common
+principle is able to compare them with one another, and must therefore
+be distinct from them (compare Republic). And as there are facts of
+sense which are perceived through the organs of the body, there are also
+mathematical and other abstractions, such as sameness and difference,
+likeness and unlikeness, which the soul perceives by herself. Being is
+the most universal of these abstractions. The good and the beautiful are
+abstractions of another kind, which exist in relation and which above
+all others the mind perceives in herself, comparing within her past,
+present, and future. For example; we know a thing to be hard or soft by
+the touch, of which the perception is given at birth to men and animals.
+But the essence of hardness or softness, or the fact that this hardness
+is, and is the opposite of softness, is slowly learned by reflection and
+experience. Mere perception does not reach being, and therefore fails of
+truth; and therefore has no share in knowledge. But if so, knowledge
+is not perception. What then is knowledge? The mind, when occupied
+by herself with being, is said to have opinion--shall we say that
+'Knowledge is true opinion'? But still an old difficulty recurs; we
+ask ourselves, 'How is false opinion possible?' This difficulty may be
+stated as follows:--
+
+Either we know or do not know a thing (for the intermediate processes
+of learning and forgetting need not at present be considered); and in
+thinking or having an opinion, we must either know or not know that
+which we think, and we cannot know and be ignorant at the same time; we
+cannot confuse one thing which we do not know, with another thing which
+we do not know; nor can we think that which we do not know to be that
+which we know, or that which we know to be that which we do not know.
+And what other case is conceivable, upon the supposition that we either
+know or do not know all things? Let us try another answer in the sphere
+of being: 'When a man thinks, and thinks that which is not.' But would
+this hold in any parallel case? Can a man see and see nothing? or hear
+and hear nothing? or touch and touch nothing? Must he not see, hear, or
+touch some one existing thing? For if he thinks about nothing he does
+not think, and not thinking he cannot think falsely. And so the path of
+being is closed against us, as well as the path of knowledge. But may
+there not be 'heterodoxy,' or transference of opinion;--I mean, may not
+one thing be supposed to be another? Theaetetus is confident that this
+must be 'the true falsehood,' when a man puts good for evil or evil
+for good. Socrates will not discourage him by attacking the paradoxical
+expression 'true falsehood,' but passes on. The new notion involves a
+process of thinking about two things, either together or alternately.
+And thinking is the conversing of the mind with herself, which is
+carried on in question and answer, until she no longer doubts, but
+determines and forms an opinion. And false opinion consists in saying to
+yourself, that one thing is another. But did you ever say to yourself,
+that good is evil, or evil good? Even in sleep, did you ever imagine
+that odd was even? Or did any man in his senses ever fancy that an ox
+was a horse, or that two are one? So that we can never think one thing
+to be another; for you must not meet me with the verbal quibble that
+one--eteron--is other--eteron (both 'one' and 'other' in Greek are
+called 'other'--eteron). He who has both the two things in his mind,
+cannot misplace them; and he who has only one of them in his mind,
+cannot misplace them--on either supposition transplacement is
+inconceivable.
+
+But perhaps there may still be a sense in which we can think that
+which we do not know to be that which we know: e.g. Theaetetus may know
+Socrates, but at a distance he may mistake another person for him. This
+process may be conceived by the help of an image. Let us suppose that
+every man has in his mind a block of wax of various qualities, the gift
+of Memory, the mother of the Muses; and on this he receives the seal or
+stamp of those sensations and perceptions which he wishes to remember.
+That which he succeeds in stamping is remembered and known by him as
+long as the impression lasts; but that, of which the impression is
+rubbed out or imperfectly made, is forgotten, and not known. No one can
+think one thing to be another, when he has the memorial or seal of both
+of these in his soul, and a sensible impression of neither; or when he
+knows one and does not know the other, and has no memorial or seal of
+the other; or when he knows neither; or when he perceives both, or one
+and not the other, or neither; or when he perceives and knows both,
+and identifies what he perceives with what he knows (this is still more
+impossible); or when he does not know one, and does not know and does
+not perceive the other; or does not perceive one, and does not know
+and does not perceive the other; or has no perception or knowledge
+of either--all these cases must be excluded. But he may err when he
+confuses what he knows or perceives, or what he perceives and does not
+know, with what he knows, or what he knows and perceives with what he
+knows and perceives.
+
+Theaetetus is unable to follow these distinctions; which Socrates
+proceeds to illustrate by examples, first of all remarking, that
+knowledge may exist without perception, and perception without
+knowledge. I may know Theodorus and Theaetetus and not see them; I
+may see them, and not know them. 'That I understand.' But I could not
+mistake one for the other if I knew you both, and had no perception of
+either; or if I knew one only, and perceived neither; or if I knew
+and perceived neither, or in any other of the excluded cases. The only
+possibility of error is: 1st, when knowing you and Theodorus, and having
+the impression of both of you on the waxen block, I, seeing you both
+imperfectly and at a distance, put the foot in the wrong shoe--that
+is to say, put the seal or stamp on the wrong object: or 2ndly, when
+knowing both of you I only see one; or when, seeing and knowing you
+both, I fail to identify the impression and the object. But there could
+be no error when perception and knowledge correspond.
+
+The waxen block in the heart of a man's soul, as I may say in the words
+of Homer, who played upon the words ker and keros, may be smooth and
+deep, and large enough, and then the signs are clearly marked and
+lasting, and do not get confused. But in the 'hairy heart,' as the
+all-wise poet sings, when the wax is muddy or hard or moist, there is
+a corresponding confusion and want of retentiveness; in the muddy and
+impure there is indistinctness, and still more in the hard, for there
+the impressions have no depth of wax, and in the moist they are too
+soon effaced. Yet greater is the indistinctness when they are all jolted
+together in a little soul, which is narrow and has no room. These are
+the sort of natures which have false opinion; from stupidity they see
+and hear and think amiss; and this is falsehood and ignorance. Error,
+then, is a confusion of thought and sense.
+
+Theaetetus is delighted with this explanation. But Socrates has no
+sooner found the new solution than he sinks into a fit of despondency.
+For an objection occurs to him:--May there not be errors where there is
+no confusion of mind and sense? e.g. in numbers. No one can confuse
+the man whom he has in his thoughts with the horse which he has in his
+thoughts, but he may err in the addition of five and seven. And observe
+that these are purely mental conceptions. Thus we are involved once more
+in the dilemma of saying, either that there is no such thing as false
+opinion, or that a man knows what he does not know.
+
+We are at our wit's end, and may therefore be excused for making a
+bold diversion. All this time we have been repeating the words 'know,'
+'understand,' yet we do not know what knowledge is. 'Why, Socrates,
+how can you argue at all without using them?' Nay, but the true hero
+of dialectic would have forbidden me to use them until I had explained
+them. And I must explain them now. The verb 'to know' has two senses,
+to have and to possess knowledge, and I distinguish 'having' from
+'possessing.' A man may possess a garment which he does not wear; or he
+may have wild birds in an aviary; these in one sense he possesses, and
+in another he has none of them. Let this aviary be an image of the mind,
+as the waxen block was; when we are young, the aviary is empty; after
+a time the birds are put in; for under this figure we may describe
+different forms of knowledge;--there are some of them in groups, and
+some single, which are flying about everywhere; and let us suppose
+a hunt after the science of odd and even, or some other science. The
+possession of the birds is clearly not the same as the having them in
+the hand. And the original chase of them is not the same as taking them
+in the hand when they are already caged.
+
+This distinction between use and possession saves us from the absurdity
+of supposing that we do not know what we know, because we may know in
+one sense, i.e. possess, what we do not know in another, i.e. use. But
+have we not escaped one difficulty only to encounter a greater? For how
+can the exchange of two kinds of knowledge ever become false opinion?
+As well might we suppose that ignorance could make a man know, or that
+blindness could make him see. Theaetetus suggests that in the aviary
+there may be flying about mock birds, or forms of ignorance, and we
+put forth our hands and grasp ignorance, when we are intending to grasp
+knowledge. But how can he who knows the forms of knowledge and the forms
+of ignorance imagine one to be the other? Is there some other form of
+knowledge which distinguishes them? and another, and another? Thus we go
+round and round in a circle and make no progress.
+
+All this confusion arises out of our attempt to explain false opinion
+without having explained knowledge. What then is knowledge? Theaetetus
+repeats that knowledge is true opinion. But this seems to be refuted by
+the instance of orators and judges. For surely the orator cannot convey
+a true knowledge of crimes at which the judges were not present; he
+can only persuade them, and the judge may form a true opinion and truly
+judge. But if true opinion were knowledge they could not have judged
+without knowledge.
+
+Once more. Theaetetus offers a definition which he has heard: Knowledge
+is true opinion accompanied by definition or explanation. Socrates has
+had a similar dream, and has further heard that the first elements are
+names only, and that definition or explanation begins when they are
+combined; the letters are unknown, the syllables or combinations
+are known. But this new hypothesis when tested by the letters of the
+alphabet is found to break down. The first syllable of Socrates' name
+is SO. But what is SO? Two letters, S and O, a sibilant and a vowel,
+of which no further explanation can be given. And how can any one
+be ignorant of either of them, and yet know both of them? There is,
+however, another alternative:--We may suppose that the syllable has a
+separate form or idea distinct from the letters or parts. The all of the
+parts may not be the whole. Theaetetus is very much inclined to adopt
+this suggestion, but when interrogated by Socrates he is unable to
+draw any distinction between the whole and all the parts. And if the
+syllables have no parts, then they are those original elements of which
+there is no explanation. But how can the syllable be known if the letter
+remains unknown? In learning to read as children, we are first taught
+the letters and then the syllables. And in music, the notes, which
+are the letters, have a much more distinct meaning to us than the
+combination of them.
+
+Once more, then, we must ask the meaning of the statement, that
+'Knowledge is right opinion, accompanied by explanation or definition.'
+Explanation may mean, (1) the reflection or expression of a man's
+thoughts--but every man who is not deaf and dumb is able to express his
+thoughts--or (2) the enumeration of the elements of which anything is
+composed. A man may have a true opinion about a waggon, but then, and
+then only, has he knowledge of a waggon when he is able to enumerate
+the hundred planks of Hesiod. Or he may know the syllables of the name
+Theaetetus, but not the letters; yet not until he knows both can he be
+said to have knowledge as well as opinion. But on the other hand he may
+know the syllable 'The' in the name Theaetetus, yet he may be mistaken
+about the same syllable in the name Theodorus, and in learning to read
+we often make such mistakes. And even if he could write out all the
+letters and syllables of your name in order, still he would only have
+right opinion. Yet there may be a third meaning of the definition,
+besides the image or expression of the mind, and the enumeration of the
+elements, viz. (3) perception of difference.
+
+For example, I may see a man who has eyes, nose, and mouth;--that will
+not distinguish him from any other man. Or he may have a snub-nose and
+prominent eyes;--that will not distinguish him from myself and you and
+others who are like me. But when I see a certain kind of snub-nosedness,
+then I recognize Theaetetus. And having this sign of difference, I have
+knowledge. But have I knowledge or opinion of this difference; if I
+have only opinion I have not knowledge; if I have knowledge we assume
+a disputed term; for knowledge will have to be defined as right opinion
+with knowledge of difference.
+
+And so, Theaetetus, knowledge is neither perception nor true opinion,
+nor yet definition accompanying true opinion. And I have shown that the
+children of your brain are not worth rearing. Are you still in labour,
+or have you brought all you have to say about knowledge to the birth? If
+you have any more thoughts, you will be the better for having got rid of
+these; or if you have none, you will be the better for not fancying that
+you know what you do not know. Observe the limits of my art, which, like
+my mother's, is an art of midwifery; I do not pretend to compare with
+the good and wise of this and other ages.
+
+And now I go to meet Meletus at the porch of the King Archon; but
+to-morrow I shall hope to see you again, Theodorus, at this place.
+
+...
+
+I. The saying of Theaetetus, that 'Knowledge is sensible perception,'
+may be assumed to be a current philosophical opinion of the age. 'The
+ancients,' as Aristotle (De Anim.) says, citing a verse of Empedocles,
+'affirmed knowledge to be the same as perception.' We may now examine
+these words, first, with reference to their place in the history of
+philosophy, and secondly, in relation to modern speculations.
+
+(a) In the age of Socrates the mind was passing from the object to the
+subject. The same impulse which a century before had led men to form
+conceptions of the world, now led them to frame general notions of the
+human faculties and feelings, such as memory, opinion, and the like. The
+simplest of these is sensation, or sensible perception, by which Plato
+seems to mean the generalized notion of feelings and impressions of
+sense, without determining whether they are conscious or not.
+
+The theory that 'Knowledge is sensible perception' is the antithesis of
+that which derives knowledge from the mind (Theaet.), or which assumes
+the existence of ideas independent of the mind (Parm.). Yet from their
+extreme abstraction these theories do not represent the opposite poles
+of thought in the same way that the corresponding differences would
+in modern philosophy. The most ideal and the most sensational have a
+tendency to pass into one another; Heracleitus, like his great successor
+Hegel, has both aspects. The Eleatic isolation of Being and the Megarian
+or Cynic isolation of individuals are placed in the same class by Plato
+(Soph.); and the same principle which is the symbol of motion to one
+mind is the symbol of rest to another. The Atomists, who are sometimes
+regarded as the Materialists of Plato, denied the reality of sensation.
+And in the ancient as well as the modern world there were reactions from
+theory to experience, from ideas to sense. This is a point of view from
+which the philosophy of sensation presented great attraction to the
+ancient thinker. Amid the conflict of ideas and the variety of opinions,
+the impression of sense remained certain and uniform. Hardness,
+softness, cold, heat, etc. are not absolutely the same to different
+persons, but the art of measuring could at any rate reduce them all
+to definite natures (Republic). Thus the doctrine that knowledge is
+perception supplies or seems to supply a firm standing ground. Like the
+other notions of the earlier Greek philosophy, it was held in a very
+simple way, without much basis of reasoning, and without suggesting the
+questions which naturally arise in our own minds on the same subject.
+
+(b) The fixedness of impressions of sense furnishes a link of connexion
+between ancient and modern philosophy. The modern thinker often repeats
+the parallel axiom, 'All knowledge is experience.' He means to say that
+the outward and not the inward is both the original source and the final
+criterion of truth, because the outward can be observed and analyzed;
+the inward is only known by external results, and is dimly perceived
+by each man for himself. In what does this differ from the saying of
+Theaetetus? Chiefly in this--that the modern term 'experience,' while
+implying a point of departure in sense and a return to sense, also
+includes all the processes of reasoning and imagination which have
+intervened. The necessary connexion between them by no means affords a
+measure of the relative degree of importance which is to be ascribed to
+either element. For the inductive portion of any science may be small,
+as in mathematics or ethics, compared with that which the mind has
+attained by reasoning and reflection on a very few facts.
+
+II. The saying that 'All knowledge is sensation' is identified by Plato
+with the Protagorean thesis that 'Man is the measure of all things.'
+The interpretation which Protagoras himself is supposed to give of these
+latter words is: 'Things are to me as they appear to me, and to you as
+they appear to you.' But there remains still an ambiguity both in the
+text and in the explanation, which has to be cleared up. Did Protagoras
+merely mean to assert the relativity of knowledge to the human mind? Or
+did he mean to deny that there is an objective standard of truth?
+
+These two questions have not been always clearly distinguished; the
+relativity of knowledge has been sometimes confounded with uncertainty.
+The untutored mind is apt to suppose that objects exist independently
+of the human faculties, because they really exist independently of the
+faculties of any individual. In the same way, knowledge appears to be
+a body of truths stored up in books, which when once ascertained are
+independent of the discoverer. Further consideration shows us that these
+truths are not really independent of the mind; there is an adaptation of
+one to the other, of the eye to the object of sense, of the mind to the
+conception. There would be no world, if there neither were nor ever
+had been any one to perceive the world. A slight effort of reflection
+enables us to understand this; but no effort of reflection will enable
+us to pass beyond the limits of our own faculties, or to imagine the
+relation or adaptation of objects to the mind to be different from that
+of which we have experience. There are certain laws of language and
+logic to which we are compelled to conform, and to which our ideas
+naturally adapt themselves; and we can no more get rid of them than we
+can cease to be ourselves. The absolute and infinite, whether explained
+as self-existence, or as the totality of human thought, or as the
+Divine nature, if known to us at all, cannot escape from the category of
+relation.
+
+But because knowledge is subjective or relative to the mind, we are
+not to suppose that we are therefore deprived of any of the tests or
+criteria of truth. One man still remains wiser than another, a
+more accurate observer and relater of facts, a truer measure of the
+proportions of knowledge. The nature of testimony is not altered, nor
+the verification of causes by prescribed methods less certain. Again,
+the truth must often come to a man through others, according to the
+measure of his capacity and education. But neither does this affect the
+testimony, whether written or oral, which he knows by experience to
+be trustworthy. He cannot escape from the laws of his own mind; and
+he cannot escape from the further accident of being dependent for his
+knowledge on others. But still this is no reason why he should always be
+in doubt; of many personal, of many historical and scientific facts he
+may be absolutely assured. And having such a mass of acknowledged truth
+in the mathematical and physical, not to speak of the moral sciences,
+the moderns have certainly no reason to acquiesce in the statement
+that truth is appearance only, or that there is no difference between
+appearance and truth.
+
+The relativity of knowledge is a truism to us, but was a great
+psychological discovery in the fifth century before Christ. Of this
+discovery, the first distinct assertion is contained in the thesis of
+Protagoras. Probably he had no intention either of denying or affirming
+an objective standard of truth. He did not consider whether man in the
+higher or man in the lower sense was a 'measure of all things.' Like
+other great thinkers, he was absorbed with one idea, and that idea was
+the absoluteness of perception. Like Socrates, he seemed to see that
+philosophy must be brought back from 'nature' to 'truth,' from the world
+to man. But he did not stop to analyze whether he meant 'man' in the
+concrete or man in the abstract, any man or some men, 'quod semper quod
+ubique' or individual private judgment. Such an analysis lay beyond
+his sphere of thought; the age before Socrates had not arrived at these
+distinctions. Like the Cynics, again, he discarded knowledge in any
+higher sense than perception. For 'truer' or 'wiser' he substituted
+the word 'better,' and is not unwilling to admit that both states and
+individuals are capable of practical improvement. But this improvement
+does not arise from intellectual enlightenment, nor yet from
+the exertion of the will, but from a change of circumstances and
+impressions; and he who can effect this change in himself or others may
+be deemed a philosopher. In the mode of effecting it, while agreeing
+with Socrates and the Cynics in the importance which he attaches to
+practical life, he is at variance with both of them. To suppose that
+practice can be divorced from speculation, or that we may do good
+without caring about truth, is by no means singular, either in
+philosophy or life. The singularity of this, as of some other
+(so-called) sophistical doctrines, is the frankness with which they are
+avowed, instead of being veiled, as in modern times, under ambiguous and
+convenient phrases.
+
+Plato appears to treat Protagoras much as he himself is treated by
+Aristotle; that is to say, he does not attempt to understand him from
+his own point of view. But he entangles him in the meshes of a more
+advanced logic. To which Protagoras is supposed to reply by Megarian
+quibbles, which destroy logic, 'Not only man, but each man, and each
+man at each moment.' In the arguments about sight and memory there is a
+palpable unfairness which is worthy of the great 'brainless brothers,'
+Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, and may be compared with the egkekalummenos
+('obvelatus') of Eubulides. For he who sees with one eye only cannot be
+truly said both to see and not to see; nor is memory, which is liable
+to forget, the immediate knowledge to which Protagoras applies the
+term. Theodorus justly charges Socrates with going beyond the truth;
+and Protagoras has equally right on his side when he protests against
+Socrates arguing from the common use of words, which 'the vulgar pervert
+in all manner of ways.'
+
+III. The theory of Protagoras is connected by Aristotle as well as Plato
+with the flux of Heracleitus. But Aristotle is only following Plato,
+and Plato, as we have already seen, did not mean to imply that such a
+connexion was admitted by Protagoras himself. His metaphysical genius
+saw or seemed to see a common tendency in them, just as the modern
+historian of ancient philosophy might perceive a parallelism between
+two thinkers of which they were probably unconscious themselves. We must
+remember throughout that Plato is not speaking of Heracleitus, but of
+the Heracliteans, who succeeded him; nor of the great original ideas of
+the master, but of the Eristic into which they had degenerated a hundred
+years later. There is nothing in the fragments of Heracleitus which at
+all justifies Plato's account of him. His philosophy may be resolved
+into two elements--first, change, secondly, law or measure pervading
+the change: these he saw everywhere, and often expressed in strange
+mythological symbols. But he has no analysis of sensible perception such
+as Plato attributes to him; nor is there any reason to suppose that
+he pushed his philosophy into that absolute negation in which
+Heracliteanism was sunk in the age of Plato. He never said that 'change
+means every sort of change;' and he expressly distinguished between
+'the general and particular understanding.' Like a poet, he surveyed
+the elements of mythology, nature, thought, which lay before him, and
+sometimes by the light of genius he saw or seemed to see a mysterious
+principle working behind them. But as has been the case with other great
+philosophers, and with Plato and Aristotle themselves, what was really
+permanent and original could not be understood by the next generation,
+while a perverted logic carried out his chance expressions with an
+illogical consistency. His simple and noble thoughts, like those of the
+great Eleatic, soon degenerated into a mere strife of words. And when
+thus reduced to mere words, they seem to have exercised a far wider
+influence in the cities of Ionia (where the people 'were mad about
+them') than in the life-time of Heracleitus--a phenomenon which, though
+at first sight singular, is not without a parallel in the history of
+philosophy and theology.
+
+It is this perverted form of the Heraclitean philosophy which is
+supposed to effect the final overthrow of Protagorean sensationalism.
+For if all things are changing at every moment, in all sorts of ways,
+then there is nothing fixed or defined at all, and therefore no sensible
+perception, nor any true word by which that or anything else can be
+described. Of course Protagoras would not have admitted the justice
+of this argument any more than Heracleitus would have acknowledged the
+'uneducated fanatics' who appealed to his writings. He might have said,
+'The excellent Socrates has first confused me with Heracleitus, and
+Heracleitus with his Ephesian successors, and has then disproved the
+existence both of knowledge and sensation. But I am not responsible
+for what I never said, nor will I admit that my common-sense account of
+knowledge can be overthrown by unintelligible Heraclitean paradoxes.'
+
+IV. Still at the bottom of the arguments there remains a truth, that
+knowledge is something more than sensible perception;--this alone would
+not distinguish man from a tadpole. The absoluteness of sensations
+at each moment destroys the very consciousness of sensations (compare
+Phileb.), or the power of comparing them. The senses are not mere holes
+in a 'Trojan horse,' but the organs of a presiding nature, in which they
+meet. A great advance has been made in psychology when the senses
+are recognized as organs of sense, and we are admitted to see or feel
+'through them' and not 'by them,' a distinction of words which, as
+Socrates observes, is by no means pedantic. A still further step has
+been made when the most abstract notions, such as Being and Not-being,
+sameness and difference, unity and plurality, are acknowledged to be the
+creations of the mind herself, working upon the feelings or impressions
+of sense. In this manner Plato describes the process of acquiring them,
+in the words 'Knowledge consists not in the feelings or affections
+(pathemasi), but in the process of reasoning about them (sullogismo).'
+Here, is in the Parmenides, he means something not really different
+from generalization. As in the Sophist, he is laying the foundation of a
+rational psychology, which is to supersede the Platonic reminiscence of
+Ideas as well as the Eleatic Being and the individualism of Megarians
+and Cynics.
+
+V. Having rejected the doctrine that 'Knowledge is perception,' we now
+proceed to look for a definition of knowledge in the sphere of opinion.
+But here we are met by a singular difficulty: How is false opinion
+possible? For we must either know or not know that which is presented
+to the mind or to sense. We of course should answer at once: 'No; the
+alternative is not necessary, for there may be degrees of knowledge; and
+we may know and have forgotten, or we may be learning, or we may have a
+general but not a particular knowledge, or we may know but not be able
+to explain;' and many other ways may be imagined in which we know and do
+not know at the same time. But these answers belong to a later stage of
+metaphysical discussion; whereas the difficulty in question naturally
+arises owing to the childhood of the human mind, like the parallel
+difficulty respecting Not-being. Men had only recently arrived at the
+notion of opinion; they could not at once define the true and pass
+beyond into the false. The very word doxa was full of ambiguity, being
+sometimes, as in the Eleatic philosophy, applied to the sensible world,
+and again used in the more ordinary sense of opinion. There is no
+connexion between sensible appearance and probability, and yet both
+of them met in the word doxa, and could hardly be disengaged from one
+another in the mind of the Greek living in the fifth or fourth century
+B.C. To this was often added, as at the end of the fifth book of the
+Republic, the idea of relation, which is equally distinct from either of
+them; also a fourth notion, the conclusion of the dialectical process,
+the making up of the mind after she has been 'talking to herself'
+(Theat.).
+
+We are not then surprised that the sphere of opinion and of Not-being
+should be a dusky, half-lighted place (Republic), belonging neither
+to the old world of sense and imagination, nor to the new world of
+reflection and reason. Plato attempts to clear up this darkness. In
+his accustomed manner he passes from the lower to the higher, without
+omitting the intermediate stages. This appears to be the reason why he
+seeks for the definition of knowledge first in the sphere of opinion.
+Hereafter we shall find that something more than opinion is required.
+
+False opinion is explained by Plato at first as a confusion of mind and
+sense, which arises when the impression on the mind does not correspond
+to the impression made on the senses. It is obvious that this
+explanation (supposing the distinction between impressions on the mind
+and impressions on the senses to be admitted) does not account for all
+forms of error; and Plato has excluded himself from the consideration of
+the greater number, by designedly omitting the intermediate processes
+of learning and forgetting; nor does he include fallacies in the use of
+language or erroneous inferences. But he is struck by one possibility
+of error, which is not covered by his theory, viz. errors in arithmetic.
+For in numbers and calculation there is no combination of thought and
+sense, and yet errors may often happen. Hence he is led to discard the
+explanation which might nevertheless have been supposed to hold good
+(for anything which he says to the contrary) as a rationale of error, in
+the case of facts derived from sense.
+
+Another attempt is made to explain false opinion by assigning to error
+a sort of positive existence. But error or ignorance is essentially
+negative--a not-knowing; if we knew an error, we should be no longer in
+error. We may veil our difficulty under figures of speech, but these,
+although telling arguments with the multitude, can never be the real
+foundation of a system of psychology. Only they lead us to dwell upon
+mental phenomena which if expressed in an abstract form would not be
+realized by us at all. The figure of the mind receiving impressions is
+one of those images which have rooted themselves for ever in language.
+It may or may not be a 'gracious aid' to thought; but it cannot be
+got rid of. The other figure of the enclosure is also remarkable as
+affording the first hint of universal all-pervading ideas,--a notion
+further carried out in the Sophist. This is implied in the birds, some
+in flocks, some solitary, which fly about anywhere and everywhere. Plato
+discards both figures, as not really solving the question which to us
+appears so simple: 'How do we make mistakes?' The failure of the enquiry
+seems to show that we should return to knowledge, and begin with that;
+and we may afterwards proceed, with a better hope of success, to the
+examination of opinion.
+
+But is true opinion really distinct from knowledge? The difference
+between these he seeks to establish by an argument, which to us appears
+singular and unsatisfactory. The existence of true opinion is proved
+by the rhetoric of the law courts, which cannot give knowledge, but
+may give true opinion. The rhetorician cannot put the judge or juror in
+possession of all the facts which prove an act of violence, but he may
+truly persuade them of the commission of such an act. Here the idea of
+true opinion seems to be a right conclusion from imperfect knowledge.
+But the correctness of such an opinion will be purely accidental; and is
+really the effect of one man, who has the means of knowing, persuading
+another who has not. Plato would have done better if he had said that
+true opinion was a contradiction in terms.
+
+Assuming the distinction between knowledge and opinion, Theaetetus, in
+answer to Socrates, proceeds to define knowledge as true opinion, with
+definite or rational explanation. This Socrates identifies with another
+and different theory, of those who assert that knowledge first begins
+with a proposition.
+
+The elements may be perceived by sense, but they are names, and cannot
+be defined. When we assign to them some predicate, they first begin to
+have a meaning (onomaton sumploke logou ousia). This seems equivalent
+to saying, that the individuals of sense become the subject of knowledge
+when they are regarded as they are in nature in relation to other
+individuals.
+
+Yet we feel a difficulty in following this new hypothesis. For must not
+opinion be equally expressed in a proposition? The difference between
+true and false opinion is not the difference between the particular and
+the universal, but between the true universal and the false. Thought may
+be as much at fault as sight. When we place individuals under a
+class, or assign to them attributes, this is not knowledge, but a very
+rudimentary process of thought; the first generalization of all, without
+which language would be impossible. And has Plato kept altogether clear
+of a confusion, which the analogous word logos tends to create, of a
+proposition and a definition? And is not the confusion increased by the
+use of the analogous term 'elements,' or 'letters'? For there is no real
+resemblance between the relation of letters to a syllable, and of the
+terms to a proposition.
+
+Plato, in the spirit of the Megarian philosophy, soon discovers a flaw
+in the explanation. For how can we know a compound of which the simple
+elements are unknown to us? Can two unknowns make a known? Can a whole
+be something different from the parts? The answer of experience is that
+they can; for we may know a compound, which we are unable to analyze
+into its elements; and all the parts, when united, may be more than all
+the parts separated: e.g. the number four, or any other number, is more
+than the units which are contained in it; any chemical compound is more
+than and different from the simple elements. But ancient philosophy
+in this, as in many other instances, proceeding by the path of mental
+analysis, was perplexed by doubts which warred against the plainest
+facts.
+
+Three attempts to explain the new definition of knowledge still remain
+to be considered. They all of them turn on the explanation of logos. The
+first account of the meaning of the word is the reflection of thought in
+speech--a sort of nominalism 'La science est une langue bien faite.' But
+anybody who is not dumb can say what he thinks; therefore mere speech
+cannot be knowledge. And yet we may observe, that there is in this
+explanation an element of truth which is not recognized by Plato; viz.
+that truth and thought are inseparable from language, although mere
+expression in words is not truth. The second explanation of logos is the
+enumeration of the elementary parts of the complex whole. But this is
+only definition accompanied with right opinion, and does not yet attain
+to the certainty of knowledge. Plato does not mention the greater
+objection, which is, that the enumeration of particulars is endless;
+such a definition would be based on no principle, and would not help us
+at all in gaining a common idea. The third is the best explanation,--the
+possession of a characteristic mark, which seems to answer to the
+logical definition by genus and difference. But this, again, is equally
+necessary for right opinion; and we have already determined, although
+not on very satisfactory grounds, that knowledge must be distinguished
+from opinion. A better distinction is drawn between them in the Timaeus.
