Theaetetus
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