+They might be opposed as philosophy and rhetoric, and as conversant
+respectively with necessary and contingent matter. But no true idea of
+the nature of either of them, or of their relation to one another, could
+be framed until science obtained a content. The ancient philosophers
+in the age of Plato thought of science only as pure abstraction, and to
+this opinion stood in no relation.
+
+Like Theaetetus, we have attained to no definite result. But an
+interesting phase of ancient philosophy has passed before us. And the
+negative result is not to be despised. For on certain subjects, and in
+certain states of knowledge, the work of negation or clearing the ground
+must go on, perhaps for a generation, before the new structure can begin
+to rise. Plato saw the necessity of combating the illogical logic of
+the Megarians and Eristics. For the completion of the edifice, he makes
+preparation in the Theaetetus, and crowns the work in the Sophist.
+
+Many (1) fine expressions, and (2) remarks full of wisdom, (3) also
+germs of a metaphysic of the future, are scattered up and down in
+the dialogue. Such, for example, as (1) the comparison of Theaetetus'
+progress in learning to the 'noiseless flow of a river of oil';
+the satirical touch, 'flavouring a sauce or fawning speech'; or the
+remarkable expression, 'full of impure dialectic'; or the lively images
+under which the argument is described,--'the flood of arguments pouring
+in,' the fresh discussions 'bursting in like a band of revellers.'
+(2) As illustrations of the second head, may be cited the remark of
+Socrates, that 'distinctions of words, although sometimes pedantic, are
+also necessary'; or the fine touch in the character of the lawyer,
+that 'dangers came upon him when the tenderness of youth was unequal to
+them'; or the description of the manner in which the spirit is broken
+in a wicked man who listens to reproof until he becomes like a child; or
+the punishment of the wicked, which is not physical suffering, but the
+perpetual companionship of evil (compare Gorgias); or the saying, often
+repeated by Aristotle and others, that 'philosophy begins in wonder,
+for Iris is the child of Thaumas'; or the superb contempt with which
+the philosopher takes down the pride of wealthy landed proprietors by
+comparison of the whole earth. (3) Important metaphysical ideas are: a.
+the conception of thought, as the mind talking to herself; b. the notion
+of a common sense, developed further by Aristotle, and the explicit
+declaration, that the mind gains her conceptions of Being, sameness,
+number, and the like, from reflection on herself; c. the excellent
+distinction of Theaetetus (which Socrates, speaking with emphasis,
+'leaves to grow') between seeing the forms or hearing the sounds of
+words in a foreign language, and understanding the meaning of them; and
+d. the distinction of Socrates himself between 'having' and 'possessing'
+knowledge, in which the answer to the whole discussion appears to be
+contained.
+
+...
+
+There is a difference between ancient and modern psychology, and we
+have a difficulty in explaining one in the terms of the other. To us the
+inward and outward sense and the inward and outward worlds of which they
+are the organs are parted by a wall, and appear as if they could never
+be confounded. The mind is endued with faculties, habits, instincts, and
+a personality or consciousness in which they are bound together. Over
+against these are placed forms, colours, external bodies coming into
+contact with our own body. We speak of a subject which is ourselves,
+of an object which is all the rest. These are separable in thought, but
+united in any act of sensation, reflection, or volition. As there are
+various degrees in which the mind may enter into or be abstracted from
+the operations of sense, so there are various points at which this
+separation or union may be supposed to occur. And within the sphere
+of mind the analogy of sense reappears; and we distinguish not only
+external objects, but objects of will and of knowledge which we contrast
+with them. These again are comprehended in a higher object, which
+reunites with the subject. A multitude of abstractions are created by
+the efforts of successive thinkers which become logical determinations;
+and they have to be arranged in order, before the scheme of thought is
+complete. The framework of the human intellect is not the peculium of
+an individual, but the joint work of many who are of all ages and
+countries. What we are in mind is due, not merely to our physical, but
+to our mental antecedents which we trace in history, and more especially
+in the history of philosophy. Nor can mental phenomena be truly
+explained either by physiology or by the observation of consciousness
+apart from their history. They have a growth of their own, like the
+growth of a flower, a tree, a human being. They may be conceived as of
+themselves constituting a common mind, and having a sort of personal
+identity in which they coexist.
+
+So comprehensive is modern psychology, seeming to aim at constructing
+anew the entire world of thought. And prior to or simultaneously with
+this construction a negative process has to be carried on, a clearing
+away of useless abstractions which we have inherited from the past. Many
+erroneous conceptions of the mind derived from former philosophies
+have found their way into language, and we with difficulty disengage
+ourselves from them. Mere figures of speech have unconsciously
+influenced the minds of great thinkers. Also there are some
+distinctions, as, for example, that of the will and of the reason, and
+of the moral and intellectual faculties, which are carried further than
+is justified by experience. Any separation of things which we cannot see
+or exactly define, though it may be necessary, is a fertile source of
+error. The division of the mind into faculties or powers or virtues is
+too deeply rooted in language to be got rid of, but it gives a false
+impression. For if we reflect on ourselves we see that all our faculties
+easily pass into one another, and are bound together in a single mind or
+consciousness; but this mental unity is apt to be concealed from us by
+the distinctions of language.
+
+A profusion of words and ideas has obscured rather than enlightened
+mental science. It is hard to say how many fallacies have arisen from
+the representation of the mind as a box, as a 'tabula rasa,' a book,
+a mirror, and the like. It is remarkable how Plato in the Theaetetus,
+after having indulged in the figure of the waxen tablet and the decoy,
+afterwards discards them. The mind is also represented by another class
+of images, as the spring of a watch, a motive power, a breath, a stream,
+a succession of points or moments. As Plato remarks in the Cratylus,
+words expressive of motion as well as of rest are employed to describe
+the faculties and operations of the mind; and in these there is
+contained another store of fallacies. Some shadow or reflection of the
+body seems always to adhere to our thoughts about ourselves, and mental
+processes are hardly distinguished in language from bodily ones. To see
+or perceive are used indifferently of both; the words intuition, moral
+sense, common sense, the mind's eye, are figures of speech transferred
+from one to the other. And many other words used in early poetry or in
+sacred writings to express the works of mind have a materialistic sound;
+for old mythology was allied to sense, and the distinction of matter and
+mind had not as yet arisen. Thus materialism receives an illusive aid
+from language; and both in philosophy and religion the imaginary figure
+or association easily takes the place of real knowledge.
+
+Again, there is the illusion of looking into our own minds as if our
+thoughts or feelings were written down in a book. This is another figure
+of speech, which might be appropriately termed 'the fallacy of the
+looking-glass.' We cannot look at the mind unless we have the eye
+which sees, and we can only look, not into, but out of the mind at
+the thoughts, words, actions of ourselves and others. What we dimly
+recognize within us is not experience, but rather the suggestion of an
+experience, which we may gather, if we will, from the observation of the
+world. The memory has but a feeble recollection of what we were saying
+or doing a few weeks or a few months ago, and still less of what we
+were thinking or feeling. This is one among many reasons why there is
+so little self-knowledge among mankind; they do not carry with them
+the thought of what they are or have been. The so-called 'facts of
+consciousness' are equally evanescent; they are facts which nobody ever
+saw, and which can neither be defined nor described. Of the three laws
+of thought the first (All A = A) is an identical proposition--that is to
+say, a mere word or symbol claiming to be a proposition: the two others
+(Nothing can be A and not A, and Everything is either A or not A) are
+untrue, because they exclude degrees and also the mixed modes and double
+aspects under which truth is so often presented to us. To assert that
+man is man is unmeaning; to say that he is free or necessary and cannot
+be both is a half truth only. These are a few of the entanglements which
+impede the natural course of human thought. Lastly, there is the fallacy
+which lies still deeper, of regarding the individual mind apart from
+the universal, or either, as a self-existent entity apart from the ideas
+which are contained in them.
+
+In ancient philosophies the analysis of the mind is still rudimentary
+and imperfect. It naturally began with an effort to disengage the
+universal from sense--this was the first lifting up of the mist. It
+wavered between object and subject, passing imperceptibly from one or
+Being to mind and thought. Appearance in the outward object was for a
+time indistinguishable from opinion in the subject. At length mankind
+spoke of knowing as well as of opining or perceiving. But when the word
+'knowledge' was found how was it to be explained or defined? It was not
+an error, it was a step in the right direction, when Protagoras said
+that 'Man is the measure of all things,' and that 'All knowledge is
+perception.' This was the subjective which corresponded to the objective
+'All is flux.' But the thoughts of men deepened, and soon they began
+to be aware that knowledge was neither sense, nor yet opinion--with or
+without explanation; nor the expression of thought, nor the enumeration
+of parts, nor the addition of characteristic marks. Motion and rest were
+equally ill adapted to express its nature, although both must in some
+sense be attributed to it; it might be described more truly as the mind
+conversing with herself; the discourse of reason; the hymn of dialectic,
+the science of relations, of ideas, of the so-called arts and sciences,
+of the one, of the good, of the all:--this is the way along which Plato
+is leading us in his later dialogues. In its higher signification it was
+the knowledge, not of men, but of gods, perfect and all sufficing:--like
+other ideals always passing out of sight, and nevertheless present to
+the mind of Aristotle as well as Plato, and the reality to which they
+were both tending. For Aristotle as well as Plato would in modern
+phraseology have been termed a mystic; and like him would have defined
+the higher philosophy to be 'Knowledge of being or essence,'--words to
+which in our own day we have a difficulty in attaching a meaning.
+
+Yet, in spite of Plato and his followers, mankind have again and again
+returned to a sensational philosophy. As to some of the early thinkers,
+amid the fleetings of sensible objects, ideas alone seemed to be fixed,
+so to a later generation amid the fluctuation of philosophical opinions
+the only fixed points appeared to be outward objects. Any pretence
+of knowledge which went beyond them implied logical processes, of the
+correctness of which they had no assurance and which at best were only
+probable. The mind, tired of wandering, sought to rest on firm ground;
+when the idols of philosophy and language were stripped off, the
+perception of outward objects alone remained. The ancient Epicureans
+never asked whether the comparison of these with one another did not
+involve principles of another kind which were above and beyond them. In
+like manner the modern inductive philosophy forgot to enquire into
+the meaning of experience, and did not attempt to form a conception of
+outward objects apart from the mind, or of the mind apart from them.
+Soon objects of sense were merged in sensations and feelings, but
+feelings and sensations were still unanalyzed. At last we return to
+the doctrine attributed by Plato to Protagoras, that the mind is only a
+succession of momentary perceptions. At this point the modern philosophy
+of experience forms an alliance with ancient scepticism.
+
+The higher truths of philosophy and religion are very far removed from
+sense. Admitting that, like all other knowledge, they are derived from
+experience, and that experience is ultimately resolvable into facts
+which come to us through the eye and ear, still their origin is a
+mere accident which has nothing to do with their true nature. They
+are universal and unseen; they belong to all times--past, present, and
+future. Any worthy notion of mind or reason includes them. The proof of
+them is, 1st, their comprehensiveness and consistency with one another;
+2ndly, their agreement with history and experience. But sensation is of
+the present only, is isolated, is and is not in successive moments. It
+takes the passing hour as it comes, following the lead of the eye or
+ear instead of the command of reason. It is a faculty which man has in
+common with the animals, and in which he is inferior to many of them.
+The importance of the senses in us is that they are the apertures of the
+mind, doors and windows through which we take in and make our own the
+materials of knowledge. Regarded in any other point of view sensation
+is of all mental acts the most trivial and superficial. Hence the term
+'sensational' is rightly used to express what is shallow in thought and
+feeling.
+
+We propose in what follows, first of all, like Plato in the Theaetetus,
+to analyse sensation, and secondly to trace the connexion between
+theories of sensation and a sensational or Epicurean philosophy.
+
+Paragraph I. We, as well as the ancients, speak of the five senses, and
+of a sense, or common sense, which is the abstraction of them. The
+term 'sense' is also used metaphorically, both in ancient and modern
+philosophy, to express the operations of the mind which are immediate or
+intuitive. Of the five senses, two--the sight and the hearing--are of
+a more subtle and complex nature, while two others--the smell and the
+taste--seem to be only more refined varieties of touch. All of them
+are passive, and by this are distinguished from the active faculty of
+speech: they receive impressions, but do not produce them, except in so
+far as they are objects of sense themselves.
+
+Physiology speaks to us of the wonderful apparatus of nerves, muscles,
+tissues, by which the senses are enabled to fulfil their functions. It
+traces the connexion, though imperfectly, of the bodily organs with the
+operations of the mind. Of these latter, it seems rather to know the
+conditions than the causes. It can prove to us that without the brain we
+cannot think, and that without the eye we cannot see: and yet there is
+far more in thinking and seeing than is given by the brain and the eye.
+It observes the 'concomitant variations' of body and mind. Psychology,
+on the other hand, treats of the same subject regarded from another
+point of view. It speaks of the relation of the senses to one another;
+it shows how they meet the mind; it analyzes the transition from sense
+to thought. The one describes their nature as apparent to the outward
+eye; by the other they are regarded only as the instruments of the mind.
+It is in this latter point of view that we propose to consider them.
+
+The simplest sensation involves an unconscious or nascent operation
+of the mind; it implies objects of sense, and objects of sense have
+differences of form, number, colour. But the conception of an object
+without us, or the power of discriminating numbers, forms, colours,
+is not given by the sense, but by the mind. A mere sensation does not
+attain to distinctness: it is a confused impression, sugkechumenon ti,
+as Plato says (Republic), until number introduces light and order
+into the confusion. At what point confusion becomes distinctness is a
+question of degree which cannot be precisely determined. The distant
+object, the undefined notion, come out into relief as we approach
+them or attend to them. Or we may assist the analysis by attempting
+to imagine the world first dawning upon the eye of the infant or of a
+person newly restored to sight. Yet even with them the mind as well
+as the eye opens or enlarges. For all three are inseparably bound
+together--the object would be nowhere and nothing, if not perceived by
+the sense, and the sense would have no power of distinguishing without
+the mind.
+
+But prior to objects of sense there is a third nature in which they
+are contained--that is to say, space, which may be explained in various
+ways. It is the element which surrounds them; it is the vacuum or void
+which they leave or occupy when passing from one portion of space to
+another. It might be described in the language of ancient philosophy, as
+'the Not-being' of objects. It is a negative idea which in the course
+of ages has become positive. It is originally derived from the
+contemplation of the world without us--the boundless earth or sea, the
+vacant heaven, and is therefore acquired chiefly through the sense of
+sight: to the blind the conception of space is feeble and inadequate,
+derived for the most part from touch or from the descriptions of others.
+At first it appears to be continuous; afterwards we perceive it to be
+capable of division by lines or points, real or imaginary. By the
+help of mathematics we form another idea of space, which is altogether
+independent of experience. Geometry teaches us that the innumerable
+lines and figures by which space is or may be intersected are absolutely
+true in all their combinations and consequences. New and unchangeable
+properties of space are thus developed, which are proved to us in a
+thousand ways by mathematical reasoning as well as by common experience.
+Through quantity and measure we are conducted to our simplest and purest
+notion of matter, which is to the cube or solid what space is to
+the square or surface. And all our applications of mathematics are
+applications of our ideas of space to matter. No wonder then that they
+seem to have a necessary existence to us. Being the simplest of our
+ideas, space is also the one of which we have the most difficulty in
+ridding ourselves. Neither can we set a limit to it, for wherever we
+fix a limit, space is springing up beyond. Neither can we conceive a
+smallest or indivisible portion of it; for within the smallest there
+is a smaller still; and even these inconceivable qualities of space,
+whether the infinite or the infinitesimal, may be made the subject of
+reasoning and have a certain truth to us.
+
+Whether space exists in the mind or out of it, is a question which has
+no meaning. We should rather say that without it the mind is incapable
+of conceiving the body, and therefore of conceiving itself. The mind may
+be indeed imagined to contain the body, in the same way that Aristotle
+(partly following Plato) supposes God to be the outer heaven or circle
+of the universe. But how can the individual mind carry about the
+universe of space packed up within, or how can separate minds have
+either a universe of their own or a common universe? In such conceptions
+there seems to be a confusion of the individual and the universal. To
+say that we can only have a true idea of ourselves when we deny the
+reality of that by which we have any idea of ourselves is an absurdity.
+The earth which is our habitation and 'the starry heaven above' and
+we ourselves are equally an illusion, if space is only a quality or
+condition of our minds.
+
+Again, we may compare the truths of space with other truths derived from
+experience, which seem to have a necessity to us in proportion to the
+frequency of their recurrence or the truth of the consequences which may
+be inferred from them. We are thus led to remark that the necessity
+in our ideas of space on which much stress has been laid, differs in a
+slight degree only from the necessity which appears to belong to other
+of our ideas, e.g. weight, motion, and the like. And there is another
+way in which this necessity may be explained. We have been taught it,
+and the truth which we were taught or which we inherited has never been
+contradicted in all our experience and is therefore confirmed by it. Who
+can resist an idea which is presented to him in a general form in every
+moment of his life and of which he finds no instance to the contrary?
+The greater part of what is sometimes regarded as the a priori intuition
+of space is really the conception of the various geometrical figures of
+which the properties have been revealed by mathematical analysis. And
+the certainty of these properties is immeasurably increased to us by our
+finding that they hold good not only in every instance, but in all the
+consequences which are supposed to flow from them.
+
+Neither must we forget that our idea of space, like our other ideas,
+has a history. The Homeric poems contain no word for it; even the later
+Greek philosophy has not the Kantian notion of space, but only the
+definite 'place' or 'the infinite.' To Plato, in the Timaeus, it is
+known only as the 'nurse of generation.' When therefore we speak of
+the necessity of our ideas of space we must remember that this is a
+necessity which has grown up with the growth of the human mind, and
+has been made by ourselves. We can free ourselves from the perplexities
+which are involved in it by ascending to a time in which they did not
+as yet exist. And when space or time are described as 'a priori forms or
+intuitions added to the matter given in sensation,' we should consider
+that such expressions belong really to the 'pre-historic study' of
+philosophy, i.e. to the eighteenth century, when men sought to explain
+the human mind without regard to history or language or the social
+nature of man.
+
+In every act of sense there is a latent perception of space, of which
+we only become conscious when objects are withdrawn from it. There are
+various ways in which we may trace the connexion between them. We may
+think of space as unresisting matter, and of matter as divided into
+objects; or of objects again as formed by abstraction into a collective
+notion of matter, and of matter as rarefied into space. And motion may
+be conceived as the union of there and not there in space, and force
+as the materializing or solidification of motion. Space again is the
+individual and universal in one; or, in other words, a perception and
+also a conception. So easily do what are sometimes called our simple
+ideas pass into one another, and differences of kind resolve themselves
+into differences of degree.
+
+Within or behind space there is another abstraction in many respects
+similar to it--time, the form of the inward, as space is the form of the
+outward. As we cannot think of outward objects of sense or of outward
+sensations without space, so neither can we think of a succession of
+sensations without time. It is the vacancy of thoughts or sensations,
+as space is the void of outward objects, and we can no more imagine
+the mind without the one than the world without the other. It is to
+arithmetic what space is to geometry; or, more strictly, arithmetic may
+be said to be equally applicable to both. It is defined in our minds,
+partly by the analogy of space and partly by the recollection of events
+which have happened to us, or the consciousness of feelings which we are
+experiencing. Like space, it is without limit, for whatever beginning or
+end of time we fix, there is a beginning and end before them, and so
+on without end. We speak of a past, present, and future, and again the
+analogy of space assists us in conceiving of them as coexistent. When
+the limit of time is removed there arises in our minds the idea of
+eternity, which at first, like time itself, is only negative, but
+gradually, when connected with the world and the divine nature, like
+the other negative infinity of space, becomes positive. Whether time is
+prior to the mind and to experience, or coeval with them, is (like
+the parallel question about space) unmeaning. Like space it has been
+realized gradually: in the Homeric poems, or even in the Hesiodic
+cosmogony, there is no more notion of time than of space. The conception
+of being is more general than either, and might therefore with greater
+plausibility be affirmed to be a condition or quality of the mind. The a
+priori intuitions of Kant would have been as unintelligible to Plato as
+his a priori synthetical propositions to Aristotle. The philosopher of
+Konigsberg supposed himself to be analyzing a necessary mode of thought:
+he was not aware that he was dealing with a mere abstraction. But now
+that we are able to trace the gradual developement of ideas through
+religion, through language, through abstractions, why should we
+interpose the fiction of time between ourselves and realities? Why
+should we single out one of these abstractions to be the a priori
+condition of all the others? It comes last and not first in the order of
+our thoughts, and is not the condition precedent of them, but the last
+generalization of them. Nor can any principle be imagined more suicidal
+to philosophy than to assume that all the truth which we are capable of
+attaining is seen only through an unreal medium. If all that exists
+in time is illusion, we may well ask with Plato, 'What becomes of the
+mind?'
+
+Leaving the a priori conditions of sensation we may proceed to consider
+acts of sense. These admit of various degrees of duration or intensity;
+they admit also of a greater or less extension from one object, which is
+perceived directly, to many which are perceived indirectly or in a less
+degree, and to the various associations of the object which are latent
+in the mind. In general the greater the intension the less the extension
+of them. The simplest sensation implies some relation of objects to
+one another, some position in space, some relation to a previous or
+subsequent sensation. The acts of seeing and hearing may be almost
+unconscious and may pass away unnoted; they may also leave an impression
+behind them or power of recalling them. If, after seeing an object we
+shut our eyes, the object remains dimly seen in the same or about the
+same place, but with form and lineaments half filled up. This is the
+simplest act of memory. And as we cannot see one thing without at
+the same time seeing another, different objects hang together in
+recollection, and when we call for one the other quickly follows. To
+think of the place in which we have last seen a thing is often the
+best way of recalling it to the mind. Hence memory is dependent on
+association. The act of recollection may be compared to the sight of an
+object at a great distance which we have previously seen near and seek
+to bring near to us in thought. Memory is to sense as dreaming is to
+waking; and like dreaming has a wayward and uncertain power of recalling
+impressions from the past.
+
+Thus begins the passage from the outward to the inward sense. But as
+yet there is no conception of a universal--the mind only remembers
+the individual object or objects, and is always attaching to them some
+colour or association of sense. The power of recollection seems to
+depend on the intensity or largeness of the perception, or on the
+strength of some emotion with which it is inseparably connected. This is
+the natural memory which is allied to sense, such as children appear to
+have and barbarians and animals. It is necessarily limited in range, and
+its limitation is its strength. In later life, when the mind has become
+crowded with names, acts, feelings, images innumerable, we acquire
+by education another memory of system and arrangement which is both
+stronger and weaker than the first--weaker in the recollection
+of sensible impressions as they are represented to us by eye or
+ear--stronger by the natural connexion of ideas with objects or with one
+another. And many of the notions which form a part of the train of our
+thoughts are hardly realized by us at the time, but, like numbers or
+algebraical symbols, are used as signs only, thus lightening the labour
+of recollection.
+
+And now we may suppose that numerous images present themselves to the
+mind, which begins to act upon them and to arrange them in various
+ways. Besides the impression of external objects present with us or just
+absent from us, we have a dimmer conception of other objects which have
+disappeared from our immediate recollection and yet continue to exist in
+us. The mind is full of fancies which are passing to and fro before it.
+Some feeling or association calls them up, and they are uttered by the
+lips. This is the first rudimentary imagination, which may be truly
+described in the language of Hobbes, as 'decaying sense,' an expression
+which may be applied with equal truth to memory as well. For memory and
+imagination, though we sometimes oppose them, are nearly allied; the
+difference between them seems chiefly to lie in the activity of the one
+compared with the passivity of the other. The sense decaying in memory
+receives a flash of light or life from imagination. Dreaming is a link
+of connexion between them; for in dreaming we feebly recollect and also
+feebly imagine at one and the same time. When reason is asleep the
+lower part of the mind wanders at will amid the images which have been
+received from without, the intelligent element retires, and the sensual
+or sensuous takes its place. And so in the first efforts of imagination
+reason is latent or set aside; and images, in part disorderly, but also
+having a unity (however imperfect) of their own, pour like a flood over
+the mind. And if we could penetrate into the heads of animals we should
+probably find that their intelligence, or the state of what in them is
+analogous to our intelligence, is of this nature.
+
+Thus far we have been speaking of men, rather in the points in which
+they resemble animals than in the points in which they differ from
+them. The animal too has memory in various degrees, and the elements
+of imagination, if, as appears to be the case, he dreams. How far their
+powers or instincts are educated by the circumstances of their lives
+or by intercourse with one another or with mankind, we cannot precisely
+tell. They, like ourselves, have the physical inheritance of form,
+scent, hearing, sight, and other qualities or instincts. But they
+have not the mental inheritance of thoughts and ideas handed down by
+tradition, 'the slow additions that build up the mind' of the human
+race. And language, which is the great educator of mankind, is wanting
+in them; whereas in us language is ever present--even in the infant the
+latent power of naming is almost immediately observable. And therefore
+the description which has been already given of the nascent power of
+the faculties is in reality an anticipation. For simultaneous with their
+growth in man a growth of language must be supposed. The child of two
+years old sees the fire once and again, and the feeble observation of
+the same recurring object is associated with the feeble utterance of the
+name by which he is taught to call it. Soon he learns to utter the name
+when the object is no longer there, but the desire or imagination of it
+is present to him. At first in every use of the word there is a colour
+of sense, an indistinct picture of the object which accompanies it. But
+in later years he sees in the name only the universal or class word, and
+the more abstract the notion becomes, the more vacant is the image
+which is presented to him. Henceforward all the operations of his mind,
+including the perceptions of sense, are a synthesis of sensations,
+words, conceptions. In seeing or hearing or looking or listening the
+sensible impression prevails over the conception and the word. In
+reflection the process is reversed--the outward object fades away into
+nothingness, the name or the conception or both together are everything.
+Language, like number, is intermediate between the two, partaking of the
+definiteness of the outer and of the universality of the inner world.
+For logic teaches us that every word is really a universal, and only
+condescends by the help of position or circumlocution to become the
+expression of individuals or particulars. And sometimes by using words
+as symbols we are able to give a 'local habitation and a name' to the
+infinite and inconceivable.
+
+Thus we see that no line can be drawn between the powers of sense and
+of reflection--they pass imperceptibly into one another. We may indeed
+distinguish between the seeing and the closed eye--between the sensation
+and the recollection of it. But this distinction carries us a very
+little way, for recollection is present in sight as well as sight
+in recollection. There is no impression of sense which does not
+simultaneously recall differences of form, number, colour, and the like.
+Neither is such a distinction applicable at all to our internal bodily
+sensations, which give no sign of themselves when unaccompanied with
+pain, and even when we are most conscious of them, have often no
+assignable place in the human frame. Who can divide the nerves or great
+nervous centres from the mind which uses them? Who can separate the
+pains and pleasures of the mind from the pains and pleasures of the
+body? The words 'inward and outward,' 'active and passive,' 'mind and
+body,' are best conceived by us as differences of degree passing into
+differences of kind, and at one time and under one aspect acting in
+harmony and then again opposed. They introduce a system and order into
+the knowledge of our being; and yet, like many other general terms, are
+often in advance of our actual analysis or observation.
+
+According to some writers the inward sense is only the fading away or
+imperfect realization of the outward. But this leaves out of sight one
+half of the phenomenon. For the mind is not only withdrawn from
+the world of sense but introduced to a higher world of thought and
+reflection, in which, like the outward sense, she is trained and
+educated. By use the outward sense becomes keener and more intense,
+especially when confined within narrow limits. The savage with little
+or no thought has a quicker discernment of the track than the civilised
+man; in like manner the dog, having the help of scent as well as of
+sight, is superior to the savage. By use again the inward thought
+becomes more defined and distinct; what was at first an effort is made
+easy by the natural instrumentality of language, and the mind learns to
+grasp universals with no more exertion than is required for the sight of
+an outward object. There is a natural connexion and arrangement of them,
+like the association of objects in a landscape. Just as a note or two of
+music suffices to recall a whole piece to the musician's or composer's
+mind, so a great principle or leading thought suggests and arranges a
+world of particulars. The power of reflection is not feebler than the
+faculty of sense, but of a higher and more comprehensive nature. It not
+only receives the universals of sense, but gives them a new content by
+comparing and combining them with one another. It withdraws from the
+seen that it may dwell in the unseen. The sense only presents us with
+a flat and impenetrable surface: the mind takes the world to pieces and
+puts it together on a new pattern. The universals which are detached
+from sense are reconstructed in science. They and not the mere
+impressions of sense are the truth of the world in which we live; and
+(as an argument to those who will only believe 'what they can hold in
+their hands') we may further observe that they are the source of our
+power over it. To say that the outward sense is stronger than the
+inward is like saying that the arm of the workman is stronger than the
+constructing or directing mind.
+
+Returning to the senses we may briefly consider two questions--first
+their relation to the mind, secondly, their relation to outward
+objects:--
+
+1. The senses are not merely 'holes set in a wooden horse' (Theaet.),
+but instruments of the mind with which they are organically connected.
+There is no use of them without some use of words--some natural or
+latent logic--some previous experience or observation. Sensation, like
+all other mental processes, is complex and relative, though apparently
+simple. The senses mutually confirm and support one another; it is hard
+to say how much our impressions of hearing may be affected by those
+of sight, or how far our impressions of sight may be corrected by the
+touch, especially in infancy. The confirmation of them by one another
+cannot of course be given by any one of them. Many intuitions which are
+inseparable from the act of sense are really the result of complicated
+reasonings. The most cursory glance at objects enables the experienced
+eye to judge approximately of their relations and distance, although
+nothing is impressed upon the retina except colour, including gradations
+of light and shade. From these delicate and almost imperceptible
+differences we seem chiefly to derive our ideas of distance and
+position. By comparison of what is near with what is distant we learn
+that the tree, house, river, etc. which are a long way off are objects
+of a like nature with those which are seen by us in our immediate
+neighbourhood, although the actual impression made on the eye is very
+different in one case and in the other. This is a language of 'large and
+small letters' (Republic), slightly differing in form and exquisitely
+graduated by distance, which we are learning all our life long, and
+which we attain in various degrees according to our powers of sight or
+observation. There is nor the consideration. The greater or less strain
+upon the nerves of the eye or ear is communicated to the mind and
+silently informs the judgment. We have also the use not of one eye only,
+but of two, which give us a wider range, and help us to discern, by the
+greater or less acuteness of the angle which the rays of sight form,
+the distance of an object and its relation to other objects. But we are
+already passing beyond the limits of our actual knowledge on a subject
+which has given rise to many conjectures. More important than the
+addition of another conjecture is the observation, whether in the case
+of sight or of any other sense, of the great complexity of the causes
+and the great simplicity of the effect.
+
+The sympathy of the mind and the ear is no less striking than
+the sympathy of the mind and the eye. Do we not seem to perceive
+instinctively and as an act of sense the differences of articulate
+speech and of musical notes? Yet how small a part of speech or of music
+is produced by the impression of the ear compared with that which is
+furnished by the mind!
+
+Again: the more refined faculty of sense, as in animals so also in man,
+seems often to be transmitted by inheritance. Neither must we forget
+that in the use of the senses, as in his whole nature, man is a social
+being, who is always being educated by language, habit, and the teaching
+of other men as well as by his own observation. He knows distance
+because he is taught it by a more experienced judgment than his own; he
+distinguishes sounds because he is told to remark them by a person of
+a more discerning ear. And as we inherit from our parents or other
+ancestors peculiar powers of sense or feeling, so we improve and
+strengthen them, not only by regular teaching, but also by sympathy and
+communion with other persons.
+
+2. The second question, namely, that concerning the relation of the mind
+to external objects, is really a trifling one, though it has been made
+the subject of a famous philosophy. We may if we like, with Berkeley,
+resolve objects of sense into sensations; but the change is one of name
+only, and nothing is gained and something is lost by such a resolution
+or confusion of them. For we have not really made a single step towards
+idealism, and any arbitrary inversion of our ordinary modes of speech is
+disturbing to the mind. The youthful metaphysician is delighted at his
+marvellous discovery that nothing is, and that what we see or feel is
+our sensation only: for a day or two the world has a new interest to
+him; he alone knows the secret which has been communicated to him by the
+philosopher, that mind is all--when in fact he is going out of his mind
+in the first intoxication of a great thought. But he soon finds that
+all things remain as they were--the laws of motion, the properties of
+matter, the qualities of substances. After having inflicted his theories
+on any one who is willing to receive them 'first on his father and
+mother, secondly on some other patient listener, thirdly on his dog,'
+he finds that he only differs from the rest of mankind in the use of a
+word. He had once hoped that by getting rid of the solidity of matter he
+might open a passage to worlds beyond. He liked to think of the world as
+the representation of the divine nature, and delighted to imagine angels
+and spirits wandering through space, present in the room in which he is
+sitting without coming through the door, nowhere and everywhere at the
+same instant. At length he finds that he has been the victim of his own
+fancies; he has neither more nor less evidence of the supernatural than
+he had before. He himself has become unsettled, but the laws of the
+world remain fixed as at the beginning. He has discovered that his
+appeal to the fallibility of sense was really an illusion. For whatever
+uncertainty there may be in the appearances of nature, arises only out
+of the imperfection or variation of the human senses, or possibly from
+the deficiency of certain branches of knowledge; when science is able to
+apply her tests, the uncertainty is at an end. We are apt sometimes
+to think that moral and metaphysical philosophy are lowered by the
+influence which is exercised over them by physical science. But any
+interpretation of nature by physical science is far in advance of such
+idealism. The philosophy of Berkeley, while giving unbounded license to
+the imagination, is still grovelling on the level of sense.
+
+We may, if we please, carry this scepticism a step further, and
+deny, not only objects of sense, but the continuity of our sensations
+themselves. We may say with Protagoras and Hume that what is appears,
+and that what appears appears only to individuals, and to the same
+individual only at one instant. But then, as Plato asks,--and we must
+repeat the question,--What becomes of the mind? Experience tells us by a
+thousand proofs that our sensations of colour, taste, and the like,
+are the same as they were an instant ago--that the act which we are
+performing one minute is continued by us in the next--and also
+supplies abundant proof that the perceptions of other men are, speaking
+generally, the same or nearly the same with our own. After having slowly
+and laboriously in the course of ages gained a conception of a whole and
+parts, of the constitution of the mind, of the relation of man to God
+and nature, imperfect indeed, but the best we can, we are asked to
+return again to the 'beggarly elements' of ancient scepticism, and
+acknowledge only atoms and sensations devoid of life or unity. Why
+should we not go a step further still and doubt the existence of the
+senses of all things? We are but 'such stuff as dreams are made of;'
+for we have left ourselves no instruments of thought by which we can
+distinguish man from the animals, or conceive of the existence even of a
+mollusc. And observe, this extreme scepticism has been allowed to spring
+up among us, not, like the ancient scepticism, in an age when nature and
+language really seemed to be full of illusions, but in the eighteenth
+and nineteenth centuries, when men walk in the daylight of inductive
+science.
+
+The attractiveness of such speculations arises out of their true nature
+not being perceived. They are veiled in graceful language; they are not
+pushed to extremes; they stop where the human mind is disposed also to
+stop--short of a manifest absurdity. Their inconsistency is not observed
+by their authors or by mankind in general, who are equally inconsistent
+themselves. They leave on the mind a pleasing sense of wonder and
+novelty: in youth they seem to have a natural affinity to one class of
+persons as poetry has to another; but in later life either we drift
+back into common sense, or we make them the starting-points of a higher
+philosophy.
+
+We are often told that we should enquire into all things before we
+accept them;--with what limitations is this true? For we cannot use
+our senses without admitting that we have them, or think without
+presupposing that there is in us a power of thought, or affirm that all
+knowledge is derived from experience without implying that this first
+principle of knowledge is prior to experience. The truth seems to be
+that we begin with the natural use of the mind as of the body, and
+we seek to describe this as well as we can. We eat before we know the
+nature of digestion; we think before we know the nature of reflection.
+As our knowledge increases, our perception of the mind enlarges also. We
+cannot indeed get beyond facts, but neither can we draw any line which
+separates facts from ideas. And the mind is not something separate
+from them but included in them, and they in the mind, both having a
+distinctness and individuality of their own. To reduce our conception of
+mind to a succession of feelings and sensations is like the attempt to
+view a wide prospect by inches through a microscope, or to calculate a
+period of chronology by minutes. The mind ceases to exist when it loses
+its continuity, which though far from being its highest determination,
+is yet necessary to any conception of it. Even an inanimate nature
+cannot be adequately represented as an endless succession of states or
+conditions.
+
+Paragraph II. Another division of the subject has yet to be considered:
+Why should the doctrine that knowledge is sensation, in ancient times,
+or of sensationalism or materialism in modern times, be allied to the
+lower rather than to the higher view of ethical philosophy? At
+first sight the nature and origin of knowledge appear to be wholly
+disconnected from ethics and religion, nor can we deny that the ancient
+Stoics were materialists, or that the materialist doctrines prevalent
+in modern times have been associated with great virtues, or that both
+religious and philosophical idealism have not unfrequently parted
+company with practice. Still upon the whole it must be admitted that the
+higher standard of duty has gone hand in hand with the higher conception
+of knowledge. It is Protagoras who is seeking to adapt himself to
+the opinions of the world; it is Plato who rises above them: the one
+maintaining that all knowledge is sensation; the other basing the
+virtues on the idea of good. The reason of this phenomenon has now to be
+examined.
+
+By those who rest knowledge immediately upon sense, that explanation of
+human action is deemed to be the truest which is nearest to sense. As
+knowledge is reduced to sensation, so virtue is reduced to feeling,
+happiness or good to pleasure. The different virtues--the various
+characters which exist in the world--are the disguises of self-interest.
+Human nature is dried up; there is no place left for imagination, or in
+any higher sense for religion. Ideals of a whole, or of a state, or of a
+law of duty, or of a divine perfection, are out of place in an Epicurean
+philosophy. The very terms in which they are expressed are suspected of
+having no meaning. Man is to bring himself back as far as he is able to
+the condition of a rational beast. He is to limit himself to the pursuit
+of pleasure, but of this he is to make a far-sighted calculation;--he is
+to be rationalized, secularized, animalized: or he is to be an amiable
+sceptic, better than his own philosophy, and not falling below the
+opinions of the world.
+
+Imagination has been called that 'busy faculty' which is always
+intruding upon us in the search after truth. But imagination is also
+that higher power by which we rise above ourselves and the commonplaces
+of thought and life. The philosophical imagination is another name for
+reason finding an expression of herself in the outward world. To deprive
+life of ideals is to deprive it of all higher and comprehensive aims and
+of the power of imparting and communicating them to others. For men are
+taught, not by those who are on a level with them, but by those who rise
+above them, who see the distant hills, who soar into the empyrean. Like
+a bird in a cage, the mind confined to sense is always being brought
+back from the higher to the lower, from the wider to the narrower view
+of human knowledge. It seeks to fly but cannot: instead of aspiring
+towards perfection, 'it hovers about this lower world and the earthly
+nature.' It loses the religious sense which more than any other seems to
+take a man out of himself. Weary of asking 'What is truth?' it accepts
+the 'blind witness of eyes and ears;' it draws around itself the curtain
+of the physical world and is satisfied. The strength of a sensational
+philosophy lies in the ready accommodation of it to the minds of men;
+many who have been metaphysicians in their youth, as they advance in
+years are prone to acquiesce in things as they are, or rather appear to
+be. They are spectators, not thinkers, and the best philosophy is that
+which requires of them the least amount of mental effort.
+
+As a lower philosophy is easier to apprehend than a higher, so a lower
+way of life is easier to follow; and therefore such a philosophy seems
+to derive a support from the general practice of mankind. It appeals to
+principles which they all know and recognize: it gives back to them in a
+generalized form the results of their own experience. To the man of the
+world they are the quintessence of his own reflections upon life. To
+follow custom, to have no new ideas or opinions, not to be straining
+after impossibilities, to enjoy to-day with just so much forethought as
+is necessary to provide for the morrow, this is regarded by the greater
+part of the world as the natural way of passing through existence. And
+many who have lived thus have attained to a lower kind of happiness
+or equanimity. They have possessed their souls in peace without ever
+allowing them to wander into the region of religious or political
+controversy, and without any care for the higher interests of man. But
+nearly all the good (as well as some of the evil) which has ever been
+done in this world has been the work of another spirit, the work of
+enthusiasts and idealists, of apostles and martyrs. The leaders
+of mankind have not been of the gentle Epicurean type; they have
+personified ideas; they have sometimes also been the victims of them.
+But they have always been seeking after a truth or ideal of which they
+fell short; and have died in a manner disappointed of their hopes that
+they might lift the human race out of the slough in which they found
+them. They have done little compared with their own visions and
+aspirations; but they have done that little, only because they sought to
+do, and once perhaps thought that they were doing, a great deal more.
+
+The philosophies of Epicurus or Hume give no adequate or dignified
+conception of the mind. There is no organic unity in a succession of
+feeling or sensations; no comprehensiveness in an infinity of separate
+actions. The individual never reflects upon himself as a whole; he can
+hardly regard one act or part of his life as the cause or effect of any
+other act or part. Whether in practice or speculation, he is to himself
+only in successive instants. To such thinkers, whether in ancient or in
+modern times, the mind is only the poor recipient of impressions--not
+the heir of all the ages, or connected with all other minds. It
+begins again with its own modicum of experience having only such vague
+conceptions of the wisdom of the past as are inseparable from language
+and popular opinion. It seeks to explain from the experience of the
+individual what can only be learned from the history of the world. It
+has no conception of obligation, duty, conscience--these are to the
+Epicurean or Utilitarian philosopher only names which interfere with our
+natural perceptions of pleasure and pain.
+
+There seem then to be several answers to the question, Why the theory
+that all knowledge is sensation is allied to the lower rather than to
+the higher view of ethical philosophy:--1st, Because it is easier to
+understand and practise; 2ndly, Because it is fatal to the pursuit of
+ideals, moral, political, or religious; 3rdly, Because it deprives us of
+the means and instruments of higher thought, of any adequate conception
+of the mind, of knowledge, of conscience, of moral obligation.
+
+...
+
+ON THE NATURE AND LIMITS Of PSYCHOLOGY.
+
+     O gar arche men o me oide, teleute de kai ta metaxu ex ou me
+     oide sumpeplektai, tis mechane ten toiauten omologian pote
+     epistemen genesthai; Plato Republic.
+
+     Monon gar auto legeiv, osper gumnon kai aperemomenon apo ton
+     onton apanton, adunaton.  Soph.
+
+Since the above essay first appeared, many books on Psychology have been
+given to the world, partly based upon the views of Herbart and other
+German philosophers, partly independent of them. The subject has gained
+in bulk and extent; whether it has had any true growth is more doubtful.
+It begins to assume the language and claim the authority of a science;
+but it is only an hypothesis or outline, which may be filled up in many
+ways according to the fancy of individual thinkers. The basis of it is
+a precarious one,--consciousness of ourselves and a somewhat uncertain
+observation of the rest of mankind. Its relations to other sciences
+are not yet determined: they seem to be almost too complicated to be
+ascertained. It may be compared to an irregular building, run up hastily
+and not likely to last, because its foundations are weak, and in many
+places rest only on the surface of the ground. It has sought rather to
+put together scattered observations and to make them into a system than
+to describe or prove them. It has never severely drawn the line between
+facts and opinions. It has substituted a technical phraseology for the
+common use of language, being neither able to win acceptance for the one
+nor to get rid of the other.
+
+The system which has thus arisen appears to be a kind of metaphysic
+narrowed to the point of view of the individual mind, through which, as
+through some new optical instrument limiting the sphere of vision, the
+interior of thought and sensation is examined. But the individual mind
+in the abstract, as distinct from the mind of a particular individual
+and separated from the environment of circumstances, is a fiction only.
+Yet facts which are partly true gather around this fiction and are
+naturally described by the help of it. There is also a common type of
+the mind which is derived from the comparison of many minds with one
+another and with our own. The phenomena of which Psychology treats are
+familiar to us, but they are for the most part indefinite; they relate
+to a something inside the body, which seems also to overleap the limits
+of space. The operations of this something, when isolated, cannot be
+analyzed by us or subjected to observation and experiment. And there is
+another point to be considered. The mind, when thinking, cannot
+survey that part of itself which is used in thought. It can only
+be contemplated in the past, that is to say, in the history of the
+individual or of the world. This is the scientific method of studying
+the mind. But Psychology has also some other supports, specious rather
+than real. It is partly sustained by the false analogy of Physical
+Science and has great expectations from its near relationship to
+Physiology. We truly remark that there is an infinite complexity of
+the body corresponding to the infinite subtlety of the mind; we are
+conscious that they are very nearly connected. But in endeavouring to
+trace the nature of the connexion we are baffled and disappointed. In
+our knowledge of them the gulf remains the same: no microscope has ever
+seen into thought; no reflection on ourselves has supplied the missing
+link between mind and matter...These are the conditions of this very
+inexact science, and we shall only know less of it by pretending to
+know more, or by assigning to it a form or style to which it has not yet
+attained and is not really entitled.
+
+Experience shows that any system, however baseless and ineffectual, in
+our own or in any other age, may be accepted and continue to be studied,
+if it seeks to satisfy some unanswered question or is based upon some
+ancient tradition, especially if it takes the form and uses the language
+of inductive philosophy. The fact therefore that such a science exists
+and is popular, affords no evidence of its truth or value. Many who have
+pursued it far into detail have never examined the foundations on which
+it rests. The have been many imaginary subjects of knowledge of which
+enthusiastic persons have made a lifelong study, without ever asking
+themselves what is the evidence for them, what is the use of them, how
+long they will last? They may pass away, like the authors of them, and
+'leave not a wrack behind;' or they may survive in fragments. Nor is it
+only in the Middle Ages, or in the literary desert of China or of India,
+that such systems have arisen; in our own enlightened age, growing up
+by the side of Physics, Ethics, and other really progressive sciences,
+there is a weary waste of knowledge, falsely so-called. There are sham
+sciences which no logic has ever put to the test, in which the desire
+for knowledge invents the materials of it.
+
+And therefore it is expedient once more to review the bases of
+Psychology, lest we should be imposed upon by its pretensions. The
+study of it may have done good service by awakening us to the sense of
+inveterate errors familiarized by language, yet it may have fallen into
+still greater ones; under the pretence of new investigations it may be
+wasting the lives of those who are engaged in it. It may also be found
+that the discussion of it will throw light upon some points in the
+Theaetetus of Plato,--the oldest work on Psychology which has come down
+to us. The imaginary science may be called, in the language of ancient
+philosophy, 'a shadow of a part of Dialectic or Metaphysic' (Gorg.).
+
+In this postscript or appendix we propose to treat, first, of the true
+bases of Psychology; secondly, of the errors into which the students of
+it are most likely to fall; thirdly, of the principal subjects which
+are usually comprehended under it; fourthly, of the form which facts
+relating to the mind most naturally assume.
+
+We may preface the enquiry by two or three remarks:--
+
+(1) We do not claim for the popular Psychology the position of a science
+at all; it cannot, like the Physical Sciences, proceed by the Inductive
+Method: it has not the necessity of Mathematics: it does not, like
+Metaphysic, argue from abstract notions or from internal coherence. It
+is made up of scattered observations. A few of these, though they may
+sometimes appear to be truisms, are of the greatest value, and free
+from all doubt. We are conscious of them in ourselves; we observe them
+working in others; we are assured of them at all times. For example, we
+are absolutely certain, (a) of the influence exerted by the mind over
+the body or by the body over the mind: (b) of the power of association,
+by which the appearance of some person or the occurrence of some event
+recalls to mind, not always but often, other persons and events: (c)
+of the effect of habit, which is strongest when least disturbed by
+reflection, and is to the mind what the bones are to the body: (d) of
+the real, though not unlimited, freedom of the human will: (e) of the
+reference, more or less distinct, of our sensations, feelings, thoughts,
+actions, to ourselves, which is called consciousness, or, when in
+excess, self-consciousness: (f) of the distinction of the 'I' and 'Not
+I,' of ourselves and outward objects. But when we attempt to gather up
+these elements in a single system, we discover that the links by which
+we combine them are apt to be mere words. We are in a country which
+has never been cleared or surveyed; here and there only does a gleam of
+light come through the darkness of the forest.
+
+(2) These fragments, although they can never become science in the
+ordinary sense of the word, are a real part of knowledge and may be of
+great value in education. We may be able to add a good deal to them from
+our own experience, and we may verify them by it. Self-examination
+is one of those studies which a man can pursue alone, by attention to
+himself and the processes of his individual mind. He may learn much
+about his own character and about the character of others, if he will
+'make his mind sit down' and look at itself in the glass. The great, if
+not the only use of such a study is a practical one,--to know, first,
+human nature, and, secondly, our own nature, as it truly is.
+
+(3) Hence it is important that we should conceive of the mind in the
+noblest and simplest manner. While acknowledging that language has been
+the greatest factor in the formation of human thought, we must endeavour
+to get rid of the disguises, oppositions, contradictions, which
+arise out of it. We must disengage ourselves from the ideas which the
+customary use of words has implanted in us. To avoid error as much as
+possible when we are speaking of things unseen, the principal terms
+which we use should be few, and we should not allow ourselves to be
+enslaved by them. Instead of seeking to frame a technical language,
+we should vary our forms of speech, lest they should degenerate into
+formulas. A difficult philosophical problem is better understood when
+translated into the vernacular.
+
+I.a. Psychology is inseparable from language, and early language
+contains the first impressions or the oldest experience of man
+respecting himself. These impressions are not accurate representations
+of the truth; they are the reflections of a rudimentary age of
+philosophy. The first and simplest forms of thought are rooted so deep
+in human nature that they can never be got rid of; but they have been
+perpetually enlarged and elevated, and the use of many words has been
+transferred from the body to the mind. The spiritual and intellectual
+have thus become separated from the material--there is a cleft between
+them; and the heart and the conscience of man rise above the dominion
+of the appetites and create a new language in which they too find
+expression. As the differences of actions begin to be perceived, more
+and more names are needed. This is the first analysis of the human mind;
+having a general foundation in popular experience, it is moulded to
+a certain extent by hierophants and philosophers. (See Introd. to
+Cratylus.)
+
+b. This primitive psychology is continually receiving additions from the
+first thinkers, who in return take a colour from the popular language
+of the time. The mind is regarded from new points of view, and becomes
+adapted to new conditions of knowledge. It seeks to isolate itself
+from matter and sense, and to assert its independence in thought. It
+recognizes that it is independent of the external world. It has five
+or six natural states or stages:--(1) sensation, in which it is almost
+latent or quiescent: (2) feeling, or inner sense, when the mind is just
+awakening: (3) memory, which is decaying sense, and from time to time,
+as with a spark or flash, has the power of recollecting or reanimating
+the buried past: (4) thought, in which images pass into abstract notions
+or are intermingled with them: (5) action, in which the mind moves
+forward, of itself, or under the impulse of want or desire or pain,
+to attain or avoid some end or consequence: and (6) there is the
+composition of these or the admixture or assimilation of them in various
+degrees. We never see these processes of the mind, nor can we tell the
+causes of them. But we know them by their results, and learn from other
+men that so far as we can describe to them or they to us the workings of
+the mind, their experience is the same or nearly the same with our own.
+
+c. But the knowledge of the mind is not to any great extent derived
+from the observation of the individual by himself. It is the growing
+consciousness of the human race, embodied in language, acknowledged
+by experience, and corrected from time to time by the influence of
+literature and philosophy. A great, perhaps the most important, part of
+it is to be found in early Greek thought. In the Theaetetus of Plato it
+has not yet become fixed: we are still stumbling on the threshold.
+In Aristotle the process is more nearly completed, and has gained
+innumerable abstractions, of which many have had to be thrown away
+because relative only to the controversies of the time. In the interval
+between Thales and Aristotle were realized the distinctions of mind and
+body, of universal and particular, of infinite and infinitesimal, of
+idea and phenomenon; the class conceptions of faculties and virtues, the
+antagonism of the appetites and the reason; and connected with this, at
+a higher stage of development, the opposition of moral and intellectual
+virtue; also the primitive conceptions of unity, being, rest, motion,
+and the like. These divisions were not really scientific, but rather
+based on popular experience. They were not held with the precision of
+modern thinkers, but taken all together they gave a new existence to the
+mind in thought, and greatly enlarged and more accurately defined man's
+knowledge of himself and of the world. The majority of them have been
+accepted by Christian and Western nations. Yet in modern times we have
+also drifted so far away from Aristotle, that if we were to frame a
+system on his lines we should be at war with ordinary language and
+untrue to our own consciousness. And there have been a few both in
+mediaeval times and since the Reformation who have rebelled against the
+Aristotelian point of view. Of these eccentric thinkers there have been
+various types, but they have all a family likeness. According to them,
+there has been too much analysis and too little synthesis, too much
+division of the mind into parts and too little conception of it as a
+whole or in its relation to God and the laws of the universe. They have
+thought that the elements of plurality and unity have not been duly
+adjusted. The tendency of such writers has been to allow the personality
+of man to be absorbed in the universal, or in the divine nature, and to
+deny the distinction between matter and mind, or to substitute one for
+the other. They have broken some of the idols of Psychology: they have
+challenged the received meaning of words: they have regarded the mind
+under many points of view. But though they may have shaken the old, they
+have not established the new; their views of philosophy, which seem like
+the echo of some voice from the East, have been alien to the mind of
+Europe.
+
+d. The Psychology which is found in common language is in some degree
+verified by experience, but not in such a manner as to give it
+the character of an exact science. We cannot say that words always
+correspond to facts. Common language represents the mind from different
+and even opposite points of view, which cannot be all of them equally
+true (compare Cratylus). Yet from diversity of statements and opinions
+may be obtained a nearer approach to the truth than is to be gained
+from any one of them. It also tends to correct itself, because it is
+gradually brought nearer to the common sense of mankind. There are
+some leading categories or classifications of thought, which, though
+unverified, must always remain the elements from which the science or
+study of the mind proceeds. For example, we must assume ideas before we
+can analyze them, and also a continuing mind to which they belong;
+the resolution of it into successive moments, which would say, with
+Protagoras, that the man is not the same person which he was a minute
+ago, is, as Plato implies in the Theaetetus, an absurdity.
+
+e. The growth of the mind, which may be traced in the histories of
+religions and philosophies and in the thoughts of nations, is one of the
+deepest and noblest modes of studying it. Here we are dealing with the
+reality, with the greater and, as it may be termed, the most sacred part
+of history. We study the mind of man as it begins to be inspired by a
+human or divine reason, as it is modified by circumstances, as it is
+distributed in nations, as it is renovated by great movements, which go
+beyond the limits of nations and affect human society on a scale still
+greater, as it is created or renewed by great minds, who, looking down
+from above, have a wider and more comprehensive vision. This is an
+ambitious study, of which most of us rather 'entertain conjecture'
+than arrive at any detailed or accurate knowledge. Later arises the
+reflection how these great ideas or movements of the world have
+been appropriated by the multitude and found a way to the minds of
+individuals. The real Psychology is that which shows how the increasing
+knowledge of nature and the increasing experience of life have always
+been slowly transforming the mind, how religions too have been modified
+in the course of ages 'that God may be all and in all.' E pollaplasion,
+eoe, to ergon e os nun zeteitai prostatteis.
+
+f. Lastly, though we speak of the study of mind in a special sense, it
+may also be said that there is no science which does not contribute to
+our knowledge of it. The methods of science and their analogies are new
+faculties, discovered by the few and imparted to the many. They are
+to the mind, what the senses are to the body; or better, they may be
+compared to instruments such as the telescope or microscope by which the
+discriminating power of the senses, or to other mechanical inventions,
+by which the strength and skill of the human body is so immeasurably
+increased.
+
+II. The new Psychology, whatever may be its claim to the authority of a
+science, has called attention to many facts and corrected many errors,
+which without it would have been unexamined. Yet it is also itself
+very liable to illusion. The evidence on which it rests is vague and
+indefinite. The field of consciousness is never seen by us as a whole,
+but only at particular points, which are always changing. The veil
+of language intercepts facts. Hence it is desirable that in making an
+approach to the study we should consider at the outset what are the
+kinds of error which most easily affect it, and note the differences
+which separate it from other branches of knowledge.
+
+a. First, we observe the mind by the mind. It would seem therefore that
+we are always in danger of leaving out the half of that which is the
+subject of our enquiry. We come at once upon the difficulty of what is
+the meaning of the word. Does it differ as subject and object in the
+same manner? Can we suppose one set of feelings or one part of the mind
+to interpret another? Is the introspecting thought the same with the
+thought which is introspected? Has the mind the power of surveying its
+whole domain at one and the same time?--No more than the eye can take in
+the whole human body at a glance. Yet there may be a glimpse round the
+corner, or a thought transferred in a moment from one point of view to
+another, which enables us to see nearly the whole, if not at once,
+at any rate in succession. Such glimpses will hardly enable us to
+contemplate from within the mind in its true proportions. Hence the
+firmer ground of Psychology is not the consciousness of inward feelings
+but the observation of external actions, being the actions not only of
+ourselves, but of the innumerable persons whom we come across in life.
+
+b. The error of supposing partial or occasional explanation of
+mental phenomena to be the only or complete ones. For example, we are
+disinclined to admit of the spontaneity or discontinuity of the mind--it
+seems to us like an effect without a cause, and therefore we suppose the
+train of our thoughts to be always called up by association. Yet it is
+probable, or indeed certain, that of many mental phenomena there are no
+mental antecedents, but only bodily ones.
+
+c. The false influence of language. We are apt to suppose that when
+there are two or more words describing faculties or processes of the
+mind, there are real differences corresponding to them. But this is not
+the case. Nor can we determine how far they do or do not exist, or
+by what degree or kind of difference they are distinguished. The same
+remark may be made about figures of speech. They fill up the vacancy of
+knowledge; they are to the mind what too much colour is to the eye; but
+the truth is rather concealed than revealed by them.
+
+d. The uncertain meaning of terms, such as Consciousness, Conscience,
+Will, Law, Knowledge, Internal and External Sense; these, in the
+language of Plato, 'we shamelessly use, without ever having taken the
+pains to analyze them.'
+
+e. A science such as Psychology is not merely an hypothesis, but
+an hypothesis which, unlike the hypotheses of Physics, can never be
+verified. It rests only on the general impressions of mankind, and there
+is little or no hope of adding in any considerable degree to our stock
+of mental facts.
+
+f. The parallelism of the Physical Sciences, which leads us to analyze
+the mind on the analogy of the body, and so to reduce mental operations
+to the level of bodily ones, or to confound one with the other.
+
+g. That the progress of Physiology may throw a new light on Psychology
+is a dream in which scientific men are always tempted to indulge. But
+however certain we may be of the connexion between mind and body, the
+explanation of the one by the other is a hidden place of nature which
+has hitherto been investigated with little or no success.
+
+h. The impossibility of distinguishing between mind and body. Neither
+in thought nor in experience can we separate them. They seem to act
+together; yet we feel that we are sometimes under the dominion of the
+one, sometimes of the other, and sometimes, both in the common use of
+language and in fact, they transform themselves, the one into the good
+principle, the other into the evil principle; and then again the 'I'
+comes in and mediates between them. It is also difficult to distinguish
+outward facts from the ideas of them in the mind, or to separate the
+external stimulus to a sensation from the activity of the organ, or this
+from the invisible agencies by which it reaches the mind, or any process
+of sense from its mental antecedent, or any mental energy from its
+nervous expression.
+
+i. The fact that mental divisions tend to run into one another, and that
+in speaking of the mind we cannot always distinguish differences of kind
+from differences of degree; nor have we any measure of the strength and
+intensity of our ideas or feelings.
+
+j. Although heredity has been always known to the ancients as well as
+ourselves to exercise a considerable influence on human character, yet
+we are unable to calculate what proportion this birth-influence bears to
+nurture and education. But this is the real question. We cannot pursue
+the mind into embryology: we can only trace how, after birth, it begins
+to grow. But how much is due to the soil, how much to the original
+latent seed, it is impossible to distinguish. And because we are certain
+that heredity exercises a considerable, but undefined influence, we must
+not increase the wonder by exaggerating it.
+
+k. The love of system is always tending to prevail over the historical
+investigation of the mind, which is our chief means of knowing it. It
+equally tends to hinder the other great source of our knowledge of the
+mind, the observation of its workings and processes which we can make
+for ourselves.
+
+l. The mind, when studied through the individual, is apt to be
+isolated--this is due to the very form of the enquiry; whereas, in
+truth, it is indistinguishable from circumstances, the very language
+which it uses being the result of the instincts of long-forgotten
+generations, and every word which a man utters being the answer to some
+other word spoken or suggested by somebody else.
+
+III. The tendency of the preceding remarks has been to show that
+Psychology is necessarily a fragment, and is not and cannot be a
+connected system. We cannot define or limit the mind, but we can
+describe it. We can collect information about it; we can enumerate the
+principal subjects which are included in the study of it. Thus we are
+able to rehabilitate Psychology to some extent, not as a branch of
+science, but as a collection of facts bearing on human life, as a
+part of the history of philosophy, as an aspect of Metaphysic. It is a
+fragment of a science only, which in all probability can never make any
+great progress or attain to much clearness or exactness. It is however
+a kind of knowledge which has a great interest for us and is always
+present to us, and of which we carry about the materials in our own
+bosoms. We can observe our minds and we can experiment upon them, and
+the knowledge thus acquired is not easily forgotten, and is a help to us
+in study as well as in conduct.
+
+The principal subjects of Psychology may be summed up as follows:--
+
+a. The relation of man to the world around him,--in what sense and
+within what limits can he withdraw from its laws or assert himself
+against them (Freedom and Necessity), and what is that which we suppose
+to be thus independent and which we call ourselves? How does the inward
+differ from the outward and what is the relation between them, and where
+do we draw the line by which we separate mind from matter, the soul
+from the body? Is the mind active or passive, or partly both? Are its
+movements identical with those of the body, or only preconcerted and
+coincident with them, or is one simply an aspect of the other?
+
+b. What are we to think of time and space? Time seems to have a nearer
+connexion with the mind, space with the body; yet time, as well as
+space, is necessary to our idea of either. We see also that they have
+an analogy with one another, and that in Mathematics they often
+interpenetrate. Space or place has been said by Kant to be the form of
+the outward, time of the inward sense. He regards them as parts or
+forms of the mind. But this is an unfortunate and inexpressive way of
+describing their relation to us. For of all the phenomena present to the
+human mind they seem to have most the character of objective existence.
+There is no use in asking what is beyond or behind them; we cannot get
+rid of them. And to throw the laws of external nature which to us are
+the type of the immutable into the subjective side of the antithesis
+seems to be equally inappropriate.
+
+c. When in imagination we enter into the closet of the mind and withdraw
+ourselves from the external world, we seem to find there more or less
+distinct processes which may be described by the words, 'I perceive,' 'I
+feel,' 'I think,' 'I want,' 'I wish,' 'I like,' 'I dislike,' 'I fear,'
+'I know,' 'I remember,' 'I imagine,' 'I dream,' 'I act,' 'I endeavour,'
+'I hope.' These processes would seem to have the same notions attached
+to them in the minds of all educated persons. They are distinguished
+from one another in thought, but they intermingle. It is possible to
+reflect upon them or to become conscious of them in a greater or less
+degree, or with a greater or less continuity or attention, and thus
+arise the intermittent phenomena of consciousness or self-consciousness.
+The use of all of them is possible to us at all times; and therefore
+in any operation of the mind the whole are latent. But we are able to
+characterise them sufficiently by that part of the complex action which
+is the most prominent. We have no difficulty in distinguishing an act
+of sight or an act of will from an act of thought, although thought is
+present in both of them. Hence the conception of different faculties or
+different virtues is precarious, because each of them is passing into
+the other, and they are all one in the mind itself; they appear and
+reappear, and may all be regarded as the ever-varying phases or aspects
+or differences of the same mind or person.
+
+d. Nearest the sense in the scale of the intellectual faculties
+is memory, which is a mode rather than a faculty of the mind, and
+accompanies all mental operations. There are two principal kinds of it,
+recollection and recognition,--recollection in which forgotten things
+are recalled or return to the mind, recognition in which the mind finds
+itself again among things once familiar. The simplest way in which we
+can represent the former to ourselves is by shutting our eyes and trying
+to recall in what we term the mind's eye the picture of the
+surrounding scene, or by laying down the book which we are reading and
+recapitulating what we can remember of it. But many times more powerful
+than recollection is recognition, perhaps because it is more assisted by
+association. We have known and forgotten, and after a long interval the
+thing which we have seen once is seen again by us, but with a different
+feeling, and comes back to us, not as new knowledge, but as a thing to
+which we ourselves impart a notion already present to us; in Plato's
+words, we set the stamp upon the wax. Every one is aware of the
+difference between the first and second sight of a place, between a
+scene clothed with associations or bare and divested of them. We say to
+ourselves on revisiting a spot after a long interval: How many things
+have happened since I last saw this! There is probably no impression
+ever received by us of which we can venture to say that the vestiges are
+altogether lost, or that we might not, under some circumstances, recover
+it. A long-forgotten knowledge may be easily renewed and therefore is
+very different from ignorance. Of the language learnt in childhood not
+a word may be remembered, and yet, when a new beginning is made, the
+old habit soon returns, the neglected organs come back into use, and the
+river of speech finds out the dried-up channel.
+
+e. 'Consciousness' is the most treacherous word which is employed in
+the study of the mind, for it is used in many senses, and has rarely,
+if ever, been minutely analyzed. Like memory, it accompanies all mental
+operations, but not always continuously, and it exists in various
+degrees. It may be imperceptible or hardly perceptible: it may be the
+living sense that our thoughts, actions, sufferings, are our own. It
+is a kind of attention which we pay to ourselves, and is intermittent
+rather than continuous. Its sphere has been exaggerated. It is sometimes
+said to assure us of our freedom; but this is an illusion: as there
+may be a real freedom without consciousness of it, so there may be a
+consciousness of freedom without the reality. It may be regarded as a
+higher degree of knowledge when we not only know but know that we know.
+Consciousness is opposed to habit, inattention, sleep, death. It may be
+illustrated by its derivative conscience, which speaks to men, not only
+of right and wrong in the abstract, but of right and wrong actions in
+reference to themselves and their circumstances.
+
+f. Association is another of the ever-present phenomena of the human
+mind. We speak of the laws of association, but this is an expression
+which is confusing, for the phenomenon itself is of the most capricious
+and uncertain sort. It may be briefly described as follows. The simplest
+case of association is that of sense. When we see or hear separately
+one of two things, which we have previously seen or heard together, the
+occurrence of the one has a tendency to suggest the other. So the sight
+or name of a house may recall to our minds the memory of those who once
+lived there. Like may recall like and everything its opposite. The parts
+of a whole, the terms of a series, objects lying near, words having
+a customary order stick together in the mind. A word may bring back a
+passage of poetry or a whole system of philosophy; from one end of the
+world or from one pole of knowledge we may travel to the other in an
+indivisible instant. The long train of association by which we pass from
+one point to the other, involving every sort of complex relation, so
+sudden, so accidental, is one of the greatest wonders of mind...This
+process however is not always continuous, but often intermittent: we can
+think of things in isolation as well as in association; we do not mean
+that they must all hang from one another. We can begin again after an
+interval of rest or vacancy, as a new train of thought suddenly arises,
+as, for example, when we wake of a morning or after violent exercise.
+Time, place, the same colour or sound or smell or taste, will often
+call up some thought or recollection either accidentally or naturally
+associated with them. But it is equally noticeable that the new thought
+may occur to us, we cannot tell how or why, by the spontaneous action of
+the mind itself or by the latent influence of the body. Both science and
+poetry are made up of associations or recollections, but we must observe
+also that the mind is not wholly dependent on them, having also the
+power of origination.
+
+There are other processes of the mind which it is good for us to study
+when we are at home and by ourselves,--the manner in which thought
+passes into act, the conflict of passion and reason in many stages, the
+transition from sensuality to love or sentiment and from earthly love to
+heavenly, the slow and silent influence of habit, which little by little
+changes the nature of men, the sudden change of the old nature of man
+into a new one, wrought by shame or by some other overwhelming impulse.
+These are the greater phenomena of mind, and he who has thought of
+them for himself will live and move in a better-ordered world, and will
+himself be a better-ordered man.
+
+At the other end of the 'globus intellectualis,' nearest, not to earth
+and sense, but to heaven and God, is the personality of man, by which
+he holds communion with the unseen world. Somehow, he knows not how,
+somewhere, he knows not where, under this higher aspect of his being he
+grasps the ideas of God, freedom and immortality; he sees the forms of
+truth, holiness and love, and is satisfied with them. No account of the
+mind can be complete which does not admit the reality or the possibility
+of another life. Whether regarded as an ideal or as a fact, the highest
+part of man's nature and that in which it seems most nearly to approach
+the divine, is a phenomenon which exists, and must therefore be included
+within the domain of Psychology.
+
+IV. We admit that there is no perfect or ideal Psychology. It is not a
+whole in the same sense in which Chemistry, Physiology, or Mathematics
+are wholes: that is to say, it is not a connected unity of knowledge.
+Compared with the wealth of other sciences, it rests upon a small number
+of facts; and when we go beyond these, we fall into conjectures and
+verbal discussions. The facts themselves are disjointed; the causes of
+them run up into other sciences, and we have no means of tracing
+them from one to the other. Yet it may be true of this, as of other
+beginnings of knowledge, that the attempt to put them together has
+tested the truth of them, and given a stimulus to the enquiry into them.
+
+Psychology should be natural, not technical. It should take the form
+which is the most intelligible to the common understanding, because it
+has to do with common things, which are familiar to us all. It should
+aim at no more than every reflecting man knows or can easily verify for
+himself. When simple and unpretentious, it is least obscured by words,
+least liable to fall under the influence of Physiology or Metaphysic.
+It should argue, not from exceptional, but from ordinary phenomena. It
+should be careful to distinguish the higher and the lower elements of
+human nature, and not allow one to be veiled in the disguise of the
+other, lest through the slippery nature of language we should pass
+imperceptibly from good to evil, from nature in the higher to nature in
+the neutral or lower sense. It should assert consistently the unity of
+the human faculties, the unity of knowledge, the unity of God and law.
+The difference between the will and the affections and between the
+reason and the passions should also be recognized by it.
+
+Its sphere is supposed to be narrowed to the individual soul; but it
+cannot be thus separated in fact. It goes back to the beginnings of
+things, to the first growth of language and philosophy, and to the whole
+science of man. There can be no truth or completeness in any study of
+the mind which is confined to the individual. The nature of language,
+though not the whole, is perhaps at present the most important element
+in our knowledge of it. It is not impossible that some numerical laws
+may be found to have a place in the relations of mind and matter, as in
+the rest of nature. The old Pythagorean fancy that the soul 'is or has
+in it harmony' may in some degree be realized. But the indications
+of such numerical harmonies are faint; either the secret of them lies
+deeper than we can discover, or nature may have rebelled against the use
+of them in the composition of men and animals. It is with qualitative
+rather than with quantitative differences that we are concerned
+in Psychology. The facts relating to the mind which we obtain from
+Physiology are negative rather than positive. They show us, not the
+processes of mental action, but the conditions of which when deprived
+the mind ceases to act. It would seem as if the time had not yet arrived
+when we can hope to add anything of much importance to our knowledge
+of the mind from the investigations of the microscope. The elements of
+Psychology can still only be learnt from reflections on ourselves, which
+interpret and are also interpreted by our experience of others. The
+history of language, of philosophy, and religion, the great thoughts or
+inventions or discoveries which move mankind, furnish the larger moulds
+or outlines in which the human mind has been cast. From these the
+individual derives so much as he is able to comprehend or has the
+opportunity of learning.
+
+
+
+
+THEAETETUS
+
+
+PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Socrates, Theodorus, Theaetetus.
+
+Euclid and Terpsion meet in front of Euclid's house in Megara; they
+enter the house, and the dialogue is read to them by a servant.
+
+
+EUCLID: Have you only just arrived from the country, Terpsion?
+
+TERPSION: No, I came some time ago: and I have been in the Agora looking
+for you, and wondering that I could not find you.
+
+EUCLID: But I was not in the city.
+
+TERPSION: Where then?
+
+EUCLID: As I was going down to the harbour, I met Theaetetus--he was
+being carried up to Athens from the army at Corinth.
+
+TERPSION: Was he alive or dead?
+
+EUCLID: He was scarcely alive, for he has been badly wounded; but he was
+suffering even more from the sickness which has broken out in the army.
+
+TERPSION: The dysentery, you mean?
+
+EUCLID: Yes.
+
+TERPSION: Alas! what a loss he will be!
+
+EUCLID: Yes, Terpsion, he is a noble fellow; only to-day I heard some
+people highly praising his behaviour in this very battle.
+
+TERPSION: No wonder; I should rather be surprised at hearing anything
+else of him. But why did he go on, instead of stopping at Megara?
+
+EUCLID: He wanted to get home: although I entreated and advised him to
+remain, he would not listen to me; so I set him on his way, and turned
+back, and then I remembered what Socrates had said of him, and thought
+how remarkably this, like all his predictions, had been fulfilled.
+I believe that he had seen him a little before his own death, when
+Theaetetus was a youth, and he had a memorable conversation with him,
+which he repeated to me when I came to Athens; he was full of admiration
+of his genius, and said that he would most certainly be a great man, if
+he lived.
+
+TERPSION: The prophecy has certainly been fulfilled; but what was the
+conversation? can you tell me?
+
+EUCLID: No, indeed, not offhand; but I took notes of it as soon as I got
+home; these I filled up from memory, writing them out at leisure; and
+whenever I went to Athens, I asked Socrates about any point which I had
+forgotten, and on my return I made corrections; thus I have nearly the
+whole conversation written down.
+
+TERPSION: I remember--you told me; and I have always been intending to
+ask you to show me the writing, but have put off doing so; and now, why
+should we not read it through?--having just come from the country, I
+should greatly like to rest.
+
+EUCLID: I too shall be very glad of a rest, for I went with Theaetetus
+as far as Erineum. Let us go in, then, and, while we are reposing, the
+servant shall read to us.
+
+TERPSION: Very good.
+
+EUCLID: Here is the roll, Terpsion; I may observe that I have introduced
+Socrates, not as narrating to me, but as actually conversing with the
+persons whom he mentioned--these were, Theodorus the geometrician (of
+Cyrene), and Theaetetus. I have omitted, for the sake of convenience,
+the interlocutory words 'I said,' 'I remarked,' which he used when he
+spoke of himself, and again, 'he agreed,' or 'disagreed,' in the answer,
+lest the repetition of them should be troublesome.
+
+TERPSION: Quite right, Euclid.
+
+EUCLID: And now, boy, you may take the roll and read.
+
+EUCLID'S SERVANT READS.
+
+SOCRATES: If I cared enough about the Cyrenians, Theodorus, I would ask
+you whether there are any rising geometricians or philosophers in that
+part of the world. But I am more interested in our own Athenian youth,
+and I would rather know who among them are likely to do well. I observe
+them as far as I can myself, and I enquire of any one whom they follow,
+and I see that a great many of them follow you, in which they are quite
+right, considering your eminence in geometry and in other ways. Tell me
+then, if you have met with any one who is good for anything.
+
+THEODORUS: Yes, Socrates, I have become acquainted with one very
+remarkable Athenian youth, whom I commend to you as well worthy of your
+attention. If he had been a beauty I should have been afraid to praise
+him, lest you should suppose that I was in love with him; but he is no
+beauty, and you must not be offended if I say that he is very like you;
+for he has a snub nose and projecting eyes, although these features are
+less marked in him than in you. Seeing, then, that he has no personal
+attractions, I may freely say, that in all my acquaintance, which is
+very large, I never knew any one who was his equal in natural gifts: for
+he has a quickness of apprehension which is almost unrivalled, and he
+is exceedingly gentle, and also the most courageous of men; there is a
+union of qualities in him such as I have never seen in any other, and
+should scarcely have thought possible; for those who, like him, have
+quick and ready and retentive wits, have generally also quick tempers;
+they are ships without ballast, and go darting about, and are mad rather
+than courageous; and the steadier sort, when they have to face study,
+prove stupid and cannot remember. Whereas he moves surely and smoothly
+and successfully in the path of knowledge and enquiry; and he is full of
+gentleness, flowing on silently like a river of oil; at his age, it is
+wonderful.
+
+SOCRATES: That is good news; whose son is he?
+
+THEODORUS: The name of his father I have forgotten, but the youth
+himself is the middle one of those who are approaching us; he and his
+companions have been anointing themselves in the outer court, and now
+they seem to have finished, and are coming towards us. Look and see
+whether you know him.
+
+SOCRATES: I know the youth, but I do not know his name; he is the son of
+Euphronius the Sunian, who was himself an eminent man, and such another
+as his son is, according to your account of him; I believe that he left
+a considerable fortune.
+
+THEODORUS: Theaetetus, Socrates, is his name; but I rather think that
+the property disappeared in the hands of trustees; notwithstanding which
+he is wonderfully liberal.
+
+SOCRATES: He must be a fine fellow; tell him to come and sit by me.
+
+THEODORUS: I will. Come hither, Theaetetus, and sit by Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: By all means, Theaetetus, in order that I may see the
+reflection of myself in your face, for Theodorus says that we are alike;
+and yet if each of us held in his hands a lyre, and he said that they
+were tuned alike, should we at once take his word, or should we ask
+whether he who said so was or was not a musician?
+
+THEAETETUS: We should ask.
+
+SOCRATES: And if we found that he was, we should take his word; and if
+not, not?
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And if this supposed likeness of our faces is a matter of any
+interest to us, we should enquire whether he who says that we are alike
+is a painter or not?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly we should.
+
+SOCRATES: And is Theodorus a painter?
+
+THEAETETUS: I never heard that he was.
+
+SOCRATES: Is he a geometrician?
+
+THEAETETUS: Of course he is, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: And is he an astronomer and calculator and musician, and in
+general an educated man?
+
+THEAETETUS: I think so.
+
+SOCRATES: If, then, he remarks on a similarity in our persons, either
+by way of praise or blame, there is no particular reason why we should
+attend to him.
+
+THEAETETUS: I should say not.
+
+SOCRATES: But if he praises the virtue or wisdom which are the mental
+endowments of either of us, then he who hears the praises will naturally
+desire to examine him who is praised: and he again should be willing to
+exhibit himself.
+
+THEAETETUS: Very true, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: Then now is the time, my dear Theaetetus, for me to examine,
+and for you to exhibit; since although Theodorus has praised many a
+citizen and stranger in my hearing, never did I hear him praise any one
+as he has been praising you.
+
+THEAETETUS: I am glad to hear it, Socrates; but what if he was only in
+jest?
+
+SOCRATES: Nay, Theodorus is not given to jesting; and I cannot allow you
+to retract your consent on any such pretence as that. If you do, he will
+have to swear to his words; and we are perfectly sure that no one will
+be found to impugn him. Do not be shy then, but stand to your word.
+
+THEAETETUS: I suppose I must, if you wish it.
+
+SOCRATES: In the first place, I should like to ask what you learn of
+Theodorus: something of geometry, perhaps?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And astronomy and harmony and calculation?
+
+THEAETETUS: I do my best.
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, my boy, and so do I; and my desire is to learn of him,
+or of anybody who seems to understand these things. And I get on pretty
+well in general; but there is a little difficulty which I want you and
+the company to aid me in investigating. Will you answer me a question:
+'Is not learning growing wiser about that which you learn?'
+
+THEAETETUS: Of course.
+
+SOCRATES: And by wisdom the wise are wise?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And is that different in any way from knowledge?
+
+THEAETETUS: What?
+
+SOCRATES: Wisdom; are not men wise in that which they know?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly they are.
+
+SOCRATES: Then wisdom and knowledge are the same?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Herein lies the difficulty which I can never solve to my
+satisfaction--What is knowledge? Can we answer that question? What say
+you? which of us will speak first? whoever misses shall sit down, as at
+a game of ball, and shall be donkey, as the boys say; he who lasts out
+his competitors in the game without missing, shall be our king,
+and shall have the right of putting to us any questions which he
+pleases...Why is there no reply? I hope, Theodorus, that I am not
+betrayed into rudeness by my love of conversation? I only want to make
+us talk and be friendly and sociable.
+
+THEODORUS: The reverse of rudeness, Socrates: but I would rather that
+you would ask one of the young fellows; for the truth is, that I am
+unused to your game of question and answer, and I am too old to learn;
+the young will be more suitable, and they will improve more than
+I shall, for youth is always able to improve. And so having made a
+beginning with Theaetetus, I would advise you to go on with him and not
+let him off.
+
+SOCRATES: Do you hear, Theaetetus, what Theodorus says? The philosopher,
+whom you would not like to disobey, and whose word ought to be a command
+to a young man, bids me interrogate you. Take courage, then, and nobly
+say what you think that knowledge is.
+
+THEAETETUS: Well, Socrates, I will answer as you and he bid me; and if I
+make a mistake, you will doubtless correct me.
+
+SOCRATES: We will, if we can.
+
+THEAETETUS: Then, I think that the sciences which I learn from
+Theodorus--geometry, and those which you just now mentioned--are
+knowledge; and I would include the art of the cobbler and other
+craftsmen; these, each and all of, them, are knowledge.
+
+SOCRATES: Too much, Theaetetus, too much; the nobility and liberality of
+your nature make you give many and diverse things, when I am asking for
+one simple thing.
+
+THEAETETUS: What do you mean, Socrates?
+
+SOCRATES: Perhaps nothing. I will endeavour, however, to explain what I
+believe to be my meaning: When you speak of cobbling, you mean the art
+or science of making shoes?
+
+THEAETETUS: Just so.
+
+SOCRATES: And when you speak of carpentering, you mean the art of making
+wooden implements?
+
+THEAETETUS: I do.
+
+SOCRATES: In both cases you define the subject matter of each of the two
+arts?
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: But that, Theaetetus, was not the point of my question: we
+wanted to know not the subjects, nor yet the number of the arts or
+sciences, for we were not going to count them, but we wanted to know the
+nature of knowledge in the abstract. Am I not right?
+
+THEAETETUS: Perfectly right.
+
+SOCRATES: Let me offer an illustration: Suppose that a person were to
+ask about some very trivial and obvious thing--for example, What is
+clay? and we were to reply, that there is a clay of potters, there is
+a clay of oven-makers, there is a clay of brick-makers; would not the
+answer be ridiculous?
+
+THEAETETUS: Truly.
+
+SOCRATES: In the first place, there would be an absurdity in assuming
+that he who asked the question would understand from our answer the
+nature of 'clay,' merely because we added 'of the image-makers,' or of
+any other workers. How can a man understand the name of anything, when
+he does not know the nature of it?
+
+THEAETETUS: He cannot.
+
+SOCRATES: Then he who does not know what science or knowledge is, has no
+knowledge of the art or science of making shoes?
+
+THEAETETUS: None.
+
+SOCRATES: Nor of any other science?
+
+THEAETETUS: No.
+
+SOCRATES: And when a man is asked what science or knowledge is, to
+give in answer the name of some art or science is ridiculous; for the
+question is, 'What is knowledge?' and he replies, 'A knowledge of this
+or that.'
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: Moreover, he might answer shortly and simply, but he makes an
+enormous circuit. For example, when asked about the clay, he might have
+said simply, that clay is moistened earth--what sort of clay is not to
+the point.
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes, Socrates, there is no difficulty as you put the
+question. You mean, if I am not mistaken, something like what occurred
+to me and to my friend here, your namesake Socrates, in a recent
+discussion.
+
+SOCRATES: What was that, Theaetetus?
+
+THEAETETUS: Theodorus was writing out for us something about roots, such
+as the roots of three or five, showing that they are incommensurable by
+the unit: he selected other examples up to seventeen--there he stopped.
+Now as there are innumerable roots, the notion occurred to us of
+attempting to include them all under one name or class.
+
+SOCRATES: And did you find such a class?
+
+THEAETETUS: I think that we did; but I should like to have your opinion.
+
+SOCRATES: Let me hear.
+
+THEAETETUS: We divided all numbers into two classes: those which are
+made up of equal factors multiplying into one another, which we compared
+to square figures and called square or equilateral numbers;--that was
+one class.
+
+SOCRATES: Very good.
+
+THEAETETUS: The intermediate numbers, such as three and five, and every
+other number which is made up of unequal factors, either of a greater
+multiplied by a less, or of a less multiplied by a greater, and when
+regarded as a figure, is contained in unequal sides;--all these we
+compared to oblong figures, and called them oblong numbers.
+
+SOCRATES: Capital; and what followed?
+
+THEAETETUS: The lines, or sides, which have for their squares the
+equilateral plane numbers, were called by us lengths or magnitudes; and
+the lines which are the roots of (or whose squares are equal to) the
+oblong numbers, were called powers or roots; the reason of this latter
+name being, that they are commensurable with the former [i.e., with the
+so-called lengths or magnitudes] not in linear measurement, but in the
+value of the superficial content of their squares; and the same about
+solids.
+
+SOCRATES: Excellent, my boys; I think that you fully justify the praises
+of Theodorus, and that he will not be found guilty of false witness.
+
+THEAETETUS: But I am unable, Socrates, to give you a similar answer
+about knowledge, which is what you appear to want; and therefore
+Theodorus is a deceiver after all.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, but if some one were to praise you for running, and to
+say that he never met your equal among boys, and afterwards you were
+beaten in a race by a grown-up man, who was a great runner--would the
+praise be any the less true?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES: And is the discovery of the nature of knowledge so small a
+matter, as just now said? Is it not one which would task the powers of
+men perfect in every way?
+
+THEAETETUS: By heaven, they should be the top of all perfection!
+
+SOCRATES: Well, then, be of good cheer; do not say that Theodorus was
+mistaken about you, but do your best to ascertain the true nature of
+knowledge, as well as of other things.
+
+THEAETETUS: I am eager enough, Socrates, if that would bring to light
+the truth.
+
+SOCRATES: Come, you made a good beginning just now; let your own answer
+about roots be your model, and as you comprehended them all in one
+class, try and bring the many sorts of knowledge under one definition.
+
+THEAETETUS: I can assure you, Socrates, that I have tried very often,
+when the report of questions asked by you was brought to me; but I can
+neither persuade myself that I have a satisfactory answer to give, nor
+hear of any one who answers as you would have him; and I cannot shake
+off a feeling of anxiety.
+
+SOCRATES: These are the pangs of labour, my dear Theaetetus; you have
+something within you which you are bringing to the birth.
+
+THEAETETUS: I do not know, Socrates; I only say what I feel.
+
+SOCRATES: And have you never heard, simpleton, that I am the son of a
+midwife, brave and burly, whose name was Phaenarete?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes, I have.
+
+SOCRATES: And that I myself practise midwifery?
+
+THEAETETUS: No, never.
+
+SOCRATES: Let me tell you that I do though, my friend: but you must not
+reveal the secret, as the world in general have not found me out; and
+therefore they only say of me, that I am the strangest of mortals and
+drive men to their wits' end. Did you ever hear that too?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Shall I tell you the reason?
+
+THEAETETUS: By all means.
+
+SOCRATES: Bear in mind the whole business of the midwives, and then you
+will see my meaning better:--No woman, as you are probably aware, who is
+still able to conceive and bear, attends other women, but only those who
+are past bearing.
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes, I know.
+
+SOCRATES: The reason of this is said to be that Artemis--the goddess of
+childbirth--is not a mother, and she honours those who are like herself;
+but she could not allow the barren to be midwives, because human nature
+cannot know the mystery of an art without experience; and therefore she
+assigned this office to those who are too old to bear.
+
+THEAETETUS: I dare say.
+
+SOCRATES: And I dare say too, or rather I am absolutely certain, that
+the midwives know better than others who is pregnant and who is not?
+
+THEAETETUS: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: And by the use of potions and incantations they are able to
+arouse the pangs and to soothe them at will; they can make those bear
+who have a difficulty in bearing, and if they think fit they can smother
+the embryo in the womb.
+
+THEAETETUS: They can.
+
+SOCRATES: Did you ever remark that they are also most cunning
+matchmakers, and have a thorough knowledge of what unions are likely to
+produce a brave brood?
+
+THEAETETUS: No, never.
+
+SOCRATES: Then let me tell you that this is their greatest pride, more
+than cutting the umbilical cord. And if you reflect, you will see that
+the same art which cultivates and gathers in the fruits of the earth,
+will be most likely to know in what soils the several plants or seeds
+should be deposited.
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes, the same art.
+
+SOCRATES: And do you suppose that with women the case is otherwise?
+
+THEAETETUS: I should think not.
+
+SOCRATES: Certainly not; but midwives are respectable women who have a
+character to lose, and they avoid this department of their profession,
+because they are afraid of being called procuresses, which is a name
+given to those who join together man and woman in an unlawful and
+unscientific way; and yet the true midwife is also the true and only
+matchmaker.
+
+THEAETETUS: Clearly.
+
+SOCRATES: Such are the midwives, whose task is a very important one, but
+not so important as mine; for women do not bring into the world at one
+time real children, and at another time counterfeits which are with
+difficulty distinguished from them; if they did, then the discernment of
+the true and false birth would be the crowning achievement of the art of
+midwifery--you would think so?
+
+THEAETETUS: Indeed I should.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, my art of midwifery is in most respects like theirs; but
+differs, in that I attend men and not women; and look after their souls
+when they are in labour, and not after their bodies: and the triumph of
+my art is in thoroughly examining whether the thought which the mind of
+the young man brings forth is a false idol or a noble and true birth.
+And like the midwives, I am barren, and the reproach which is often
+made against me, that I ask questions of others and have not the wit to
+answer them myself, is very just--the reason is, that the god compels me
+to be a midwife, but does not allow me to bring forth. And therefore
+I am not myself at all wise, nor have I anything to show which is
+the invention or birth of my own soul, but those who converse with me
+profit. Some of them appear dull enough at first, but afterwards, as
+our acquaintance ripens, if the god is gracious to them, they all make
+astonishing progress; and this in the opinion of others as well as in
+their own. It is quite clear that they never learned anything from me;
+the many fine discoveries to which they cling are of their own making.
+But to me and the god they owe their delivery. And the proof of my words
+is, that many of them in their ignorance, either in their self-conceit
+despising me, or falling under the influence of others, have gone away
+too soon; and have not only lost the children of whom I had previously
+delivered them by an ill bringing up, but have stifled whatever else
+they had in them by evil communications, being fonder of lies and shams
+than of the truth; and they have at last ended by seeing themselves, as
+others see them, to be great fools. Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus,
+is one of them, and there are many others. The truants often return to
+me, and beg that I would consort with them again--they are ready to
+go to me on their knees--and then, if my familiar allows, which is not
+always the case, I receive them, and they begin to grow again. Dire
+are the pangs which my art is able to arouse and to allay in those who
+consort with me, just like the pangs of women in childbirth; night and
+day they are full of perplexity and travail which is even worse than
+that of the women. So much for them. And there are others, Theaetetus,
+who come to me apparently having nothing in them; and as I know that
+they have no need of my art, I coax them into marrying some one, and
+by the grace of God I can generally tell who is likely to do them good.
+Many of them I have given away to Prodicus, and many to other inspired
+sages. I tell you this long story, friend Theaetetus, because I suspect,
+as indeed you seem to think yourself, that you are in labour--great with
+some conception. Come then to me, who am a midwife's son and myself a
+midwife, and do your best to answer the questions which I will ask you.
+And if I abstract and expose your first-born, because I discover upon
+inspection that the conception which you have formed is a vain shadow,
+do not quarrel with me on that account, as the manner of women is when
+their first children are taken from them. For I have actually known some
+who were ready to bite me when I deprived them of a darling folly; they
+did not perceive that I acted from goodwill, not knowing that no god is
+the enemy of man--that was not within the range of their ideas; neither
+am I their enemy in all this, but it would be wrong for me to admit
+falsehood, or to stifle the truth. Once more, then, Theaetetus, I repeat
+my old question, 'What is knowledge?'--and do not say that you cannot
+tell; but quit yourself like a man, and by the help of God you will be
+able to tell.
+
+THEAETETUS: At any rate, Socrates, after such an exhortation I should be
+ashamed of not trying to do my best. Now he who knows perceives what he
+knows, and, as far as I can see at present, knowledge is perception.
+
+SOCRATES: Bravely said, boy; that is the way in which you should express
+your opinion. And now, let us examine together this conception of yours,
+and see whether it is a true birth or a mere wind-egg:--You say that
+knowledge is perception?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, you have delivered yourself of a very important doctrine
+about knowledge; it is indeed the opinion of Protagoras, who has another
+way of expressing it. Man, he says, is the measure of all things, of the
+existence of things that are, and of the non-existence of things that
+are not:--You have read him?
+
+THEAETETUS: O yes, again and again.
+
+SOCRATES: Does he not say that things are to you such as they appear to
+you, and to me such as they appear to me, and that you and I are men?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes, he says so.
+
+SOCRATES: A wise man is not likely to talk nonsense. Let us try to
+understand him: the same wind is blowing, and yet one of us may be cold
+and the other not, or one may be slightly and the other very cold?
+
+THEAETETUS: Quite true.
+
+SOCRATES: Now is the wind, regarded not in relation to us but
+absolutely, cold or not; or are we to say, with Protagoras, that the
+wind is cold to him who is cold, and not to him who is not?
+
+THEAETETUS: I suppose the last.
+
+SOCRATES: Then it must appear so to each of them?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And 'appears to him' means the same as 'he perceives.'
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: Then appearing and perceiving coincide in the case of hot and
+cold, and in similar instances; for things appear, or may be supposed to
+be, to each one such as he perceives them?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Then perception is always of existence, and being the same as
+knowledge is unerring?
+
+THEAETETUS: Clearly.
+
+SOCRATES: In the name of the Graces, what an almighty wise man
+Protagoras must have been! He spoke these things in a parable to the
+common herd, like you and me, but told the truth, 'his Truth,' (In
+allusion to a book of Protagoras' which bore this title.) in secret to
+his own disciples.
+
+THEAETETUS: What do you mean, Socrates?
+
+SOCRATES: I am about to speak of a high argument, in which all things
+are said to be relative; you cannot rightly call anything by any name,
+such as great or small, heavy or light, for the great will be small and
+the heavy light--there is no single thing or quality, but out of motion
+and change and admixture all things are becoming relatively to one
+another, which 'becoming' is by us incorrectly called being, but is
+really becoming, for nothing ever is, but all things are becoming.
+Summon all philosophers--Protagoras, Heracleitus, Empedocles, and the
+rest of them, one after another, and with the exception of Parmenides
+they will agree with you in this. Summon the great masters of either
+kind of poetry--Epicharmus, the prince of Comedy, and Homer of Tragedy;
+when the latter sings of
+
+'Ocean whence sprang the gods, and mother Tethys,'
+
+does he not mean that all things are the offspring, of flux and motion?
+
+THEAETETUS: I think so.
+
+SOCRATES: And who could take up arms against such a great army having
+Homer for its general, and not appear ridiculous? (Compare Cratylus.)
+
+THEAETETUS: Who indeed, Socrates?
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, Theaetetus; and there are plenty of other proofs
+which will show that motion is the source of what is called being and
+becoming, and inactivity of not-being and destruction; for fire and
+warmth, which are supposed to be the parent and guardian of all other
+things, are born of movement and of friction, which is a kind of
+motion;--is not this the origin of fire?
+
+THEAETETUS: It is.
+
+SOCRATES: And the race of animals is generated in the same way?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And is not the bodily habit spoiled by rest and idleness, but
+preserved for a long time by motion and exercise?
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And what of the mental habit? Is not the soul informed, and
+improved, and preserved by study and attention, which are motions; but
+when at rest, which in the soul only means want of attention and study,
+is uninformed, and speedily forgets whatever she has learned?
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: Then motion is a good, and rest an evil, to the soul as well
+as to the body?
+
+THEAETETUS: Clearly.
+
+SOCRATES: I may add, that breathless calm, stillness and the like waste
+and impair, while wind and storm preserve; and the palmary argument of
+all, which I strongly urge, is the golden chain in Homer, by which
+he means the sun, thereby indicating that so long as the sun and the
+heavens go round in their orbits, all things human and divine are and
+are preserved, but if they were chained up and their motions ceased,
+then all things would be destroyed, and, as the saying is, turned upside
+down.
+
+THEAETETUS: I believe, Socrates, that you have truly explained his
+meaning.
+
+SOCRATES: Then now apply his doctrine to perception, my good friend, and
+first of all to vision; that which you call white colour is not in your
+eyes, and is not a distinct thing which exists out of them. And you must
+not assign any place to it: for if it had position it would be, and be
+at rest, and there would be no process of becoming.
+
+THEAETETUS: Then what is colour?
+
+SOCRATES: Let us carry the principle which has just been affirmed, that
+nothing is self-existent, and then we shall see that white, black,
+and every other colour, arises out of the eye meeting the appropriate
+motion, and that what we call a colour is in each case neither the
+active nor the passive element, but something which passes between
+them, and is peculiar to each percipient; are you quite certain that the
+several colours appear to a dog or to any animal whatever as they appear
+to you?
+
+THEAETETUS: Far from it.
+
+SOCRATES: Or that anything appears the same to you as to another man?
+Are you so profoundly convinced of this? Rather would it not be true
+that it never appears exactly the same to you, because you are never
+exactly the same?
+
+THEAETETUS: The latter.
+
+SOCRATES: And if that with which I compare myself in size, or which
+I apprehend by touch, were great or white or hot, it could not become
+different by mere contact with another unless it actually changed; nor
+again, if the comparing or apprehending subject were great or white
+or hot, could this, when unchanged from within, become changed by any
+approximation or affection of any other thing. The fact is that in
+our ordinary way of speaking we allow ourselves to be driven into most
+ridiculous and wonderful contradictions, as Protagoras and all who take
+his line of argument would remark.
+
+THEAETETUS: How? and of what sort do you mean?
+
+SOCRATES: A little instance will sufficiently explain my meaning: Here
+are six dice, which are more by a half when compared with four, and
+fewer by a half than twelve--they are more and also fewer. How can you
+or any one maintain the contrary?
+
+THEAETETUS: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, then, suppose that Protagoras or some one asks whether
+anything can become greater or more if not by increasing, how would you
+answer him, Theaetetus?
+
+THEAETETUS: I should say 'No,' Socrates, if I were to speak my mind
+in reference to this last question, and if I were not afraid of
+contradicting my former answer.
+
+SOCRATES: Capital! excellent! spoken like an oracle, my boy! And if you
+reply 'Yes,' there will be a case for Euripides; for our tongue will be
+unconvinced, but not our mind. (In allusion to the well-known line of
+Euripides, Hippol.: e gloss omomoch e de thren anomotos.)
+
+THEAETETUS: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: The thoroughbred Sophists, who know all that can be known
+about the mind, and argue only out of the superfluity of their wits,
+would have had a regular sparring-match over this, and would have
+knocked their arguments together finely. But you and I, who have no
+professional aims, only desire to see what is the mutual relation of
+these principles,--whether they are consistent with each or not.
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes, that would be my desire.
+
+SOCRATES: And mine too. But since this is our feeling, and there is
+plenty of time, why should we not calmly and patiently review our own
+thoughts, and thoroughly examine and see what these appearances in
+us really are? If I am not mistaken, they will be described by us as
+follows:--first, that nothing can become greater or less, either in
+number or magnitude, while remaining equal to itself--you would agree?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Secondly, that without addition or subtraction there is no
+increase or diminution of anything, but only equality.
+
+THEAETETUS: Quite true.
+
+SOCRATES: Thirdly, that what was not before cannot be afterwards,
+without becoming and having become.
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes, truly.
+
+SOCRATES: These three axioms, if I am not mistaken, are fighting with
+one another in our minds in the case of the dice, or, again, in such a
+case as this--if I were to say that I, who am of a certain height and
+taller than you, may within a year, without gaining or losing in height,
+be not so tall--not that I should have lost, but that you would have
+increased. In such a case, I am afterwards what I once was not, and yet
+I have not become; for I could not have become without becoming, neither
+could I have become less without losing somewhat of my height; and I
+could give you ten thousand examples of similar contradictions, if
+we admit them at all. I believe that you follow me, Theaetetus; for I
+suspect that you have thought of these questions before now.
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes, Socrates, and I am amazed when I think of them; by the
+Gods I am! and I want to know what on earth they mean; and there are
+times when my head quite swims with the contemplation of them.
+
+SOCRATES: I see, my dear Theaetetus, that Theodorus had a true insight
+into your nature when he said that you were a philosopher, for wonder
+is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder. He was
+not a bad genealogist who said that Iris (the messenger of heaven)
+is the child of Thaumas (wonder). But do you begin to see what is the
+explanation of this perplexity on the hypothesis which we attribute to
+Protagoras?
+
+THEAETETUS: Not as yet.
+
+SOCRATES: Then you will be obliged to me if I help you to unearth the
+hidden 'truth' of a famous man or school.
+
+THEAETETUS: To be sure, I shall be very much obliged.
+
+SOCRATES: Take a look round, then, and see that none of the uninitiated
+are listening. Now by the uninitiated I mean the people who believe in
+nothing but what they can grasp in their hands, and who will not allow
+that action or generation or anything invisible can have real existence.
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes, indeed, Socrates, they are very hard and impenetrable
+mortals.
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, my boy, outer barbarians. Far more ingenious are the
+brethren whose mysteries I am about to reveal to you. Their first
+principle is, that all is motion, and upon this all the affections of
+which we were just now speaking are supposed to depend: there is nothing
+but motion, which has two forms, one active and the other passive, both
+in endless number; and out of the union and friction of them there is
+generated a progeny endless in number, having two forms, sense and the
+object of sense, which are ever breaking forth and coming to the birth
+at the same moment. The senses are variously named hearing, seeing,
+smelling; there is the sense of heat, cold, pleasure, pain, desire,
+fear, and many more which have names, as well as innumerable others
+which are without them; each has its kindred object,--each variety
+of colour has a corresponding variety of sight, and so with sound and
+hearing, and with the rest of the senses and the objects akin to them.
+Do you see, Theaetetus, the bearings of this tale on the preceding
+argument?
+
+THEAETETUS: Indeed I do not.
+
+SOCRATES: Then attend, and I will try to finish the story. The purport
+is that all these things are in motion, as I was saying, and that this
+motion is of two kinds, a slower and a quicker; and the slower elements
+have their motions in the same place and with reference to things near
+them, and so they beget; but what is begotten is swifter, for it
+is carried to fro, and moves from place to place. Apply this to
+sense:--When the eye and the appropriate object meet together and give
+birth to whiteness and the sensation connatural with it, which could not
+have been given by either of them going elsewhere, then, while the
+sight is flowing from the eye, whiteness proceeds from the object which
+combines in producing the colour; and so the eye is fulfilled with
+sight, and really sees, and becomes, not sight, but a seeing eye;
+and the object which combined to form the colour is fulfilled with
+whiteness, and becomes not whiteness but a white thing, whether wood or
+stone or whatever the object may be which happens to be coloured white.
+And this is true of all sensible objects, hard, warm, and the like,
+which are similarly to be regarded, as I was saying before, not as
+having any absolute existence, but as being all of them of whatever kind
+generated by motion in their intercourse with one another; for of the
+agent and patient, as existing in separation, no trustworthy conception,
+as they say, can be formed, for the agent has no existence until united
+with the patient, and the patient has no existence until united with
+the agent; and that which by uniting with something becomes an agent, by
+meeting with some other thing is converted into a patient. And from
+all these considerations, as I said at first, there arises a general
+reflection, that there is no one self-existent thing, but everything
+is becoming and in relation; and being must be altogether abolished,
+although from habit and ignorance we are compelled even in this
+discussion to retain the use of the term. But great philosophers tell us
+that we are not to allow either the word 'something,' or 'belonging to
+something,' or 'to me,' or 'this,' or 'that,' or any other detaining
+name to be used, in the language of nature all things are being created
+and destroyed, coming into being and passing into new forms; nor can any
+name fix or detain them; he who attempts to fix them is easily refuted.
+And this should be the way of speaking, not only of particulars but
+of aggregates; such aggregates as are expressed in the word 'man,' or
+'stone,' or any name of an animal or of a class. O Theaetetus, are not
+these speculations sweet as honey? And do you not like the taste of them
+in the mouth?
+
+THEAETETUS: I do not know what to say, Socrates; for, indeed, I cannot
+make out whether you are giving your own opinion or only wanting to draw
+me out.
+
+SOCRATES: You forget, my friend, that I neither know, nor profess to
+know, anything of these matters; you are the person who is in labour, I
+am the barren midwife; and this is why I soothe you, and offer you one
+good thing after another, that you may taste them. And I hope that I may
+at last help to bring your own opinion into the light of day: when this
+has been accomplished, then we will determine whether what you have
+brought forth is only a wind-egg or a real and genuine birth. Therefore,
+keep up your spirits, and answer like a man what you think.
+
+THEAETETUS: Ask me.
+
+SOCRATES: Then once more: Is it your opinion that nothing is but what
+becomes?--the good and the noble, as well as all the other things which
+we were just now mentioning?
+
+THEAETETUS: When I hear you discoursing in this style, I think that
+there is a great deal in what you say, and I am very ready to assent.
+
+SOCRATES: Let us not leave the argument unfinished, then; for there
+still remains to be considered an objection which may be raised about
+dreams and diseases, in particular about madness, and the various
+illusions of hearing and sight, or of other senses. For you know that
+in all these cases the esse-percipi theory appears to be unmistakably
+refuted, since in dreams and illusions we certainly have false
+perceptions; and far from saying that everything is which appears, we
+should rather say that nothing is which appears.
+
+THEAETETUS: Very true, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: But then, my boy, how can any one contend that knowledge is
+perception, or that to every man what appears is?
+
+THEAETETUS: I am afraid to say, Socrates, that I have nothing to answer,
+because you rebuked me just now for making this excuse; but I certainly
+cannot undertake to argue that madmen or dreamers think truly, when they
+imagine, some of them that they are gods, and others that they can fly,
+and are flying in their sleep.
+
+SOCRATES: Do you see another question which can be raised about these
+phenomena, notably about dreaming and waking?
+
+THEAETETUS: What question?
+
+SOCRATES: A question which I think that you must often have heard
+persons ask:--How can you determine whether at this moment we are
+sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and
+talking to one another in the waking state?
+
+THEAETETUS: Indeed, Socrates, I do not know how to prove the one
+any more than the other, for in both cases the facts precisely
+correspond;--and there is no difficulty in supposing that during all
+this discussion we have been talking to one another in a dream; and when
+in a dream we seem to be narrating dreams, the resemblance of the two
+states is quite astonishing.
+
+SOCRATES: You see, then, that a doubt about the reality of sense is
+easily raised, since there may even be a doubt whether we are awake
+or in a dream. And as our time is equally divided between sleeping
+and waking, in either sphere of existence the soul contends that the
+thoughts which are present to our minds at the time are true; and during
+one half of our lives we affirm the truth of the one, and, during the
+other half, of the other; and are equally confident of both.
+
+THEAETETUS: Most true.
+
+SOCRATES: And may not the same be said of madness and other disorders?
+the difference is only that the times are not equal.
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And is truth or falsehood to be determined by duration of
+time?
+
+THEAETETUS: That would be in many ways ridiculous.
+
+SOCRATES: But can you certainly determine by any other means which of
+these opinions is true?
+
+THEAETETUS: I do not think that I can.
+
+SOCRATES: Listen, then, to a statement of the other side of the
+argument, which is made by the champions of appearance. They would say,
+as I imagine--Can that which is wholly other than something, have the
+same quality as that from which it differs? and observe, Theaetetus,
+that the word 'other' means not 'partially,' but 'wholly other.'
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly, putting the question as you do, that which is
+wholly other cannot either potentially or in any other way be the same.
+
+SOCRATES: And must therefore be admitted to be unlike?
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: If, then, anything happens to become like or unlike itself or
+another, when it becomes like we call it the same--when unlike, other?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Were we not saying that there are agents many and infinite,
+and patients many and infinite?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And also that different combinations will produce results
+which are not the same, but different?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Let us take you and me, or anything as an example:--There is
+Socrates in health, and Socrates sick--Are they like or unlike?
+
+THEAETETUS: You mean to compare Socrates in health as a whole, and
+Socrates in sickness as a whole?
+
+SOCRATES: Exactly; that is my meaning.
+
+THEAETETUS: I answer, they are unlike.
+
+SOCRATES: And if unlike, they are other?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And would you not say the same of Socrates sleeping and
+waking, or in any of the states which we were mentioning?
+
+THEAETETUS: I should.
+
+SOCRATES: All agents have a different patient in Socrates, accordingly
+as he is well or ill.
+
+THEAETETUS: Of course.
+
+SOCRATES: And I who am the patient, and that which is the agent, will
+produce something different in each of the two cases?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: The wine which I drink when I am in health, appears sweet and
+pleasant to me?
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: For, as has been already acknowledged, the patient and agent
+meet together and produce sweetness and a perception of sweetness, which
+are in simultaneous motion, and the perception which comes from the
+patient makes the tongue percipient, and the quality of sweetness which
+arises out of and is moving about the wine, makes the wine both to be
+and to appear sweet to the healthy tongue.
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly; that has been already acknowledged.
+
+SOCRATES: But when I am sick, the wine really acts upon another and a
+different person?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: The combination of the draught of wine, and the Socrates
+who is sick, produces quite another result; which is the sensation of
+bitterness in the tongue, and the motion and creation of bitterness in
+and about the wine, which becomes not bitterness but something bitter;
+as I myself become not perception but percipient?
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: There is no other object of which I shall ever have the same
+perception, for another object would give another perception, and would
+make the percipient other and different; nor can that object which
+affects me, meeting another subject, produce the same, or become
+similar, for that too would produce another result from another subject,
+and become different.
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: Neither can I by myself, have this sensation, nor the object
+by itself, this quality.
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES: When I perceive I must become percipient of something--there
+can be no such thing as perceiving and perceiving nothing; the object,
+whether it become sweet, bitter, or of any other quality, must have
+relation to a percipient; nothing can become sweet which is sweet to no
+one.
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES: Then the inference is, that we (the agent and patient) are or
+become in relation to one another; there is a law which binds us one to
+the other, but not to any other existence, nor each of us to himself;
+and therefore we can only be bound to one another; so that whether
+a person says that a thing is or becomes, he must say that it is or
+becomes to or of or in relation to something else; but he must not
+say or allow any one else to say that anything is or becomes
+absolutely:--such is our conclusion.
+
+THEAETETUS: Very true, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: Then, if that which acts upon me has relation to me and to no
+other, I and no other am the percipient of it?
+
+THEAETETUS: Of course.
+
+SOCRATES: Then my perception is true to me, being inseparable from my
+own being; and, as Protagoras says, to myself I am judge of what is and
+what is not to me.
+
+THEAETETUS: I suppose so.
+
+SOCRATES: How then, if I never err, and if my mind never trips in the
+conception of being or becoming, can I fail of knowing that which I
+perceive?
+
+THEAETETUS: You cannot.
+
+SOCRATES: Then you were quite right in affirming that knowledge is only
+perception; and the meaning turns out to be the same, whether with Homer
+and Heracleitus, and all that company, you say that all is motion and
+flux, or with the great sage Protagoras, that man is the measure of all
+things; or with Theaetetus, that, given these premises, perception is
+knowledge. Am I not right, Theaetetus, and is not this your new-born
+child, of which I have delivered you? What say you?
+
+THEAETETUS: I cannot but agree, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: Then this is the child, however he may turn out, which you and
+I have with difficulty brought into the world. And now that he is born,
+we must run round the hearth with him, and see whether he is worth
+rearing, or is only a wind-egg and a sham. Is he to be reared in any
+case, and not exposed? or will you bear to see him rejected, and not get
+into a passion if I take away your first-born?
+
+THEODORUS: Theaetetus will not be angry, for he is very good-natured.
+But tell me, Socrates, in heaven's name, is this, after all, not the
+truth?
+
+SOCRATES: You, Theodorus, are a lover of theories, and now you
+innocently fancy that I am a bag full of them, and can easily pull one
+out which will overthrow its predecessor. But you do not see that in
+reality none of these theories come from me; they all come from him who
+talks with me. I only know just enough to extract them from the wisdom
+of another, and to receive them in a spirit of fairness. And now I shall
+say nothing myself, but shall endeavour to elicit something from our
+young friend.
+
+THEODORUS: Do as you say, Socrates; you are quite right.
+
+SOCRATES: Shall I tell you, Theodorus, what amazes me in your
+acquaintance Protagoras?
+
+THEODORUS: What is it?
+
+SOCRATES: I am charmed with his doctrine, that what appears is to
+each one, but I wonder that he did not begin his book on Truth with a
+declaration that a pig or a dog-faced baboon, or some other yet stranger
+monster which has sensation, is the measure of all things; then he might
+have shown a magnificent contempt for our opinion of him by informing
+us at the outset that while we were reverencing him like a God for
+his wisdom he was no better than a tadpole, not to speak of his
+fellow-men--would not this have produced an overpowering effect? For
+if truth is only sensation, and no man can discern another's feelings
+better than he, or has any superior right to determine whether his
+opinion is true or false, but each, as we have several times repeated,
+is to himself the sole judge, and everything that he judges is true and
+right, why, my friend, should Protagoras be preferred to the place
+of wisdom and instruction, and deserve to be well paid, and we poor
+ignoramuses have to go to him, if each one is the measure of his own
+wisdom? Must he not be talking 'ad captandum' in all this? I say nothing
+of the ridiculous predicament in which my own midwifery and the whole
+art of dialectic is placed; for the attempt to supervise or refute the
+notions or opinions of others would be a tedious and enormous piece of
+folly, if to each man his own are right; and this must be the case if
+Protagoras' Truth is the real truth, and the philosopher is not merely
+amusing himself by giving oracles out of the shrine of his book.
+
+THEODORUS: He was a friend of mine, Socrates, as you were saying, and
+therefore I cannot have him refuted by my lips, nor can I oppose you
+when I agree with you; please, then, to take Theaetetus again; he seemed
+to answer very nicely.
+
+SOCRATES: If you were to go into a Lacedaemonian palestra, Theodorus,
+would you have a right to look on at the naked wrestlers, some of them
+making a poor figure, if you did not strip and give them an opportunity
+of judging of your own person?
+
+THEODORUS: Why not, Socrates, if they would allow me, as I think you
+will, in consideration of my age and stiffness; let some more supple
+youth try a fall with you, and do not drag me into the gymnasium.
+
+SOCRATES: Your will is my will, Theodorus, as the proverbial
+philosophers say, and therefore I will return to the sage Theaetetus:
+Tell me, Theaetetus, in reference to what I was saying, are you not
+lost in wonder, like myself, when you find that all of a sudden you are
+raised to the level of the wisest of men, or indeed of the gods?--for
+you would assume the measure of Protagoras to apply to the gods as well
+as men?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly I should, and I confess to you that I am lost in
+wonder. At first hearing, I was quite satisfied with the doctrine, that
+whatever appears is to each one, but now the face of things has changed.
+
+SOCRATES: Why, my dear boy, you are young, and therefore your ear
+is quickly caught and your mind influenced by popular arguments.
+Protagoras, or some one speaking on his behalf, will doubtless say in
+reply,--Good people, young and old, you meet and harangue, and bring
+in the gods, whose existence or non-existence I banish from writing and
+speech, or you talk about the reason of man being degraded to the level
+of the brutes, which is a telling argument with the multitude, but not
+one word of proof or demonstration do you offer. All is probability with
+you, and yet surely you and Theodorus had better reflect whether you
+are disposed to admit of probability and figures of speech in matters
+of such importance. He or any other mathematician who argued from
+probabilities and likelihoods in geometry, would not be worth an ace.
+
+THEAETETUS: But neither you nor we, Socrates, would be satisfied with
+such arguments.
+
+SOCRATES: Then you and Theodorus mean to say that we must look at the
+matter in some other way?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes, in quite another way.
+
+SOCRATES: And the way will be to ask whether perception is or is not the
+same as knowledge; for this was the real point of our argument, and with
+a view to this we raised (did we not?) those many strange questions.
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Shall we say that we know every thing which we see and hear?
+for example, shall we say that not having learned, we do not hear the
+language of foreigners when they speak to us? or shall we say that
+we not only hear, but know what they are saying? Or again, if we see
+letters which we do not understand, shall we say that we do not see
+them? or shall we aver that, seeing them, we must know them?
+
+THEAETETUS: We shall say, Socrates, that we know what we actually see
+and hear of them--that is to say, we see and know the figure and colour
+of the letters, and we hear and know the elevation or depression of the
+sound of them; but we do not perceive by sight and hearing, or know,
+that which grammarians and interpreters teach about them.
+
+SOCRATES: Capital, Theaetetus; and about this there shall be no dispute,
+because I want you to grow; but there is another difficulty coming,
+which you will also have to repulse.
+
+THEAETETUS: What is it?
+
+SOCRATES: Some one will say, Can a man who has ever known anything, and
+still has and preserves a memory of that which he knows, not know that
+which he remembers at the time when he remembers? I have, I fear, a
+tedious way of putting a simple question, which is only, whether a man
+who has learned, and remembers, can fail to know?
+
+THEAETETUS: Impossible, Socrates; the supposition is monstrous.
+
+SOCRATES: Am I talking nonsense, then? Think: is not seeing perceiving,
+and is not sight perception?
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And if our recent definition holds, every man knows that which
+he has seen?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And you would admit that there is such a thing as memory?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And is memory of something or of nothing?
+
+THEAETETUS: Of something, surely.
+
+SOCRATES: Of things learned and perceived, that is?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Often a man remembers that which he has seen?
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And if he closed his eyes, would he forget?
+
+THEAETETUS: Who, Socrates, would dare to say so?
+
+SOCRATES: But we must say so, if the previous argument is to be
+maintained.
+
+THEAETETUS: What do you mean? I am not quite sure that I understand you,
+though I have a strong suspicion that you are right.
+
+SOCRATES: As thus: he who sees knows, as we say, that which he sees; for
+perception and sight and knowledge are admitted to be the same.
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: But he who saw, and has knowledge of that which he saw,
+remembers, when he closes his eyes, that which he no longer sees.
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And seeing is knowing, and therefore not-seeing is
+not-knowing?
+
+THEAETETUS: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: Then the inference is, that a man may have attained the
+knowledge of something, which he may remember and yet not know, because
+he does not see; and this has been affirmed by us to be a monstrous
+supposition.
+
+THEAETETUS: Most true.
+
+SOCRATES: Thus, then, the assertion that knowledge and perception are
+one, involves a manifest impossibility?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Then they must be distinguished?
+
+THEAETETUS: I suppose that they must.
+
+SOCRATES: Once more we shall have to begin, and ask 'What is knowledge?'
+and yet, Theaetetus, what are we going to do?
+
+THEAETETUS: About what?
+
+SOCRATES: Like a good-for-nothing cock, without having won the victory,
+we walk away from the argument and crow.
+
+THEAETETUS: How do you mean?
+
+SOCRATES: After the manner of disputers (Lys.; Phaedo; Republic), we
+were satisfied with mere verbal consistency, and were well pleased if in
+this way we could gain an advantage. Although professing not to be mere
+Eristics, but philosophers, I suspect that we have unconsciously fallen
+into the error of that ingenious class of persons.
+
+THEAETETUS: I do not as yet understand you.
+
+SOCRATES: Then I will try to explain myself: just now we asked the
+question, whether a man who had learned and remembered could fail to
+know, and we showed that a person who had seen might remember when he
+had his eyes shut and could not see, and then he would at the same
+time remember and not know. But this was an impossibility. And so the
+Protagorean fable came to nought, and yours also, who maintained that
+knowledge is the same as perception.
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And yet, my friend, I rather suspect that the result would
+have been different if Protagoras, who was the father of the first of
+the two brats, had been alive; he would have had a great deal to say on
+their behalf. But he is dead, and we insult over his orphan child; and
+even the guardians whom he left, and of whom our friend Theodorus is
+one, are unwilling to give any help, and therefore I suppose that I must
+take up his cause myself, and see justice done?
+
+THEODORUS: Not I, Socrates, but rather Callias, the son of Hipponicus,
+is guardian of his orphans. I was too soon diverted from the
+abstractions of dialectic to geometry. Nevertheless, I shall be grateful
+to you if you assist him.
+
+SOCRATES: Very good, Theodorus; you shall see how I will come to the
+rescue. If a person does not attend to the meaning of terms as they are
+commonly used in argument, he may be involved even in greater paradoxes
+than these. Shall I explain this matter to you or to Theaetetus?
+
+THEODORUS: To both of us, and let the younger answer; he will incur less
+disgrace if he is discomfited.
+
+SOCRATES: Then now let me ask the awful question, which is this:--Can a
+man know and also not know that which he knows?
+
+THEODORUS: How shall we answer, Theaetetus?
+
+THEAETETUS: He cannot, I should say.
+
+SOCRATES: He can, if you maintain that seeing is knowing. When you are
+imprisoned in a well, as the saying is, and the self-assured adversary
+closes one of your eyes with his hand, and asks whether you can see
+his cloak with the eye which he has closed, how will you answer the
+inevitable man?
+
+THEAETETUS: I should answer, 'Not with that eye but with the other.'
+
+SOCRATES: Then you see and do not see the same thing at the same time.
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes, in a certain sense.
+
+SOCRATES: None of that, he will reply; I do not ask or bid you answer
+in what sense you know, but only whether you know that which you do not
+know. You have been proved to see that which you do not see; and you
+have already admitted that seeing is knowing, and that not-seeing is
+not-knowing: I leave you to draw the inference.
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes; the inference is the contradictory of my assertion.
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, my marvel, and there might have been yet worse things in
+store for you, if an opponent had gone on to ask whether you can have a
+sharp and also a dull knowledge, and whether you can know near, but not
+at a distance, or know the same thing with more or less intensity,
+and so on without end. Such questions might have been put to you by a
+light-armed mercenary, who argued for pay. He would have lain in wait
+for you, and when you took up the position, that sense is knowledge,
+he would have made an assault upon hearing, smelling, and the other
+senses;--he would have shown you no mercy; and while you were lost in
+envy and admiration of his wisdom, he would have got you into his
+net, out of which you would not have escaped until you had come to an
+understanding about the sum to be paid for your release. Well, you ask,
+and how will Protagoras reinforce his position? Shall I answer for him?
+
+THEAETETUS: By all means.
+
+SOCRATES: He will repeat all those things which we have been urging on
+his behalf, and then he will close with us in disdain, and say:--The
+worthy Socrates asked a little boy, whether the same man could remember
+and not know the same thing, and the boy said No, because he was
+frightened, and could not see what was coming, and then Socrates made
+fun of poor me. The truth is, O slatternly Socrates, that when you ask
+questions about any assertion of mine, and the person asked is found
+tripping, if he has answered as I should have answered, then I am
+refuted, but if he answers something else, then he is refuted and not
+I. For do you really suppose that any one would admit the memory which a
+man has of an impression which has passed away to be the same with that
+which he experienced at the time? Assuredly not. Or would he hesitate to
+acknowledge that the same man may know and not know the same thing? Or,
+if he is afraid of making this admission, would he ever grant that one
+who has become unlike is the same as before he became unlike? Or would
+he admit that a man is one at all, and not rather many and infinite as
+the changes which take place in him? I speak by the card in order to
+avoid entanglements of words. But, O my good sir, he will say, come to
+the argument in a more generous spirit; and either show, if you can,
+that our sensations are not relative and individual, or, if you admit
+them to be so, prove that this does not involve the consequence that the
+appearance becomes, or, if you will have the word, is, to the individual
+only. As to your talk about pigs and baboons, you are yourself behaving
+like a pig, and you teach your hearers to make sport of my writings in
+the same ignorant manner; but this is not to your credit. For I declare
+that the truth is as I have written, and that each of us is a measure
+of existence and of non-existence. Yet one man may be a thousand times
+better than another in proportion as different things are and appear
+to him. And I am far from saying that wisdom and the wise man have no
+existence; but I say that the wise man is he who makes the evils which
+appear and are to a man, into goods which are and appear to him. And
+I would beg you not to press my words in the letter, but to take the
+meaning of them as I will explain them. Remember what has been already
+said,--that to the sick man his food appears to be and is bitter, and to
+the man in health the opposite of bitter. Now I cannot conceive that one
+of these men can be or ought to be made wiser than the other: nor can
+you assert that the sick man because he has one impression is foolish,
+and the healthy man because he has another is wise; but the one state
+requires to be changed into the other, the worse into the better. As
+in education, a change of state has to be effected, and the sophist
+accomplishes by words the change which the physician works by the aid
+of drugs. Not that any one ever made another think truly, who previously
+thought falsely. For no one can think what is not, or, think anything
+different from that which he feels; and this is always true. But as the
+inferior habit of mind has thoughts of kindred nature, so I conceive
+that a good mind causes men to have good thoughts; and these which the
+inexperienced call true, I maintain to be only better, and not truer
+than others. And, O my dear Socrates, I do not call wise men tadpoles:
+far from it; I say that they are the physicians of the human body, and
+the husbandmen of plants--for the husbandmen also take away the evil and
+disordered sensations of plants, and infuse into them good and healthy
+sensations--aye and true ones; and the wise and good rhetoricians
+make the good instead of the evil to seem just to states; for whatever
+appears to a state to be just and fair, so long as it is regarded as
+such, is just and fair to it; but the teacher of wisdom causes the good
+to take the place of the evil, both in appearance and in reality. And in
+like manner the Sophist who is able to train his pupils in this spirit
+is a wise man, and deserves to be well paid by them. And so one man is
+wiser than another; and no one thinks falsely, and you, whether you will
+or not, must endure to be a measure. On these foundations the argument
+stands firm, which you, Socrates, may, if you please, overthrow by an
+opposite argument, or if you like you may put questions to me--a method
+to which no intelligent person will object, quite the reverse. But I
+must beg you to put fair questions: for there is great inconsistency
+in saying that you have a zeal for virtue, and then always behaving
+unfairly in argument. The unfairness of which I complain is that you do
+not distinguish between mere disputation and dialectic: the disputer
+may trip up his opponent as often as he likes, and make fun; but the
+dialectician will be in earnest, and only correct his adversary when
+necessary, telling him the errors into which he has fallen through his
+own fault, or that of the company which he has previously kept. If
+you do so, your adversary will lay the blame of his own confusion and
+perplexity on himself, and not on you. He will follow and love you, and
+will hate himself, and escape from himself into philosophy, in order
+that he may become different from what he was. But the other mode of
+arguing, which is practised by the many, will have just the opposite
+effect upon him; and as he grows older, instead of turning philosopher,
+he will come to hate philosophy. I would recommend you, therefore, as
+I said before, not to encourage yourself in this polemical and
+controversial temper, but to find out, in a friendly and congenial
+spirit, what we really mean when we say that all things are in motion,
+and that to every individual and state what appears, is. In this manner
+you will consider whether knowledge and sensation are the same or
+different, but you will not argue, as you were just now doing, from the
+customary use of names and words, which the vulgar pervert in all sorts
+of ways, causing infinite perplexity to one another. Such, Theodorus, is
+the very slight help which I am able to offer to your old friend; had he
+been living, he would have helped himself in a far more gloriose style.
+
+THEODORUS: You are jesting, Socrates; indeed, your defence of him has
+been most valorous.
+
+SOCRATES: 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.
+
+THEODORUS: How could I fail to observe all that, Socrates?
+
+SOCRATES: Well, and shall we do as he says?
+
+THEODORUS: By all means.
+
+SOCRATES: 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.
+
+THEODORUS: Well, but is not Theaetetus better able to follow a
+philosophical enquiry than a great many men who have long beards?
+
+SOCRATES: 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.
+
+THEODORUS: 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.
+
+SOCRATES: 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.
+
+THEODORUS: 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.
+
+SOCRATES: Once will be enough; and now take particular care that we
+do not again unwittingly expose ourselves to the reproach of talking
+childishly.
+
+THEODORUS: I will do my best to avoid that error.
+
+SOCRATES: 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.
+
+THEODORUS: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: 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?
+
+THEODORUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: Then let us obtain, not through any third person, but from his
+own statement and in the fewest words possible, the basis of agreement.
+
+THEODORUS: In what way?
+
+SOCRATES: In this way:--His words are, 'What seems to a man, is to him.'
+
+THEODORUS: Yes, so he says.
+
+SOCRATES: 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, at least in their own opinion.
+
+THEODORUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And wisdom is assumed by them to be true thought, and
+ignorance to be false opinion.
+
+THEODORUS: Exactly.
+
+SOCRATES: 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?
+
+THEODORUS: The thing is incredible, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: And yet that absurdity is necessarily involved in the thesis
+which declares man to be the measure of all things.
+
+THEODORUS: How so?
+
+SOCRATES: 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?
+
+THEODORUS: Yes, indeed, Socrates, thousands and tens of thousands, as
+Homer says, who give me a world of trouble.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, but are we to assert that what you think is true to you
+and false to the ten thousand others?
+
+THEODORUS: No other inference seems to be possible.
+
+SOCRATES: 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.
+
+THEODORUS: That would follow if the truth is supposed to vary with
+individual opinion.
+
+SOCRATES: 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.
+
+THEODORUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: 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?
+
+THEODORUS: Of course.
+
+SOCRATES: Whereas the other side do not admit that they speak falsely?
+
+THEODORUS: They do not.
+
+SOCRATES: And he, as may be inferred from his writings, agrees that this
+opinion is also true.
+
+THEODORUS: Clearly.
+
+SOCRATES: 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?
+
+THEODORUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And the truth of Protagoras being doubted by all, will be true
+neither to himself to any one else?
+
+THEODORUS: I think, Socrates, that we are running my old friend too
+hard.
+
+SOCRATES: But I 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.
+
+THEODORUS: In that opinion I quite agree.
+
+SOCRATES: 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.
+
+THEODORUS: I quite agree.
+
+SOCRATES: Or again, in politics, while affirming that just and unjust,
+honourable and disgraceful, holy and unholy, are in reality to each
+state such as the state thinks and makes lawful, and that in determining
+these matters no individual or state is wiser than another, still the
+followers of Protagoras will not deny that in determining what is or is
+not expedient for the community one state is wiser and one counsellor
+better than another--they will scarcely venture to maintain, that what
+a city enacts in the belief that it is expedient will always be really
+expedient. But in the other case, I mean when they speak of justice and
+injustice, piety and impiety, they are confident that in nature these
+have no existence or essence of their own--the truth is that which is
+agreed on at the time of the agreement, and as long as the agreement
+lasts; and this is the philosophy of many who do not altogether go along
+with Protagoras. Here arises a new question, Theodorus, which threatens
+to be more serious than the last.
+
+THEODORUS: Well, Socrates, we have plenty of leisure.
+
+SOCRATES: That is true, and your remark recalls to my mind an
+observation which I have often made, that those who have passed their
+days in the pursuit of philosophy are ridiculously at fault when they
+have to appear and speak in court. How natural is this!
+
+THEODORUS: What do you mean?
+
+SOCRATES: I mean to say, that those who have been trained in philosophy
+and liberal pursuits are as unlike those who from their youth upwards
+have been knocking about in the courts and such places, as a freeman is
+in breeding unlike a slave.
+
+THEODORUS: In what is the difference seen?
+
+SOCRATES: In the leisure spoken of by you, which a freeman can always
+command: he has his talk out in peace, and, like ourselves, he wanders
+at will from one subject to another, and from a second to a third,--if
+the fancy takes him, he begins again, as we are doing now, caring not
+whether his words are many or few; his only aim is to attain the truth.
+But the lawyer is always in a hurry; there is the water of the clepsydra
+driving him on, and not allowing him to expatiate at will: and there is
+his adversary standing over him, enforcing his rights; the indictment,
+which in their phraseology is termed the affidavit, is recited at
+the time: and from this he must not deviate. He is a servant, and is
+continually disputing about a fellow-servant before his master, who is
+seated, and has the cause in his hands; the trial is never about some
+indifferent matter, but always concerns himself; and often the race
+is for his life. The consequence has been, that he has become keen and
+shrewd; he has learned how to flatter his master in word and indulge him
+in deed; but his soul is small and unrighteous. His condition, which has
+been that of a slave from his youth upwards, has deprived him of growth
+and uprightness and independence; dangers and fears, which were too
+much for his truth and honesty, came upon him in early years, when the
+tenderness of youth was unequal to them, and he has been driven into
+crooked ways; from the first he has practised deception and retaliation,
+and has become stunted and warped. And so he has passed out of youth
+into manhood, having no soundness in him; and is now, as he thinks,
+a master in wisdom. Such is the lawyer, Theodorus. Will you have the
+companion picture of the philosopher, who is of our brotherhood; or
+shall we return to the argument? Do not let us abuse the freedom of
+digression which we claim.
+
+THEODORUS: Nay, Socrates, not until we have finished what we are about;
+for you truly said that we belong to a brotherhood which is free, and
+are not the servants of the argument; but the argument is our servant,
+and must wait our leisure. Who is our judge? Or where is the spectator
+having any right to censure or control us, as he might the poets?
+
+SOCRATES: Then, as this is your wish, I will describe the leaders; for
+there is no use in talking about the inferior sort. In the first place,
+the lords of philosophy have never, from their youth upwards, known
+their way to the Agora, or the dicastery, or the council, or any other
+political assembly; they neither see nor hear the laws or decrees,
+as they are called, of the state written or recited; the eagerness of
+political societies in the attainment of offices--clubs, and banquets,
+and revels, and singing-maidens,--do not enter even into their dreams.
+Whether any event has turned out well or ill in the city, what disgrace
+may have descended to any one from his ancestors, male or female, are
+matters of which the philosopher no more knows than he can tell, as they
+say, how many pints are contained in the ocean. Neither is he conscious
+of his ignorance. For he does not hold aloof in order that he may gain a
+reputation; but the truth is, that the outer form of him only is in the
+city: his mind, disdaining the littlenesses and nothingnesses of human
+things, is 'flying all abroad' as Pindar says, measuring earth and
+heaven and the things which are under and on the earth and above
+the heaven, interrogating the whole nature of each and all in their
+entirety, but not condescending to anything which is within reach.
+
+THEODORUS: What do you mean, Socrates?
+
+SOCRATES: I will illustrate my meaning, Theodorus, by the jest which the
+clever witty Thracian handmaid is said to have made about Thales, when
+he fell into a well as he was looking up at the stars. She said, that he
+was so eager to know what was going on in heaven, that he could not see
+what was before his feet. This is a jest which is equally applicable to
+all philosophers. For the philosopher is wholly unacquainted with his
+next-door neighbour; he is ignorant, not only of what he is doing, but
+he hardly knows whether he is a man or an animal; he is searching into
+the essence of man, and busy in enquiring what belongs to such a nature
+to do or suffer different from any other;--I think that you understand
+me, Theodorus?
+
+THEODORUS: I do, and what you say is true.
+
+SOCRATES: And thus, my friend, on every occasion, private as well as
+public, as I said at first, when he appears in a law-court, or in any
+place in which he has to speak of things which are at his feet and
+before his eyes, he is the jest, not only of Thracian handmaids but of
+the general herd, tumbling into wells and every sort of disaster through
+his inexperience. His awkwardness is fearful, and gives the impression
+of imbecility. When he is reviled, he has nothing personal to say in
+answer to the civilities of his adversaries, for he knows no scandals
+of any one, and they do not interest him; and therefore he is laughed at
+for his sheepishness; and when others are being praised and glorified,
+in the simplicity of his heart he cannot help going into fits of
+laughter, so that he seems to be a downright idiot. When he hears a
+tyrant or king eulogized, he fancies that he is listening to the
+praises of some keeper of cattle--a swineherd, or shepherd, or perhaps a
+cowherd, who is congratulated on the quantity of milk which he squeezes
+from them; and he remarks that the creature whom they tend, and out of
+whom they squeeze the wealth, is of a less tractable and more insidious
+nature. Then, again, he observes that the great man is of necessity as
+ill-mannered and uneducated as any shepherd--for he has no leisure,
+and he is surrounded by a wall, which is his mountain-pen. Hearing
+of enormous landed proprietors of ten thousand acres and more, our
+philosopher deems this to be a trifle, because he has been accustomed to
+think of the whole earth; and when they sing the praises of family, and
+say that some one is a gentleman because he can show seven generations
+of wealthy ancestors, he thinks that their sentiments only betray a
+dull and narrow vision in those who utter them, and who are not educated
+enough to look at the whole, nor to consider that every man has had
+thousands and ten thousands of progenitors, and among them have been
+rich and poor, kings and slaves, Hellenes and barbarians, innumerable.
+And when people pride themselves on having a pedigree of twenty-five
+ancestors, which goes back to Heracles, the son of Amphitryon, he cannot
+understand their poverty of ideas. Why are they unable to calculate that
+Amphitryon had a twenty-fifth ancestor, who might have been anybody,
+and was such as fortune made him, and he had a fiftieth, and so on? He
+amuses himself with the notion that they cannot count, and thinks that a
+little arithmetic would have got rid of their senseless vanity. Now, in
+all these cases our philosopher is derided by the vulgar, partly because
+he is thought to despise them, and also because he is ignorant of what
+is before him, and always at a loss.
+
+THEODORUS: That is very true, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: But, O my friend, when he draws the other into upper air,
+and gets him out of his pleas and rejoinders into the contemplation of
+justice and injustice in their own nature and in their difference from
+one another and from all other things; or from the commonplaces about
+the happiness of a king or of a rich man to the consideration of
+government, and of human happiness and misery in general--what they
+are, and how a man is to attain the one and avoid the other--when that
+narrow, keen, little legal mind is called to account about all this, he
+gives the philosopher his revenge; for dizzied by the height at which
+he is hanging, whence he looks down into space, which is a strange
+experience to him, he being dismayed, and lost, and stammering
+broken words, is laughed at, not by Thracian handmaidens or any other
+uneducated persons, for they have no eye for the situation, but by every
+man who has not been brought up a slave. Such are the two characters,
+Theodorus: the one of the freeman, who has been trained in liberty and
+leisure, whom you call the philosopher,--him we cannot blame because
+he appears simple and of no account when he has to perform some menial
+task, such as packing up bed-clothes, or flavouring a sauce or fawning
+speech; the other character is that of the man who is able to do all
+this kind of service smartly and neatly, but knows not how to wear his
+cloak like a gentleman; still less with the music of discourse can he
+hymn the true life aright which is lived by immortals or men blessed of
+heaven.
+
+THEODORUS: If you could only persuade everybody, Socrates, as you do me,
+of the truth of your words, there would be more peace and fewer evils
+among men.
+
+SOCRATES: Evils, Theodorus, can never pass away; for there must always
+remain something which is antagonistic to good. Having no place among
+the gods in heaven, of necessity they hover around the mortal nature,
+and this earthly sphere. Wherefore we ought to fly away from earth to
+heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God,
+as far as this is possible; and to become like him, is to become holy,
+just, and wise. But, O my friend, you cannot easily convince mankind
+that they should pursue virtue or avoid vice, not merely in order that a
+man may seem to be good, which is the reason given by the world, and in
+my judgment is only a repetition of an old wives' fable. Whereas,
+the truth is that God is never in any way unrighteous--he is perfect
+righteousness; and he of us who is the most righteous is most like him.
+Herein is seen the true cleverness of a man, and also his nothingness
+and want of manhood. For to know this is true wisdom and virtue, and
+ignorance of this is manifest folly and vice. All other kinds of wisdom
+or cleverness, which seem only, such as the wisdom of politicians, or
+the wisdom of the arts, are coarse and vulgar. The unrighteous man, or
+the sayer and doer of unholy things, had far better not be encouraged
+in the illusion that his roguery is clever; for men glory in their
+shame--they fancy that they hear others saying of them, 'These are not
+mere good-for-nothing persons, mere burdens of the earth, but such as
+men should be who mean to dwell safely in a state.' Let us tell them
+that they are all the more truly what they do not think they are because
+they do not know it; for they do not know the penalty of injustice,
+which above all things they ought to know--not stripes and death, as
+they suppose, which evil-doers often escape, but a penalty which cannot
+be escaped.
+
+THEODORUS: What is that?
+
+SOCRATES: There are two patterns eternally set before them; the one
+blessed and divine, the other godless and wretched: but they do not see
+them, or perceive that in their utter folly and infatuation they are
+growing like the one and unlike the other, by reason of their evil
+deeds; and the penalty is, that they lead a life answering to the
+pattern which they are growing like. And if we tell them, that unless
+they depart from their cunning, the place of innocence will not receive
+them after death; and that here on earth, they will live ever in the
+likeness of their own evil selves, and with evil friends--when they hear
+this they in their superior cunning will seem to be listening to the
+talk of idiots.
+
+THEODORUS: Very true, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: Too true, my friend, as I well know; there is, however, one
+peculiarity in their case: when they begin to reason in private about
+their dislike of philosophy, if they have the courage to hear the
+argument out, and do not run away, they grow at last strangely
+discontented with themselves; their rhetoric fades away, and they become
+helpless as children. These however are digressions from which we must
+now desist, or they will overflow, and drown the original argument; to
+which, if you please, we will now return.
+
+THEODORUS: For my part, Socrates, I would rather have the digressions,
+for at my age I find them easier to follow; but if you wish, let us go
+back to the argument.
+
+SOCRATES: Had we not reached the point at which the partisans of the
+perpetual flux, who say that things are as they seem to each one, were
+confidently maintaining that the ordinances which the state commanded
+and thought just, were just to the state which imposed them, while they
+were in force; this was especially asserted of justice; but as to the
+good, no one had any longer the hardihood to contend of any ordinances
+which the state thought and enacted to be good that these, while they
+were in force, were really good;--he who said so would be playing with
+the name 'good,' and would not touch the real question--it would be a
+mockery, would it not?
+
+THEODORUS: Certainly it would.
+
+SOCRATES: He ought not to speak of the name, but of the thing which is
+contemplated under the name.
+
+THEODORUS: Right.
+
+SOCRATES: Whatever be the term used, the good or expedient is the aim
+of legislation, and as far as she has an opinion, the state imposes all
+laws with a view to the greatest expediency; can legislation have any
+other aim?
+
+THEODORUS: Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES: But is the aim attained always? do not mistakes often happen?
+
+THEODORUS: Yes, I think that there are mistakes.
+
+SOCRATES: The possibility of error will be more distinctly recognised,
+if we put the question in reference to the whole class under which the
+good or expedient falls. That whole class has to do with the future, and
+laws are passed under the idea that they will be useful in after-time;
+which, in other words, is the future.
+
+THEODORUS: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: Suppose now, that we ask Protagoras, or one of his disciples,
+a question:--O, Protagoras, we will say to him, Man is, as you declare,
+the measure of all things--white, heavy, light: of all such things he
+is the judge; for he has the criterion of them in himself, and when he
+thinks that things are such as he experiences them to be, he thinks what
+is and is true to himself. Is it not so?
+
+THEODORUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And do you extend your doctrine, Protagoras (as we shall
+further say), to the future as well as to the present; and has he the
+criterion not only of what in his opinion is but of what will be, and do
+things always happen to him as he expected? For example, take the case
+of heat:--When an ordinary man thinks that he is going to have a fever,
+and that this kind of heat is coming on, and another person, who is a
+physician, thinks the contrary, whose opinion is likely to prove right?
+Or are they both right?--he will have a heat and fever in his own
+judgment, and not have a fever in the physician's judgment?
+
+THEODORUS: How ludicrous!
+
+SOCRATES: And the vinegrower, if I am not mistaken, is a better judge of
+the sweetness or dryness of the vintage which is not yet gathered than
+the harp-player?
+
+THEODORUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And in musical composition the musician will know better than
+the training master what the training master himself will hereafter
+think harmonious or the reverse?
+
+THEODORUS: Of course.
+
+SOCRATES: And the cook will be a better judge than the guest, who is
+not a cook, of the pleasure to be derived from the dinner which is in
+preparation; for of present or past pleasure we are not as yet arguing;
+but can we say that every one will be to himself the best judge of the
+pleasure which will seem to be and will be to him in the future?--nay,
+would not you, Protagoras, better guess which arguments in a court would
+convince any one of us than the ordinary man?
+
+THEODORUS: Certainly, Socrates, he used to profess in the strongest
+manner that he was the superior of all men in this respect.
+
+SOCRATES: To be sure, friend: who would have paid a large sum for the
+privilege of talking to him, if he had really persuaded his visitors
+that neither a prophet nor any other man was better able to judge what
+will be and seem to be in the future than every one could for himself?
+
+THEODORUS: Who indeed?
+
+SOCRATES: And legislation and expediency are all concerned with the
+future; and every one will admit that states, in passing laws, must
+often fail of their highest interests?
+
+THEODORUS: Quite true.
+
+SOCRATES: Then we may fairly argue against your master, that he must
+admit one man to be wiser than another, and that the wiser is a measure:
+but I, who know nothing, am not at all obliged to accept the honour
+which the advocate of Protagoras was just now forcing upon me, whether I
+would or not, of being a measure of anything.
+
+THEODORUS: That is the best refutation of him, Socrates; although he is
+also caught when he ascribes truth to the opinions of others, who give
+the lie direct to his own opinion.
+
+SOCRATES: There are many ways, Theodorus, in which the doctrine that
+every opinion of every man is true may be refuted; but there is more
+difficulty in proving that states of feeling, which are present to a
+man, and out of which arise sensations and opinions in accordance with
+them, are also untrue. And very likely I have been talking nonsense
+about them; for they may be unassailable, and those who say that there
+is clear evidence of them, and that they are matters of knowledge, may
+probably be right; in which case our friend Theaetetus was not so far
+from the mark when he identified perception and knowledge. And therefore
+let us draw nearer, as the advocate of Protagoras desires; and give the
+truth of the universal flux a ring: is the theory sound or not? at any
+rate, no small war is raging about it, and there are combination not a
+few.
+
+THEODORUS: No small, war, indeed, for in Ionia the sect makes rapid
+strides; the disciples of Heracleitus are most energetic upholders of
+the doctrine.
+
+SOCRATES: Then we are the more bound, my dear Theodorus, to examine the
+question from the foundation as it is set forth by themselves.
+
+THEODORUS: Certainly we are. About these speculations of Heracleitus,
+which, as you say, are as old as Homer, or even older still, the
+Ephesians themselves, who profess to know them, are downright mad, and
+you cannot talk with them on the subject. For, in accordance with their
+text-books, they are always in motion; but as for dwelling upon an
+argument or a question, and quietly asking and answering in turn, they
+can no more do so than they can fly; or rather, the determination of
+these fellows not to have a particle of rest in them is more than
+the utmost powers of negation can express. If you ask any of them a
+question, he will produce, as from a quiver, sayings brief and dark, and
+shoot them at you; and if you inquire the reason of what he has said,
+you will be hit by some other new-fangled word, and will make no way
+with any of them, nor they with one another; their great care is, not
+to allow of any settled principle either in their arguments or in
+their minds, conceiving, as I imagine, that any such principle would be
+stationary; for they are at war with the stationary, and do what they
+can to drive it out everywhere.
+
+SOCRATES: I suppose, Theodorus, that you have only seen them when they
+were fighting, and have never stayed with them in time of peace,
+for they are no friends of yours; and their peace doctrines are only
+communicated by them at leisure, as I imagine, to those disciples of
+theirs whom they want to make like themselves.
+
+THEODORUS: Disciples! my good sir, they have none; men of their sort are
+not one another's disciples, but they grow up at their own sweet will,
+and get their inspiration anywhere, each of them saying of his neighbour
+that he knows nothing. From these men, then, as I was going to remark,
+you will never get a reason, whether with their will or without their
+will; we must take the question out of their hands, and make the
+analysis ourselves, as if we were doing geometrical problem.
+
+SOCRATES: Quite right too; but as touching the aforesaid problem, have
+we not heard from the ancients, who concealed their wisdom from the many
+in poetical figures, that Oceanus and Tethys, the origin of all things,
+are streams, and that nothing is at rest? And now the moderns, in their
+superior wisdom, have declared the same openly, that the cobbler too may
+hear and learn of them, and no longer foolishly imagine that some things
+are at rest and others in motion--having learned that all is motion,
+he will duly honour his teachers. I had almost forgotten the opposite
+doctrine, Theodorus,
+
+     'Alone Being remains unmoved, which is the name for the all.'
+
+This is the language of Parmenides, Melissus, and their followers, who
+stoutly maintain that all being is one and self-contained, and has no
+place in which to move. What shall we do, friend, with all these people;
+for, advancing step by step, we have imperceptibly got between the
+combatants, and, unless we can protect our retreat, we shall pay the
+penalty of our rashness--like the players in the palaestra who are
+caught upon the line, and are dragged different ways by the two parties.
+Therefore I think that we had better begin by considering those whom we
+first accosted, 'the river-gods,' and, if we find any truth in them, we
+will help them to pull us over, and try to get away from the others. But
+if the partisans of 'the whole' appear to speak more truly, we will fly
+off from the party which would move the immovable, to them. And if I
+find that neither of them have anything reasonable to say, we shall
+be in a ridiculous position, having so great a conceit of our own poor
+opinion and rejecting that of ancient and famous men. O Theodorus, do
+you think that there is any use in proceeding when the danger is so
+great?
+
+THEODORUS: Nay, Socrates, not to examine thoroughly what the two parties
+have to say would be quite intolerable.
+
+SOCRATES: Then examine we must, since you, who were so reluctant to
+begin, are so eager to proceed. The nature of motion appears to be the
+question with which we begin. What do they mean when they say that all
+things are in motion? Is there only one kind of motion, or, as I rather
+incline to think, two? I should like to have your opinion upon this
+point in addition to my own, that I may err, if I must err, in your
+company; tell me, then, when a thing changes from one place to another,
+or goes round in the same place, is not that what is called motion?
+
+THEODORUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Here then we have one kind of motion. But when a thing,
+remaining on the same spot, grows old, or becomes black from being
+white, or hard from being soft, or undergoes any other change, may not
+this be properly called motion of another kind?
+
+THEODORUS: I think so.
+
+SOCRATES: Say rather that it must be so. Of motion then there are these
+two kinds, 'change,' and 'motion in place.'
+
+THEODORUS: You are right.
+
+SOCRATES: And now, having made this distinction, let us address
+ourselves to those who say that all is motion, and ask them whether all
+things according to them have the two kinds of motion, and are changed
+as well as move in place, or is one thing moved in both ways, and
+another in one only?
+
+THEODORUS: Indeed, I do not know what to answer; but I think they would
+say that all things are moved in both ways.
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, comrade; for, if not, they would have to say that the
+same things are in motion and at rest, and there would be no more truth
+in saying that all things are in motion, than that all things are at
+rest.
+
+THEODORUS: To be sure.
+
+SOCRATES: And if they are to be in motion, and nothing is to be devoid
+of motion, all things must always have every sort of motion?
+
+THEODORUS: Most true.
+
+SOCRATES: Consider a further point: did we not understand them to
+explain the generation of heat, whiteness, or anything else, in some
+such manner as the following:--were they not saying that each of them
+is moving between the agent and the patient, together with a perception,
+and that the patient ceases to be a perceiving power and becomes a
+percipient, and the agent a quale instead of a quality? I suspect that
+quality may appear a strange and uncouth term to you, and that you
+do not understand the abstract expression. Then I will take concrete
+instances: I mean to say that the producing power or agent becomes
+neither heat nor whiteness but hot and white, and the like of other
+things. For I must repeat what I said before, that neither the agent
+nor patient have any absolute existence, but when they come together
+and generate sensations and their objects, the one becomes a thing of a
+certain quality, and the other a percipient. You remember?
+
+THEODORUS: Of course.
+
+SOCRATES: We may leave the details of their theory unexamined, but
+we must not forget to ask them the only question with which we are
+concerned: Are all things in motion and flux?
+
+THEODORUS: Yes, they will reply.
+
+SOCRATES: And they are moved in both those ways which we distinguished,
+that is to say, they move in place and are also changed?
+
+THEODORUS: Of course, if the motion is to be perfect.
+
+SOCRATES: If they only moved in place and were not changed, we should
+be able to say what is the nature of the things which are in motion and
+flux?
+
+THEODORUS: Exactly.
+
+SOCRATES: But now, since not even white continues to flow white, and
+whiteness itself is a flux or change which is passing into another
+colour, and is never to be caught standing still, can the name of any
+colour be rightly used at all?
+
+THEODORUS: How is that possible, Socrates, either in the case of this
+or of any other quality--if while we are using the word the object is
+escaping in the flux?
+
+SOCRATES: And what would you say of perceptions, such as sight and
+hearing, or any other kind of perception? Is there any stopping in the
+act of seeing and hearing?
+
+THEODORUS: Certainly not, if all things are in motion.
+
+SOCRATES: Then we must not speak of seeing any more than of not-seeing,
+nor of any other perception more than of any non-perception, if all
+things partake of every kind of motion?
+
+THEODORUS: Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES: Yet perception is knowledge: so at least Theaetetus and I were
+saying.
+
+THEODORUS: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: Then when we were asked what is knowledge, we no more answered
+what is knowledge than what is not knowledge?
+
+THEODORUS: I suppose not.
+
+SOCRATES: Here, then, is a fine result: we corrected our first answer
+in our eagerness to prove that nothing is at rest. But if nothing is at
+rest, every answer upon whatever subject is equally right: you may say
+that a thing is or is not thus; or, if you prefer, 'becomes' thus; and
+if we say 'becomes,' we shall not then hamper them with words expressive
+of rest.
+
+THEODORUS: Quite true.
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, Theodorus, except in saying 'thus' and 'not thus.' But
+you ought not to use the word 'thus,' for there is no motion in 'thus'
+or in 'not thus.' The maintainers of the doctrine have as yet no words
+in which to express themselves, and must get a new language. I know of
+no word that will suit them, except perhaps 'no how,' which is perfectly
+indefinite.
+
+THEODORUS: Yes, that is a manner of speaking in which they will be quite
+at home.
+
+SOCRATES: And so, Theodorus, we have got rid of your friend without
+assenting to his doctrine, that every man is the measure of all
+things--a wise man only is a measure; neither can we allow that
+knowledge is perception, certainly not on the hypothesis of a perpetual
+flux, unless perchance our friend Theaetetus is able to convince us that
+it is.
+
+THEODORUS: Very good, Socrates; and now that the argument about the
+doctrine of Protagoras has been completed, I am absolved from answering;
+for this was the agreement.
+
+THEAETETUS: Not, Theodorus, until you and Socrates have discussed the
+doctrine of those who say that all things are at rest, as you were
+proposing.
+
+THEODORUS: You, Theaetetus, who are a young rogue, must not instigate
+your elders to a breach of faith, but should prepare to answer Socrates
+in the remainder of the argument.
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes, if he wishes; but I would rather have heard about the
+doctrine of rest.
+
+THEODORUS: Invite Socrates to an argument--invite horsemen to the open
+plain; do but ask him, and he will answer.
+
+SOCRATES: Nevertheless, Theodorus, I am afraid that I shall not be able
+to comply with the request of Theaetetus.
+
+THEODORUS: Not comply! for what reason?
+
+SOCRATES: My reason is that I have a kind of reverence; not so much for
+Melissus and the others, who say that 'All is one and at rest,' as for
+the great leader himself, Parmenides, venerable and awful, as in Homeric
+language he may be called;--him I should be ashamed to approach in a
+spirit unworthy of him. I met him when he was an old man, and I was a
+mere youth, and he appeared to me to have a glorious depth of mind.
+And I am afraid that we may not understand his words, and may be still
+further from understanding his meaning; above all I fear that the nature
+of knowledge, which is the main subject of our discussion, may be thrust
+out of sight by the unbidden guests who will come pouring in upon our
+feast of discourse, if we let them in--besides, the question which is
+now stirring is of immense extent, and will be treated unfairly if only
+considered by the way; or if treated adequately and at length, will put
+into the shade the other question of knowledge. Neither the one nor the
+other can be allowed; but I must try by my art of midwifery to deliver
+Theaetetus of his conceptions about knowledge.
+
+THEAETETUS: Very well; do so if you will.
+
+SOCRATES: Then now, Theaetetus, take another view of the subject: you
+answered that knowledge is perception?
+
+THEAETETUS: I did.
+
+SOCRATES: And if any one were to ask you: With what does a man see black
+and white colours? and with what does he hear high and low sounds?--you
+would say, if I am not mistaken, 'With the eyes and with the ears.'
+
+THEAETETUS: I should.
+
+SOCRATES: The free use of words and phrases, rather than minute
+precision, is generally characteristic of a liberal education, and
+the opposite is pedantic; but sometimes precision is necessary, and I
+believe that the answer which you have just given is open to the charge
+of incorrectness; for which is more correct, to say that we see or hear
+with the eyes and with the ears, or through the eyes and through the
+ears.
+
+THEAETETUS: I should say 'through,' Socrates, rather than 'with.'
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, my boy, for no one can suppose that in each of us, as
+in a sort of Trojan horse, there are perched a number of unconnected
+senses, which do not all meet in some one nature, the mind, or whatever
+we please to call it, of which they are the instruments, and with which
+through them we perceive objects of sense.
+
+THEAETETUS: I agree with you in that opinion.
+
+SOCRATES: The reason why I am thus precise is, because I want to know
+whether, when we perceive black and white through the eyes, and again,
+other qualities through other organs, we do not perceive them with one
+and the same part of ourselves, and, if you were asked, you might refer
+all such perceptions to the body. Perhaps, however, I had better allow
+you to answer for yourself and not interfere. Tell me, then, are not
+the organs through which you perceive warm and hard and light and sweet,
+organs of the body?
+
+THEAETETUS: Of the body, certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And you would admit that what you perceive through one
+faculty you cannot perceive through another; the objects of hearing,
+for example, cannot be perceived through sight, or the objects of sight
+through hearing?
+
+THEAETETUS: Of course not.
+
+SOCRATES: If you have any thought about both of them, this common
+perception cannot come to you, either through the one or the other
+organ?
+
+THEAETETUS: It cannot.
+
+SOCRATES: How about sounds and colours: in the first place you would
+admit that they both exist?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And that either of them is different from the other, and the
+same with itself?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And that both are two and each of them one?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: You can further observe whether they are like or unlike one
+another?
+
+THEAETETUS: I dare say.
+
+SOCRATES: But through what do you perceive all this about them? for
+neither through hearing nor yet through seeing can you apprehend that
+which they have in common. Let me give you an illustration of the
+point at issue:--If there were any meaning in asking whether sounds and
+colours are saline or not, you would be able to tell me what faculty
+would consider the question. It would not be sight or hearing, but some
+other.
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly; the faculty of taste.
+
+SOCRATES: Very good; and now tell me what is the power which discerns,
+not only in sensible objects, but in all things, universal notions, such
+as those which are called being and not-being, and those others
+about which we were just asking--what organs will you assign for the
+perception of these notions?
+
+THEAETETUS: You are thinking of being and not being, likeness and
+unlikeness, sameness and difference, and also of unity and other numbers
+which are applied to objects of sense; and you mean to ask, through
+what bodily organ the soul perceives odd and even numbers and other
+arithmetical conceptions.
+
+SOCRATES: You follow me excellently, Theaetetus; that is precisely what
+I am asking.
+
+THEAETETUS: Indeed, Socrates, I cannot answer; my only notion is, that
+these, unlike objects of sense, have no separate organ, but that the
+mind, by a power of her own, contemplates the universals in all things.
+
+SOCRATES: You are a beauty, Theaetetus, and not ugly, as Theodorus was
+saying; for he who utters the beautiful is himself beautiful and good.
+And besides being beautiful, you have done me a kindness in releasing me
+from a very long discussion, if you are clear that the soul views some
+things by herself and others through the bodily organs. For that was my
+own opinion, and I wanted you to agree with me.
+
+THEAETETUS: I am quite clear.
+
+SOCRATES: And to which class would you refer being or essence; for this,
+of all our notions, is the most universal?
+
+THEAETETUS: I should say, to that class which the soul aspires to know
+of herself.
+
+SOCRATES: And would you say this also of like and unlike, same and
+other?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And would you say the same of the noble and base, and of good
+and evil?
+
+THEAETETUS: These I conceive to be notions which are essentially
+relative, and which the soul also perceives by comparing in herself
+things past and present with the future.
+
+SOCRATES: And does she not perceive the hardness of that which is hard
+by the touch, and the softness of that which is soft equally by the
+touch?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: But their essence and what they are, and their opposition
+to one another, and the essential nature of this opposition, the soul
+herself endeavours to decide for us by the review and comparison of
+them?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: The simple sensations which reach the soul through the body
+are given at birth to men and animals by nature, but their reflections
+on the being and use of them are slowly and hardly gained, if they are
+ever gained, by education and long experience.
+
+THEAETETUS: Assuredly.
+
+SOCRATES: And can a man attain truth who fails of attaining being?
+
+THEAETETUS: Impossible.
+
+SOCRATES: And can he who misses the truth of anything, have a knowledge
+of that thing?
+
+THEAETETUS: He cannot.
+
+SOCRATES: Then knowledge does not consist in impressions of sense, but
+in reasoning about them; in that only, and not in the mere impression,
+truth and being can be attained?
+
+THEAETETUS: Clearly.
+
+SOCRATES: And would you call the two processes by the same name, when
+there is so great a difference between them?
+
+THEAETETUS: That would certainly not be right.
+
+SOCRATES: And what name would you give to seeing, hearing, smelling,
+being cold and being hot?
+
+THEAETETUS: I should call all of them perceiving--what other name could
+be given to them?
+
+SOCRATES: Perception would be the collective name of them?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Which, as we say, has no part in the attainment of truth any
+more than of being?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES: And therefore not in science or knowledge?
+
+THEAETETUS: No.
+
+SOCRATES: Then perception, Theaetetus, can never be the same as
+knowledge or science?
+
+THEAETETUS: Clearly not, Socrates; and knowledge has now been most
+distinctly proved to be different from perception.
+
+SOCRATES: But the original aim of our discussion was to find out rather
+what knowledge is than what it is not; at the same time we have made
+some progress, for we no longer seek for knowledge in perception at all,
+but in that other process, however called, in which the mind is alone
+and engaged with being.
+
+THEAETETUS: You mean, Socrates, if I am not mistaken, what is called
+thinking or opining.
+
+SOCRATES: You conceive truly. And now, my friend, please to begin
+again at this point; and having wiped out of your memory all that has
+preceded, see if you have arrived at any clearer view, and once more say
+what is knowledge.
+
+THEAETETUS: I cannot say, Socrates, that all opinion is knowledge,
+because there may be a false opinion; but I will venture to assert, that
+knowledge is true opinion: let this then be my reply; and if this is
+hereafter disproved, I must try to find another.
+
+SOCRATES: That is the way in which you ought to answer, Theaetetus, and
+not in your former hesitating strain, for if we are bold we shall gain
+one of two advantages; either we shall find what we seek, or we shall be
+less likely to think that we know what we do not know--in either case we
+shall be richly rewarded. And now, what are you saying?--Are there
+two sorts of opinion, one true and the other false; and do you define
+knowledge to be the true?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes, according to my present view.
+
+SOCRATES: Is it still worth our while to resume the discussion touching
+opinion?
+
+THEAETETUS: To what are you alluding?
+
+SOCRATES: There is a point which often troubles me, and is a great
+perplexity to me, both in regard to myself and others. I cannot make out
+the nature or origin of the mental experience to which I refer.
+
+THEAETETUS: Pray what is it?
+
+SOCRATES: How there can be false opinion--that difficulty still troubles
+the eye of my mind; and I am uncertain whether I shall leave the
+question, or begin over again in a new way.
+
+THEAETETUS: Begin again, Socrates,--at least if you think that there is
+the slightest necessity for doing so. Were not you and Theodorus just
+now remarking very truly, that in discussions of this kind we may take
+our own time?
+
+SOCRATES: You are quite right, and perhaps there will be no harm in
+retracing our steps and beginning again. Better a little which is well
+done, than a great deal imperfectly.
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, and what is the difficulty? Do we not speak of false
+opinion, and say that one man holds a false and another a true opinion,
+as though there were some natural distinction between them?
+
+THEAETETUS: We certainly say so.
+
+SOCRATES: All things and everything are either known or not known.
+I leave out of view the intermediate conceptions of learning and
+forgetting, because they have nothing to do with our present question.
+
+THEAETETUS: There can be no doubt, Socrates, if you exclude these, that
+there is no other alternative but knowing or not knowing a thing.
+
+SOCRATES: That point being now determined, must we not say that he who
+has an opinion, must have an opinion about something which he knows or
+does not know?
+
+THEAETETUS: He must.
+
+SOCRATES: He who knows, cannot but know; and he who does not know,
+cannot know?
+
+THEAETETUS: Of course.
+
+SOCRATES: What shall we say then? When a man has a false opinion does
+he think that which he knows to be some other thing which he knows, and
+knowing both, is he at the same time ignorant of both?
+
+THEAETETUS: That, Socrates, is impossible.
+
+SOCRATES: But perhaps he thinks of something which he does not know as
+some other thing which he does not know; for example, he knows neither
+Theaetetus nor Socrates, and yet he fancies that Theaetetus is Socrates,
+or Socrates Theaetetus?
+
+THEAETETUS: How can he?
+
+SOCRATES: But surely he cannot suppose what he knows to be what he does
+not know, or what he does not know to be what he knows?
+
+THEAETETUS: That would be monstrous.
+
+SOCRATES: Where, then, is false opinion? For if all things are either
+known or unknown, there can be no opinion which is not comprehended
+under this alternative, and so false opinion is excluded.
+
+THEAETETUS: Most true.
+
+SOCRATES: Suppose that we remove the question out of the sphere of
+knowing or not knowing, into that of being and not-being.
+
+THEAETETUS: What do you mean?
+
+SOCRATES: May we not suspect the simple truth to be that he who thinks
+about anything, that which is not, will necessarily think what is false,
+whatever in other respects may be the state of his mind?
+
+THEAETETUS: That, again, is not unlikely, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: Then suppose some one to say to us, Theaetetus:--Is
+it possible for any man to think that which is not, either as a
+self-existent substance or as a predicate of something else? And suppose
+that we answer, 'Yes, he can, when he thinks what is not true.'--That
+will be our answer?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: But is there any parallel to this?
+
+THEAETETUS: What do you mean?
+
+SOCRATES: Can a man see something and yet see nothing?
+
+THEAETETUS: Impossible.
+
+SOCRATES: But if he sees any one thing, he sees something that exists.
+Do you suppose that what is one is ever to be found among non-existing
+things?
+
+THEAETETUS: I do not.
+
+SOCRATES: He then who sees some one thing, sees something which is?
+
+THEAETETUS: Clearly.
+
+SOCRATES: And he who hears anything, hears some one thing, and hears
+that which is?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And he who touches anything, touches something which is one
+and therefore is?
+
+THEAETETUS: That again is true.
+
+SOCRATES: And does not he who thinks, think some one thing?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And does not he who thinks some one thing, think something
+which is?
+
+THEAETETUS: I agree.
+
+SOCRATES: Then he who thinks of that which is not, thinks of nothing?
+
+THEAETETUS: Clearly.
+
+SOCRATES: And he who thinks of nothing, does not think at all?
+
+THEAETETUS: Obviously.
+
+SOCRATES: Then no one can think that which is not, either as a
+self-existent substance or as a predicate of something else?
+
+THEAETETUS: Clearly not.
+
+SOCRATES: Then to think falsely is different from thinking that which is
+not?
+
+THEAETETUS: It would seem so.
+
+SOCRATES: Then false opinion has no existence in us, either in the
+sphere of being or of knowledge?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES: But may not the following be the description of what we
+express by this name?
+
+THEAETETUS: What?
+
+SOCRATES: May we not suppose that false opinion or thought is a sort of
+heterodoxy; a person may make an exchange in his mind, and say that one
+real object is another real object. For thus he always thinks that which
+is, but he puts one thing in place of another; and missing the aim of
+his thoughts, he may be truly said to have false opinion.
+
+THEAETETUS: Now you appear to me to have spoken the exact truth: when a
+man puts the base in the place of the noble, or the noble in the place
+of the base, then he has truly false opinion.
+
+SOCRATES: I see, Theaetetus, that your fear has disappeared, and that
+you are beginning to despise me.
+
+THEAETETUS: What makes you say so?
+
+SOCRATES: You think, if I am not mistaken, that your 'truly false' is
+safe from censure, and that I shall never ask whether there can be
+a swift which is slow, or a heavy which is light, or any other
+self-contradictory thing, which works, not according to its own nature,
+but according to that of its opposite. But I will not insist upon this,
+for I do not wish needlessly to discourage you. And so you are satisfied
+that false opinion is heterodoxy, or the thought of something else?
+
+THEAETETUS: I am.
+
+SOCRATES: It is possible then upon your view for the mind to conceive of
+one thing as another?
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: But must not the mind, or thinking power, which misplaces
+them, have a conception either of both objects or of one of them?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Either together or in succession?
+
+THEAETETUS: Very good.
+
+SOCRATES: And do you mean by conceiving, the same which I mean?
+
+THEAETETUS: What is that?
+
+SOCRATES: I mean the conversation which the soul holds with herself in
+considering of anything. I speak of what I scarcely understand; but the
+soul when thinking appears to me to be just talking--asking questions
+of herself and answering them, affirming and denying. And when she has
+arrived at a decision, either gradually or by a sudden impulse, and has
+at last agreed, and does not doubt, this is called her opinion. I
+say, then, that to form an opinion is to speak, and opinion is a word
+spoken,--I mean, to oneself and in silence, not aloud or to another:
+What think you?
+
+THEAETETUS: I agree.
+
+SOCRATES: Then when any one thinks of one thing as another, he is saying
+to himself that one thing is another?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: But do you ever remember saying to yourself that the noble
+is certainly base, or the unjust just; or, best of all--have you ever
+attempted to convince yourself that one thing is another? Nay, not even
+in sleep, did you ever venture to say to yourself that odd is even, or
+anything of the kind?
+
+THEAETETUS: Never.
+
+SOCRATES: And do you suppose that any other man, either in his senses
+or out of them, ever seriously tried to persuade himself that an ox is a
+horse, or that two are one?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES: But if thinking is talking to oneself, no one speaking and
+thinking of two objects, and apprehending them both in his soul, will
+say and think that the one is the other of them, and I must add, that
+even you, lover of dispute as you are, had better let the word 'other'
+alone (i.e. not insist that 'one' and 'other' are the same (Both words
+in Greek are called eteron: compare Parmen.; Euthyd.)). I mean to say,
+that no one thinks the noble to be base, or anything of the kind.
+
+THEAETETUS: I will give up the word 'other,' Socrates; and I agree to
+what you say.
+
+SOCRATES: If a man has both of them in his thoughts, he cannot think
+that the one of them is the other?
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: Neither, if he has one of them only in his mind and not the
+other, can he think that one is the other?
+
+THEAETETUS: True; for we should have to suppose that he apprehends that
+which is not in his thoughts at all.
+
+SOCRATES: Then no one who has either both or only one of the two objects
+in his mind can think that the one is the other. And therefore, he who
+maintains that false opinion is heterodoxy is talking nonsense; for
+neither in this, any more than in the previous way, can false opinion
+exist in us.
+
+THEAETETUS: No.
+
+SOCRATES: But if, Theaetetus, this is not admitted, we shall be driven
+into many absurdities.
+
+THEAETETUS: What are they?
+
+SOCRATES: I will not tell you until I have endeavoured to consider the
+matter from every point of view. For I should be ashamed of us if we
+were driven in our perplexity to admit the absurd consequences of which
+I speak. But if we find the solution, and get away from them, we may
+regard them only as the difficulties of others, and the ridicule will
+not attach to us. On the other hand, if we utterly fail, I suppose that
+we must be humble, and allow the argument to trample us under foot,
+as the sea-sick passenger is trampled upon by the sailor, and to do
+anything to us. Listen, then, while I tell you how I hope to find a way
+out of our difficulty.
+
+THEAETETUS: Let me hear.
+
+SOCRATES: I think that we were wrong in denying that a man could think
+what he knew to be what he did not know; and that there is a way in
+which such a deception is possible.
+
+THEAETETUS: You mean to say, as I suspected at the time, that I may know
+Socrates, and at a distance see some one who is unknown to me, and whom
+I mistake for him--then the deception will occur?
+
+SOCRATES: But has not that position been relinquished by us, because
+involving the absurdity that we should know and not know the things
+which we know?
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: Let us make the assertion in another form, which may or may
+not have a favourable issue; but as we are in a great strait, every
+argument should be turned over and tested. Tell me, then, whether I am
+right in saying that you may learn a thing which at one time you did not
+know?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly you may.
+
+SOCRATES: And another and another?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: I would have you imagine, then, that there exists in the mind
+of man a block of wax, which is of different sizes in different men;
+harder, moister, and having more or less of purity in one than another,
+and in some of an intermediate quality.
+
+THEAETETUS: I see.
+
+SOCRATES: Let us say that this tablet is a gift of Memory, the mother
+of the Muses; and that when we wish to remember anything which we have
+seen, or heard, or thought in our own minds, we hold the wax to the
+perceptions and thoughts, and in that material receive the impression of
+them as from the seal of a ring; and that we remember and know what is
+imprinted as long as the image lasts; but when the image is effaced, or
+cannot be taken, then we forget and do not know.
+
+THEAETETUS: Very good.
+
+SOCRATES: Now, when a person has this knowledge, and is considering
+something which he sees or hears, may not false opinion arise in the
+following manner?
+
+THEAETETUS: In what manner?
+
+SOCRATES: When he thinks what he knows, sometimes to be what he knows,
+and sometimes to be what he does not know. We were wrong before in
+denying the possibility of this.
+
+THEAETETUS: And how would you amend the former statement?
+
+SOCRATES: I should begin by making a list of the impossible cases which
+must be excluded. (1) No one can think one thing to be another when he
+does not perceive either of them, but has the memorial or seal of both
+of them in his mind; nor can any mistaking of one thing for another
+occur, when he only knows one, and does not know, and has no impression
+of the other; nor can he think that one thing which he does not know is
+another thing which he does not know, or that what he does not know
+is what he knows; nor (2) that one thing which he perceives is another
+thing which he perceives, or that something which he perceives is
+something which he does not perceive; or that something which he does
+not perceive is something else which he does not perceive; or that
+something which he does not perceive is something which he perceives;
+nor again (3) can he think that something which he knows and perceives,
+and of which he has the impression coinciding with sense, is something
+else which he knows and perceives, and of which he has the impression
+coinciding with sense;--this last case, if possible, is still more
+inconceivable than the others; nor (4) can he think that something which
+he knows and perceives, and of which he has the memorial coinciding with
+sense, is something else which he knows; nor so long as these agree,
+can he think that a thing which he knows and perceives is another thing
+which he perceives; or that a thing which he does not know and does not
+perceive, is the same as another thing which he does not know and does
+not perceive;--nor again, can he suppose that a thing which he does not
+know and does not perceive is the same as another thing which he does
+not know; or that a thing which he does not know and does not perceive
+is another thing which he does not perceive:--All these utterly and
+absolutely exclude the possibility of false opinion. The only cases, if
+any, which remain, are the following.
+
+THEAETETUS: What are they? If you tell me, I may perhaps understand you
+better; but at present I am unable to follow you.
+
+SOCRATES: A person may think that some things which he knows, or which
+he perceives and does not know, are some other things which he knows and
+perceives; or that some things which he knows and perceives, are other
+things which he knows and perceives.
+
+THEAETETUS: I understand you less than ever now.
+
+SOCRATES: Hear me once more, then:--I, knowing Theodorus, and
+remembering in my own mind what sort of person he is, and also what sort
+of person Theaetetus is, at one time see them, and at another time do
+not see them, and sometimes I touch them, and at another time not, or
+at one time I may hear them or perceive them in some other way, and at
+another time not perceive them, but still I remember them, and know them
+in my own mind.
+
+THEAETETUS: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: Then, first of all, I want you to understand that a man may or
+may not perceive sensibly that which he knows.
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And that which he does not know will sometimes not be
+perceived by him and sometimes will be perceived and only perceived?
+
+THEAETETUS: That is also true.
+
+SOCRATES: See whether you can follow me better now: Socrates can
+recognize Theodorus and Theaetetus, but he sees neither of them,
+nor does he perceive them in any other way; he cannot then by any
+possibility imagine in his own mind that Theaetetus is Theodorus. Am I
+not right?
+
+THEAETETUS: You are quite right.
+
+SOCRATES: Then that was the first case of which I spoke.
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: The second case was, that I, knowing one of you and not
+knowing the other, and perceiving neither, can never think him whom I
+know to be him whom I do not know.
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: In the third case, not knowing and not perceiving either of
+you, I cannot think that one of you whom I do not know is the other whom
+I do not know. I need not again go over the catalogue of excluded cases,
+in which I cannot form a false opinion about you and Theodorus, either
+when I know both or when I am in ignorance of both, or when I know one
+and not the other. And the same of perceiving: do you understand me?
+
+THEAETETUS: I do.
+
+SOCRATES: The only possibility of erroneous opinion is, when knowing you
+and Theodorus, and having on the waxen block the impression of both of
+you given as by a seal, but seeing you imperfectly and at a distance,
+I try to assign the right impression of memory to the right visual
+impression, and to fit this into its own print: if I succeed,
+recognition will take place; but if I fail and transpose them, putting
+the foot into the wrong shoe--that is to say, putting the vision of
+either of you on to the wrong impression, or if my mind, like the sight
+in a mirror, which is transferred from right to left, err by reason of
+some similar affection, then 'heterodoxy' and false opinion ensues.
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes, Socrates, you have described the nature of opinion with
+wonderful exactness.
+
+SOCRATES: Or again, when I know both of you, and perceive as well as
+know one of you, but not the other, and my knowledge of him does not
+accord with perception--that was the case put by me just now which you
+did not understand.
+
+THEAETETUS: No, I did not.
+
+SOCRATES: I meant to say, that when a person knows and perceives one of
+you, his knowledge coincides with his perception, he will never think
+him to be some other person, whom he knows and perceives, and the
+knowledge of whom coincides with his perception--for that also was a
+case supposed.
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: But there was an omission of the further case, in which, as
+we now say, false opinion may arise, when knowing both, and seeing, or
+having some other sensible perception of both, I fail in holding the
+seal over against the corresponding sensation; like a bad archer, I miss
+and fall wide of the mark--and this is called falsehood.
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes; it is rightly so called.
+
+SOCRATES: When, therefore, perception is present to one of the seals
+or impressions but not to the other, and the mind fits the seal of the
+absent perception on the one which is present, in any case of this sort
+the mind is deceived; in a word, if our view is sound, there can be no
+error or deception about things which a man does not know and has never
+perceived, but only in things which are known and perceived; in these
+alone opinion turns and twists about, and becomes alternately true and
+false;--true when the seals and impressions of sense meet straight and
+opposite--false when they go awry and crooked.
+
+THEAETETUS: And is not that, Socrates, nobly said?
+
+SOCRATES: Nobly! yes; but wait a little and hear the explanation, and
+then you will say so with more reason; for to think truly is noble and
+to be deceived is base.
+
+THEAETETUS: Undoubtedly.
+
+SOCRATES: And the origin of truth and error is as follows:--When the wax
+in the soul of any one is deep and abundant, and smooth and perfectly
+tempered, then the impressions which pass through the senses and sink
+into the heart of the soul, as Homer says in a parable, meaning to
+indicate the likeness of the soul to wax (Kerh Kerhos); these, I say,
+being pure and clear, and having a sufficient depth of wax, are also
+lasting, and minds, such as these, easily learn and easily retain,
+and are not liable to confusion, but have true thoughts, for they have
+plenty of room, and having clear impressions of things, as we term them,
+quickly distribute them into their proper places on the block. And such
+men are called wise. Do you agree?
+
+THEAETETUS: Entirely.
+
+SOCRATES: But when the heart of any one is shaggy--a quality which the
+all-wise poet commends, or muddy and of impure wax, or very soft, or
+very hard, then there is a corresponding defect in the mind--the soft
+are good at learning, but apt to forget; and the hard are the reverse;
+the shaggy and rugged and gritty, or those who have an admixture of
+earth or dung in their composition, have the impressions indistinct,
+as also the hard, for there is no depth in them; and the soft too are
+indistinct, for their impressions are easily confused and effaced. Yet
+greater is the indistinctness when they are all jostled together in a
+little soul, which has no room. These are the natures which have false
+opinion; for when they see or hear or think of anything, they are
+slow in assigning the right objects to the right impressions--in their
+stupidity they confuse them, and are apt to see and hear and think
+amiss--and such men are said to be deceived in their knowledge of
+objects, and ignorant.
+
+THEAETETUS: No man, Socrates, can say anything truer than that.
+
+SOCRATES: Then now we may admit the existence of false opinion in us?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And of true opinion also?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: We have at length satisfactorily proven beyond a doubt there
+are these two sorts of opinion?
+
+THEAETETUS: Undoubtedly.
+
+SOCRATES: Alas, Theaetetus, what a tiresome creature is a man who is
+fond of talking!
+
+THEAETETUS: What makes you say so?
+
+SOCRATES: Because I am disheartened at my own stupidity and tiresome
+garrulity; for what other term will describe the habit of a man who
+is always arguing on all sides of a question; whose dulness cannot be
+convinced, and who will never leave off?
+
+THEAETETUS: But what puts you out of heart?
+
+SOCRATES: I am not only out of heart, but in positive despair; for I do
+not know what to answer if any one were to ask me:--O Socrates, have you
+indeed discovered that false opinion arises neither in the comparison of
+perceptions with one another nor yet in thought, but in union of thought
+and perception? Yes, I shall say, with the complacence of one who thinks
+that he has made a noble discovery.
+
+THEAETETUS: I see no reason why we should be ashamed of our
+demonstration, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: He will say: You mean to argue that the man whom we only think
+of and do not see, cannot be confused with the horse which we do not see
+or touch, but only think of and do not perceive? That I believe to be my
+meaning, I shall reply.
+
+THEAETETUS: Quite right.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, then, he will say, according to that argument, the
+number eleven, which is only thought, can never be mistaken for twelve,
+which is only thought: How would you answer him?
+
+THEAETETUS: I should say that a mistake may very likely arise between
+the eleven or twelve which are seen or handled, but that no similar
+mistake can arise between the eleven and twelve which are in the mind.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, but do you think that no one ever put before his own
+mind five and seven,--I do not mean five or seven men or horses, but
+five or seven in the abstract, which, as we say, are recorded on the
+waxen block, and in which false opinion is held to be impossible; did
+no man ever ask himself how many these numbers make when added together,
+and answer that they are eleven, while another thinks that they are
+twelve, or would all agree in thinking and saying that they are twelve?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly not; many would think that they are eleven, and
+in the higher numbers the chance of error is greater still; for I assume
+you to be speaking of numbers in general.
+
+SOCRATES: Exactly; and I want you to consider whether this does not
+imply that the twelve in the waxen block are supposed to be eleven?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes, that seems to be the case.
+
+SOCRATES: Then do we not come back to the old difficulty? For he who
+makes such a mistake does think one thing which he knows to be another
+thing which he knows; but this, as we said, was impossible, and afforded
+an irresistible proof of the non-existence of false opinion, because
+otherwise the same person would inevitably know and not know the same
+thing at the same time.
+
+THEAETETUS: Most true.
+
+SOCRATES: Then false opinion cannot be explained as a confusion of
+thought and sense, for in that case we could not have been mistaken
+about pure conceptions of thought; and thus we are obliged to say,
+either that false opinion does not exist, or that a man may not know
+that which he knows;--which alternative do you prefer?
+
+THEAETETUS: It is hard to determine, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: And yet the argument will scarcely admit of both. But, as we
+are at our wits' end, suppose that we do a shameless thing?
+
+THEAETETUS: What is it?
+
+SOCRATES: Let us attempt to explain the verb 'to know.'
+
+THEAETETUS: And why should that be shameless?
+
+SOCRATES: You seem not to be aware that the whole of our discussion from
+the very beginning has been a search after knowledge, of which we are
+assumed not to know the nature.
+
+THEAETETUS: Nay, but I am well aware.
+
+SOCRATES: And is it not shameless when we do not know what knowledge is,
+to be explaining the verb 'to know'? The truth is, Theaetetus, that we
+have long been infected with logical impurity. Thousands of times have
+we repeated the words 'we know,' and 'do not know,' and 'we have or have
+not science or knowledge,' as if we could understand what we are saying
+to one another, so long as we remain ignorant about knowledge; and at
+this moment we are using the words 'we understand,' 'we are ignorant,'
+as though we could still employ them when deprived of knowledge or
+science.
+
+THEAETETUS: But if you avoid these expressions, Socrates, how will you
+ever argue at all?
+
+SOCRATES: I could not, being the man I am. The case would be different
+if I were a true hero of dialectic: and O that such an one were present!
+for he would have told us to avoid the use of these terms; at the same
+time he would not have spared in you and me the faults which I have
+noted. But, seeing that we are no great wits, shall I venture to say
+what knowing is? for I think that the attempt may be worth making.
+
+THEAETETUS: Then by all means venture, and no one shall find fault with
+you for using the forbidden terms.
+
+SOCRATES: You have heard the common explanation of the verb 'to know'?
+
+THEAETETUS: I think so, but I do not remember it at the moment.
+
+SOCRATES: They explain the word 'to know' as meaning 'to have
+knowledge.'
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: I should like to make a slight change, and say 'to possess'
+knowledge.
+
+THEAETETUS: How do the two expressions differ?
+
+SOCRATES: Perhaps there may be no difference; but still I should like
+you to hear my view, that you may help me to test it.
+
+THEAETETUS: I will, if I can.
+
+SOCRATES: I should distinguish 'having' from 'possessing': for example,
+a man may buy and keep under his control a garment which he does not
+wear; and then we should say, not that he has, but that he possesses the
+garment.
+
+THEAETETUS: It would be the correct expression.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, may not a man 'possess' and yet not 'have' knowledge
+in the sense of which I am speaking? As you may suppose a man to have
+caught wild birds--doves or any other birds--and to be keeping them in
+an aviary which he has constructed at home; we might say of him in one
+sense, that he always has them because he possesses them, might we not?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And yet, in another sense, he has none of them; but they are
+in his power, and he has got them under his hand in an enclosure of his
+own, and can take and have them whenever he likes;--he can catch any
+which he likes, and let the bird go again, and he may do so as often as
+he pleases.
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: Once more, then, as in what preceded we made a sort of waxen
+figment in the mind, so let us now suppose that in the mind of each man
+there is an aviary of all sorts of birds--some flocking together apart
+from the rest, others in small groups, others solitary, flying anywhere
+and everywhere.
+
+THEAETETUS: Let us imagine such an aviary--and what is to follow?
+
+SOCRATES: We may suppose that the birds are kinds of knowledge, and that
+when we were children, this receptacle was empty; whenever a man has
+gotten and detained in the enclosure a kind of knowledge, he may be
+said to have learned or discovered the thing which is the subject of the
+knowledge: and this is to know.
+
+THEAETETUS: Granted.
+
+SOCRATES: And further, when any one wishes to catch any of these
+knowledges or sciences, and having taken, to hold it, and again to let
+them go, how will he express himself?--will he describe the 'catching'
+of them and the original 'possession' in the same words? I will make
+my meaning clearer by an example:--You admit that there is an art of
+arithmetic?
+
+THEAETETUS: To be sure.
+
+SOCRATES: Conceive this under the form of a hunt after the science of
+odd and even in general.
+
+THEAETETUS: I follow.
+
+SOCRATES: Having the use of the art, the arithmetician, if I am not
+mistaken, has the conceptions of number under his hand, and can transmit
+them to another.
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And when transmitting them he may be said to teach them, and
+when receiving to learn them, and when receiving to learn them, and when
+having them in possession in the aforesaid aviary he may be said to know
+them.
+
+THEAETETUS: Exactly.
+
+SOCRATES: Attend to what follows: must not the perfect arithmetician
+know all numbers, for he has the science of all numbers in his mind?
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And he can reckon abstract numbers in his head, or things
+about him which are numerable?
+
+THEAETETUS: Of course he can.
+
+SOCRATES: And to reckon is simply to consider how much such and such a
+number amounts to?
+
+THEAETETUS: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: And so he appears to be searching into something which he
+knows, as if he did not know it, for we have already admitted that he
+knows all numbers;--you have heard these perplexing questions raised?
+
+THEAETETUS: I have.
+
+SOCRATES: May we not pursue the image of the doves, and say that the
+chase after knowledge is of two kinds? one kind is prior to possession
+and for the sake of possession, and the other for the sake of taking and
+holding in the hands that which is possessed already. And thus, when a
+man has learned and known something long ago, he may resume and get hold
+of the knowledge which he has long possessed, but has not at hand in his
+mind.
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: That was my reason for asking how we ought to speak when an
+arithmetician sets about numbering, or a grammarian about reading? Shall
+we say, that although he knows, he comes back to himself to learn what
+he already knows?
+
+THEAETETUS: It would be too absurd, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: Shall we say then that he is going to read or number what he
+does not know, although we have admitted that he knows all letters and
+all numbers?
+
+THEAETETUS: That, again, would be an absurdity.
+
+SOCRATES: Then shall we say that about names we care nothing?--any one
+may twist and turn the words 'knowing' and 'learning' in any way which
+he likes, but since we have determined that the possession of knowledge
+is not the having or using it, we do assert that a man cannot not
+possess that which he possesses; and, therefore, in no case can a man
+not know that which he knows, but he may get a false opinion about it;
+for he may have the knowledge, not of this particular thing, but of some
+other;--when the various numbers and forms of knowledge are flying about
+in the aviary, and wishing to capture a certain sort of knowledge out
+of the general store, he takes the wrong one by mistake, that is to say,
+when he thought eleven to be twelve, he got hold of the ring-dove which
+he had in his mind, when he wanted the pigeon.
+
+THEAETETUS: A very rational explanation.
+
+SOCRATES: But when he catches the one which he wants, then he is not
+deceived, and has an opinion of what is, and thus false and true opinion
+may exist, and the difficulties which were previously raised disappear.
+I dare say that you agree with me, do you not?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And so we are rid of the difficulty of a man's not knowing
+what he knows, for we are not driven to the inference that he does not
+possess what he possesses, whether he be or be not deceived. And yet I
+fear that a greater difficulty is looking in at the window.
+
+THEAETETUS: What is it?
+
+SOCRATES: How can the exchange of one knowledge for another ever become
+false opinion?
+
+THEAETETUS: What do you mean?
+
+SOCRATES: In the first place, how can a man who has the knowledge of
+anything be ignorant of that which he knows, not by reason of ignorance,
+but by reason of his own knowledge? And, again, is it not an extreme
+absurdity that he should suppose another thing to be this, and this to
+be another thing;--that, having knowledge present with him in his mind,
+he should still know nothing and be ignorant of all things?--you might
+as well argue that ignorance may make a man know, and blindness make him
+see, as that knowledge can make him ignorant.
+
+THEAETETUS: Perhaps, Socrates, we may have been wrong in making only
+forms of knowledge our birds: whereas there ought to have been forms of
+ignorance as well, flying about together in the mind, and then he who
+sought to take one of them might sometimes catch a form of knowledge,
+and sometimes a form of ignorance; and thus he would have a false
+opinion from ignorance, but a true one from knowledge, about the same
+thing.
+
+SOCRATES: I cannot help praising you, Theaetetus, and yet I must beg you
+to reconsider your words. Let us grant what you say--then, according to
+you, he who takes ignorance will have a false opinion--am I right?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: He will certainly not think that he has a false opinion?
+
+THEAETETUS: Of course not.
+
+SOCRATES: He will think that his opinion is true, and he will fancy that
+he knows the things about which he has been deceived?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Then he will think that he has captured knowledge and not
+ignorance?
+
+THEAETETUS: Clearly.
+
+SOCRATES: And thus, after going a long way round, we are once more face
+to face with our original difficulty. The hero of dialectic will retort
+upon us:--'O my excellent friends, he will say, laughing, if a man knows
+the form of ignorance and the form of knowledge, can he think that one
+of them which he knows is the other which he knows? or, if he knows
+neither of them, can he think that the one which he knows not is another
+which he knows not? or, if he knows one and not the other, can he think
+the one which he knows to be the one which he does not know? or the one
+which he does not know to be the one which he knows? or will you tell me
+that there are other forms of knowledge which distinguish the right and
+wrong birds, and which the owner keeps in some other aviaries or graven
+on waxen blocks according to your foolish images, and which he may be
+said to know while he possesses them, even though he have them not at
+hand in his mind? And thus, in a perpetual circle, you will be compelled
+to go round and round, and you will make no progress.' What are we to
+say in reply, Theaetetus?
+
+THEAETETUS: Indeed, Socrates, I do not know what we are to say.
+
+SOCRATES: Are not his reproaches just, and does not the argument truly
+show that we are wrong in seeking for false opinion until we know what
+knowledge is; that must be first ascertained; then, the nature of false
+opinion?
+
+THEAETETUS: I cannot but agree with you, Socrates, so far as we have yet
+gone.
+
+SOCRATES: Then, once more, what shall we say that knowledge is?--for we
+are not going to lose heart as yet.
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly, I shall not lose heart, if you do not.
+
+SOCRATES: What definition will be most consistent with our former views?
+
+THEAETETUS: I cannot think of any but our old one, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES: What was it?
+
+THEAETETUS: Knowledge was said by us to be true opinion; and true
+opinion is surely unerring, and the results which follow from it are all
+noble and good.
+
+SOCRATES: He who led the way into the river, Theaetetus, said 'The
+experiment will show;' and perhaps if we go forward in the search, we
+may stumble upon the thing which we are looking for; but if we stay
+where we are, nothing will come to light.
+
+THEAETETUS: Very true; let us go forward and try.
+
+SOCRATES: The trail soon comes to an end, for a whole profession is
+against us.
+
+THEAETETUS: How is that, and what profession do you mean?
+
+SOCRATES: The profession of the great wise ones who are called orators
+and lawyers; for these persuade men by their art and make them think
+whatever they like, but they do not teach them. Do you imagine that
+there are any teachers in the world so clever as to be able to convince
+others of the truth about acts of robbery or violence, of which
+they were not eye-witnesses, while a little water is flowing in the
+clepsydra?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly not, they can only persuade them.
+
+SOCRATES: And would you not say that persuading them is making them have
+an opinion?
+
+THEAETETUS: To be sure.
+
+SOCRATES: When, therefore, judges are justly persuaded about matters
+which you can know only by seeing them, and not in any other way, and
+when thus judging of them from report they attain a true opinion about
+them, they judge without knowledge, and yet are rightly persuaded, if
+they have judged well.
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And yet, O my friend, if true opinion in law courts and
+knowledge are the same, the perfect judge could not have judged rightly
+without knowledge; and therefore I must infer that they are not the
+same.
+
+THEAETETUS: That is a distinction, Socrates, which I have heard made
+by some one else, but I had forgotten it. He said that true opinion,
+combined with reason, was knowledge, but that the opinion which had
+no reason was out of the sphere of knowledge; and that things of which
+there is no rational account are not knowable--such was the singular
+expression which he used--and that things which have a reason or
+explanation are knowable.
+
+SOCRATES: Excellent; but then, how did he distinguish between things
+which are and are not 'knowable'? I wish that you would repeat to me
+what he said, and then I shall know whether you and I have heard the
+same tale.
+
+THEAETETUS: I do not know whether I can recall it; but if another person
+would tell me, I think that I could follow him.
+
+SOCRATES: Let me give you, then, a dream in return for a
+dream:--Methought that I too had a dream, and I heard in my dream that
+the primeval letters or elements out of which you and I and all other
+things are compounded, have no reason or explanation; you can only name
+them, but no predicate can be either affirmed or denied of them, for in
+the one case existence, in the other non-existence is already implied,
+neither of which must be added, if you mean to speak of this or that
+thing by itself alone. It should not be called itself, or that, or each,
+or alone, or this, or the like; for these go about everywhere and are
+applied to all things, but are distinct from them; whereas, if the first
+elements could be described, and had a definition of their own, they
+would be spoken of apart from all else. But none of these primeval
+elements can be defined; they can only be named, for they have nothing
+but a name, and the things which are compounded of them, as they are
+complex, are expressed by a combination of names, for the combination
+of names is the essence of a definition. Thus, then, the elements or
+letters are only objects of perception, and cannot be defined or known;
+but the syllables or combinations of them are known and expressed, and
+are apprehended by true opinion. When, therefore, any one forms the true
+opinion of anything without rational explanation, you may say that his
+mind is truly exercised, but has no knowledge; for he who cannot give
+and receive a reason for a thing, has no knowledge of that thing; but
+when he adds rational explanation, then, he is perfected in knowledge
+and may be all that I have been denying of him. Was that the form in
+which the dream appeared to you?
+
+THEAETETUS: Precisely.
+
+SOCRATES: And you allow and maintain that true opinion, combined with
+definition or rational explanation, is knowledge?
+
+THEAETETUS: Exactly.
+
+SOCRATES: Then may we assume, Theaetetus, that to-day, and in this
+casual manner, we have found a truth which in former times many wise men
+have grown old and have not found?
+
+THEAETETUS: At any rate, Socrates, I am satisfied with the present
+statement.
+
+SOCRATES: Which is probably correct--for how can there be knowledge
+apart from definition and true opinion? And yet there is one point in
+what has been said which does not quite satisfy me.
+
+THEAETETUS: What was it?
+
+SOCRATES: What might seem to be the most ingenious notion of all:--That
+the elements or letters are unknown, but the combination or syllables
+known.
+
+THEAETETUS: And was that wrong?
+
+SOCRATES: We shall soon know; for we have as hostages the instances
+which the author of the argument himself used.
+
+THEAETETUS: What hostages?
+
+SOCRATES: The letters, which are the clements; and the syllables, which
+are the combinations;--he reasoned, did he not, from the letters of the
+alphabet?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes; he did.
+
+SOCRATES: Let us take them and put them to the test, or rather, test
+ourselves:--What was the way in which we learned letters? and, first of
+all, are we right in saying that syllables have a definition, but that
+letters have no definition?
+
+THEAETETUS: I think so.
+
+SOCRATES: I think so too; for, suppose that some one asks you to spell
+the first syllable of my name:--Theaetetus, he says, what is SO?
+
+THEAETETUS: I should reply S and O.
+
+SOCRATES: That is the definition which you would give of the syllable?
+
+THEAETETUS: I should.
+
+SOCRATES: I wish that you would give me a similar definition of the S.
+
+THEAETETUS: But how can any one, Socrates, tell the elements of an
+element? I can only reply, that S is a consonant, a mere noise, as
+of the tongue hissing; B, and most other letters, again, are neither
+vowel-sounds nor noises. Thus letters may be most truly said to be
+undefined; for even the most distinct of them, which are the seven
+vowels, have a sound only, but no definition at all.
+
+SOCRATES: Then, I suppose, my friend, that we have been so far right in
+our idea about knowledge?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes; I think that we have.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, but have we been right in maintaining that the syllables
+can be known, but not the letters?
+
+THEAETETUS: I think so.
+
+SOCRATES: And do we mean by a syllable two letters, or if there are
+more, all of them, or a single idea which arises out of the combination
+of them?
+
+THEAETETUS: I should say that we mean all the letters.
+
+SOCRATES: Take the case of the two letters S and O, which form the first
+syllable of my own name; must not he who knows the syllable, know both
+of them?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: He knows, that is, the S and O?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: But can he be ignorant of either singly and yet know both
+together?
+
+THEAETETUS: Such a supposition, Socrates, is monstrous and unmeaning.
+
+SOCRATES: But if he cannot know both without knowing each, then if he is
+ever to know the syllable, he must know the letters first; and thus the
+fine theory has again taken wings and departed.
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes, with wonderful celerity.
+
+SOCRATES: Yes, we did not keep watch properly. Perhaps we ought to have
+maintained that a syllable is not the letters, but rather one single
+idea framed out of them, having a separate form distinct from them.
+
+THEAETETUS: Very true; and a more likely notion than the other.
+
+SOCRATES: Take care; let us not be cowards and betray a great and
+imposing theory.
+
+THEAETETUS: No, indeed.
+
+SOCRATES: Let us assume then, as we now say, that the syllable is
+a simple form arising out of the several combinations of harmonious
+elements--of letters or of any other elements.
+
+THEAETETUS: Very good.
+
+SOCRATES: And it must have no parts.
+
+THEAETETUS: Why?
+
+SOCRATES: Because that which has parts must be a whole of all the parts.
+Or would you say that a whole, although formed out of the parts, is a
+single notion different from all the parts?
+
+THEAETETUS: I should.
+
+SOCRATES: And would you say that all and the whole are the same, or
+different?
+
+THEAETETUS: I am not certain; but, as you like me to answer at once, I
+shall hazard the reply, that they are different.
+
+SOCRATES: I approve of your readiness, Theaetetus, but I must take time
+to think whether I equally approve of your answer.
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes; the answer is the point.
+
+SOCRATES: According to this new view, the whole is supposed to differ
+from all?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, but is there any difference between all (in the plural)
+and the all (in the singular)? Take the case of number:--When we say
+one, two, three, four, five, six; or when we say twice three, or three
+times two, or four and two, or three and two and one, are we speaking of
+the same or of different numbers?
+
+THEAETETUS: Of the same.
+
+SOCRATES: That is of six?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And in each form of expression we spoke of all the six?
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: Again, in speaking of all (in the plural) is there not one
+thing which we express?
+
+THEAETETUS: Of course there is.
+
+SOCRATES: And that is six?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: Then in predicating the word 'all' of things measured by
+number, we predicate at the same time a singular and a plural?
+
+THEAETETUS: Clearly we do.
+
+SOCRATES: Again, the number of the acre and the acre are the same; are
+they not?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And the number of the stadium in like manner is the stadium?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And the army is the number of the army; and in all similar
+cases, the entire number of anything is the entire thing?
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And the number of each is the parts of each?
+
+THEAETETUS: Exactly.
+
+SOCRATES: Then as many things as have parts are made up of parts?
+
+THEAETETUS: Clearly.
+
+SOCRATES: But all the parts are admitted to be the all, if the entire
+number is the all?
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: Then the whole is not made up of parts, for it would be the
+all, if consisting of all the parts?
+
+THEAETETUS: That is the inference.
+
+SOCRATES: But is a part a part of anything but the whole?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes, of the all.
+
+SOCRATES: You make a valiant defence, Theaetetus. And yet is not the all
+that of which nothing is wanting?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And is not a whole likewise that from which nothing is absent?
+but that from which anything is absent is neither a whole nor all;--if
+wanting in anything, both equally lose their entirety of nature.
+
+THEAETETUS: I now think that there is no difference between a whole and
+all.
+
+SOCRATES: But were we not saying that when a thing has parts, all the
+parts will be a whole and all?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Then, as I was saying before, must not the alternative be that
+either the syllable is not the letters, and then the letters are not
+parts of the syllable, or that the syllable will be the same with the
+letters, and will therefore be equally known with them?
+
+THEAETETUS: You are right.
+
+SOCRATES: And, in order to avoid this, we suppose it to be different
+from them?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: But if letters are not parts of syllables, can you tell me of
+any other parts of syllables, which are not letters?
+
+THEAETETUS: No, indeed, Socrates; for if I admit the existence of parts
+in a syllable, it would be ridiculous in me to give up letters and seek
+for other parts.
+
+SOCRATES: Quite true, Theaetetus, and therefore, according to our
+present view, a syllable must surely be some indivisible form?
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: But do you remember, my friend, that only a little while ago
+we admitted and approved the statement, that of the first elements out
+of which all other things are compounded there could be no definition,
+because each of them when taken by itself is uncompounded; nor can one
+rightly attribute to them the words 'being' or 'this,' because they
+are alien and inappropriate words, and for this reason the letters or
+elements were indefinable and unknown?
+
+THEAETETUS: I remember.
+
+SOCRATES: And is not this also the reason why they are simple and
+indivisible? I can see no other.
+
+THEAETETUS: No other reason can be given.
+
+SOCRATES: Then is not the syllable in the same case as the elements or
+letters, if it has no parts and is one form?
+
+THEAETETUS: To be sure.
+
+SOCRATES: If, then, a syllable is a whole, and has many parts or
+letters, the letters as well as the syllable must be intelligible and
+expressible, since all the parts are acknowledged to be the same as the
+whole?
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: But if it be one and indivisible, then the syllables and the
+letters are alike undefined and unknown, and for the same reason?
+
+THEAETETUS: I cannot deny that.
+
+SOCRATES: We cannot, therefore, agree in the opinion of him who says
+that the syllable can be known and expressed, but not the letters.
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly not; if we may trust the argument.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, but will you not be equally inclined to disagree with
+him, when you remember your own experience in learning to read?
+
+THEAETETUS: What experience?
+
+SOCRATES: Why, that in learning you were kept trying to distinguish the
+separate letters both by the eye and by the ear, in order that, when
+you heard them spoken or saw them written, you might not be confused by
+their position.
+
+THEAETETUS: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: And is the education of the harp-player complete unless he can
+tell what string answers to a particular note; the notes, as every one
+would allow, are the elements or letters of music?
+
+THEAETETUS: Exactly.
+
+SOCRATES: Then, if we argue from the letters and syllables which we know
+to other simples and compounds, we shall say that the letters or simple
+elements as a class are much more certainly known than the syllables,
+and much more indispensable to a perfect knowledge of any subject; and
+if some one says that the syllable is known and the letter unknown,
+we shall consider that either intentionally or unintentionally he is
+talking nonsense?
+
+THEAETETUS: Exactly.
+
+SOCRATES: And there might be given other proofs of this belief, if I am
+not mistaken. But do not let us in looking for them lose sight of the
+question before us, which is the meaning of the statement, that right
+opinion with rational definition or explanation is the most perfect form
+of knowledge.
+
+THEAETETUS: We must not.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, and what is the meaning of the term 'explanation'? I
+think that we have a choice of three meanings.
+
+THEAETETUS: What are they?
+
+SOCRATES: In the first place, the meaning may be, manifesting one's
+thought by the voice with verbs and nouns, imaging an opinion in the
+stream which flows from the lips, as in a mirror or water. Does not
+explanation appear to be of this nature?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly; he who so manifests his thought, is said to
+explain himself.
+
+SOCRATES: And every one who is not born deaf or dumb is able sooner or
+later to manifest what he thinks of anything; and if so, all those who
+have a right opinion about anything will also have right explanation;
+nor will right opinion be anywhere found to exist apart from knowledge.
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: Let us not, therefore, hastily charge him who gave this
+account of knowledge with uttering an unmeaning word; for perhaps he
+only intended to say, that when a person was asked what was the nature
+of anything, he should be able to answer his questioner by giving the
+elements of the thing.
+
+THEAETETUS: As for example, Socrates...?
+
+SOCRATES: As, for example, when Hesiod says that a waggon is made up
+of a hundred planks. Now, neither you nor I could describe all of
+them individually; but if any one asked what is a waggon, we should be
+content to answer, that a waggon consists of wheels, axle, body, rims,
+yoke.
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: And our opponent will probably laugh at us, just as he would
+if we professed to be grammarians and to give a grammatical account of
+the name of Theaetetus, and yet could only tell the syllables and not
+the letters of your name--that would be true opinion, and not knowledge;
+for knowledge, as has been already remarked, is not attained until,
+combined with true opinion, there is an enumeration of the elements out
+of which anything is composed.
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: In the same general way, we might also have true opinion about
+a waggon; but he who can describe its essence by an enumeration of the
+hundred planks, adds rational explanation to true opinion, and instead
+of opinion has art and knowledge of the nature of a waggon, in that he
+attains to the whole through the elements.
+
+THEAETETUS: And do you not agree in that view, Socrates?
+
+SOCRATES: If you do, my friend; but I want to know first, whether you
+admit the resolution of all things into their elements to be a rational
+explanation of them, and the consideration of them in syllables or
+larger combinations of them to be irrational--is this your view?
+
+THEAETETUS: Precisely.
+
+SOCRATES: Well, and do you conceive that a man has knowledge of any
+element who at one time affirms and at another time denies that element
+of something, or thinks that the same thing is composed of different
+elements at different times?
+
+THEAETETUS: Assuredly not.
+
+SOCRATES: And do you not remember that in your case and in that of
+others this often occurred in the process of learning to read?
+
+THEAETETUS: You mean that I mistook the letters and misspelt the
+syllables?
+
+SOCRATES: Yes.
+
+THEAETETUS: To be sure; I perfectly remember, and I am very far from
+supposing that they who are in this condition have knowledge.
+
+SOCRATES: When a person at the time of learning writes the name of
+Theaetetus, and thinks that he ought to write and does write Th and e;
+but, again, meaning to write the name of Theododorus, thinks that he
+ought to write and does write T and e--can we suppose that he knows the
+first syllables of your two names?
+
+THEAETETUS: We have already admitted that such a one has not yet
+attained knowledge.
+
+SOCRATES: And in like manner be may enumerate without knowing them the
+second and third and fourth syllables of your name?
+
+THEAETETUS: He may.
+
+SOCRATES: And in that case, when he knows the order of the letters and
+can write them out correctly, he has right opinion?
+
+THEAETETUS: Clearly.
+
+SOCRATES: But although we admit that he has right opinion, he will still
+be without knowledge?
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: And yet he will have explanation, as well as right opinion,
+for he knew the order of the letters when he wrote; and this we admit to
+be explanation.
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: Then, my friend, there is such a thing as right opinion united
+with definition or explanation, which does not as yet attain to the
+exactness of knowledge.
+
+THEAETETUS: It would seem so.
+
+SOCRATES: And what we fancied to be a perfect definition of knowledge
+is a dream only. But perhaps we had better not say so as yet, for were
+there not three explanations of knowledge, one of which must, as we
+said, be adopted by him who maintains knowledge to be true opinion
+combined with rational explanation? And very likely there may be found
+some one who will not prefer this but the third.
+
+THEAETETUS: You are quite right; there is still one remaining. The first
+was the image or expression of the mind in speech; the second, which has
+just been mentioned, is a way of reaching the whole by an enumeration of
+the elements. But what is the third definition?
+
+SOCRATES: There is, further, the popular notion of telling the mark or
+sign of difference which distinguishes the thing in question from all
+others.
+
+THEAETETUS: Can you give me any example of such a definition?
+
+SOCRATES: As, for example, in the case of the sun, I think that you
+would be contented with the statement that the sun is the brightest of
+the heavenly bodies which revolve about the earth.
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES: Understand why:--the reason is, as I was just now saying, that
+if you get at the difference and distinguishing characteristic of each
+thing, then, as many persons affirm, you will get at the definition or
+explanation of it; but while you lay hold only of the common and not of
+the characteristic notion, you will only have the definition of those
+things to which this common quality belongs.
+
+THEAETETUS: I understand you, and your account of definition is in my
+judgment correct.
+
+SOCRATES: But he, who having right opinion about anything, can find out
+the difference which distinguishes it from other things will know that
+of which before he had only an opinion.
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes; that is what we are maintaining.
+
+SOCRATES: Nevertheless, Theaetetus, on a nearer view, I find myself
+quite disappointed; the picture, which at a distance was not so bad, has
+now become altogether unintelligible.
+
+THEAETETUS: What do you mean?
+
+SOCRATES: I will endeavour to explain: I will suppose myself to have
+true opinion of you, and if to this I add your definition, then I have
+knowledge, but if not, opinion only.
+
+THEAETETUS: Yes.
+
+SOCRATES: The definition was assumed to be the interpretation of your
+difference.
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: But when I had only opinion, I had no conception of your
+distinguishing characteristics.
+
+THEAETETUS: I suppose not.
+
+SOCRATES: Then I must have conceived of some general or common nature
+which no more belonged to you than to another.
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: Tell me, now--How in that case could I have formed a judgment
+of you any more than of any one else? Suppose that I imagine Theaetetus
+to be a man who has nose, eyes, and mouth, and every other member
+complete; how would that enable me to distinguish Theaetetus from
+Theodorus, or from some outer barbarian?
+
+THEAETETUS: How could it?
+
+SOCRATES: Or if I had further conceived of you, not only as having nose
+and eyes, but as having a snub nose and prominent eyes, should I have
+any more notion of you than of myself and others who resemble me?
+
+THEAETETUS: Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES: Surely I can have no conception of Theaetetus until your
+snub-nosedness has left an impression on my mind different from the
+snub-nosedness of all others whom I have ever seen, and until your other
+peculiarities have a like distinctness; and so when I meet you to-morrow
+the right opinion will be re-called?
+
+THEAETETUS: Most true.
+
+SOCRATES: Then right opinion implies the perception of differences?
+
+THEAETETUS: Clearly.
+
+SOCRATES: What, then, shall we say of adding reason or explanation to
+right opinion? If the meaning is, that we should form an opinion of
+the way in which something differs from another thing, the proposal is
+ridiculous.
+
+THEAETETUS: How so?
+
+SOCRATES: We are supposed to acquire a right opinion of the differences
+which distinguish one thing from another when we have already a right
+opinion of them, and so we go round and round:--the revolution of the
+scytal, or pestle, or any other rotatory machine, in the same circles,
+is as nothing compared with such a requirement; and we may be truly
+described as the blind directing the blind; for to add those things
+which we already have, in order that we may learn what we already think,
+is like a soul utterly benighted.
+
+THEAETETUS: Tell me; what were you going to say just now, when you asked
+the question?
+
+SOCRATES: If, my boy, the argument, in speaking of adding the
+definition, had used the word to 'know,' and not merely 'have an
+opinion' of the difference, this which is the most promising of all the
+definitions of knowledge would have come to a pretty end, for to know is
+surely to acquire knowledge.
+
+THEAETETUS: True.
+
+SOCRATES: And so, when the question is asked, What is knowledge? this
+fair argument will answer 'Right opinion with knowledge,'--knowledge,
+that is, of difference, for this, as the said argument maintains, is
+adding the definition.
+
+THEAETETUS: That seems to be true.
+
+SOCRATES: But how utterly foolish, when we are asking what is knowledge,
+that the reply should only be, right opinion with knowledge of
+difference or of anything! And so, Theaetetus, knowledge is neither
+sensation nor true opinion, nor yet definition and explanation
+accompanying and added to true opinion?
+
+THEAETETUS: I suppose not.
+
+SOCRATES: And are you still in labour and travail, my dear friend, or
+have you brought all that you have to say about knowledge to the birth?
+
+THEAETETUS: I am sure, Socrates, that you have elicited from me a good
+deal more than ever was in me.
+
+SOCRATES: And does not my art show that you have brought forth wind, and
+that the offspring of your brain are not worth bringing up?
+
+THEAETETUS: Very true.
+
+SOCRATES: But if, Theaetetus, you should ever conceive afresh, you will
+be all the better for the present investigation, and if not, you will be
+soberer and humbler and gentler to other men, and will be too modest
+to fancy that you know what you do not know. These are the limits of my
+art; I can no further go, nor do I know aught of the things which great
+and famous men know or have known in this or former ages. The office
+of a midwife I, like my mother, have received from God; she delivered
+women, I deliver men; but they must be young and noble and fair.
+
+And now I have to go to the porch of the King Archon, where I am to meet
+Meletus and his indictment. To-morrow morning, Theodorus, I shall hope
+to see you again at this place.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Theaetetus, by Plato
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