Theaetetus

SO. And when people sing the praises of lineage and say someone is of noble birth, because he can show seven wealthy ancestors, he thinks that such praises betray an altogether dull and narrow vision on the part of those who utter them; because of lack of education they cannot keep their eyes fixed upon the whole and are unable to calculate that every man has had countless thousands of ancestors and progenitors, among whom have been in any instance rich and poor, kings and slaves, barbarians and Greeks. And when people pride themselves on a list of twenty-five ancestors and trace their pedigree back to Heracles, the son of Amphitryon, the pettiness of their ideas seems absurd to him; he laughs at them because they cannot free their silly minds of vanity by calculating that Amphitryon’s twenty-fifth ancestor was such as fortune happened to make him, and the fiftieth for that matter. In all these cases the philosopher is derided by the common herd, partly because he seems to be contemptuous, partly because he is ignorant of common things and is always in perplexity.

THEO. That all happens just as you say, Socrates.

SOC. But when, my friend, he draws a man upwards and the other is willing to rise with him above the level of What wrong have I done you or you me? to the investigation of abstract right and wrong, to inquire what each of them is and wherein they differ from each other and from all other things, or above the level of Is a king happy? or, on the other hand, Has he great wealth? to the investigation of royalty and of human happiness and wretchedness in general, to see what the nature of each is and in what way man is naturally fitted to gain the one and escape the other— when that man of small and sharp and pettifogging mind is compelled in his turn to give an account of all these things, then the tables are turned; dizzied by the new experience of hanging at such a height, he gazes downward from the air in dismay and perplexity; he stammers and becomes ridiculous, not in the eyes of Thracian girls or other uneducated persons, for they have no perception of it, but in those of all men who have been brought up as free men, not as slaves. Such is the character of each of the two classes, Theodorus, of the man who has truly been brought up in freedom and leisure, whom you call a philosopher—who may without censure appear foolish and good for nothing when he is involved in menial services, if, for instance, he does not know how to pack up his bedding, much less to put the proper sweetening into a sauce or a fawning speech—and of the other, who can perform all such services smartly and quickly, but does not know how to wear his cloak as a freeman should, properly draped, [*](The Athenians regarded the proper draping of the cloak as a sign of good breeding. The well-bred Athenian first threw his cloak over the left shoulder, then passed it round the back to the right side, then either above or below the right arm, and finally over the left arm or shoulder. See Aristophanes, Birds, 1567 f., with Blaydes’s notes.) still less to acquire the true harmony of speech and hymn aright the praises of the true life of gods and blessed men.

THEO. If, Socrates, you could persuade all men of the truth of what you say as you do me, there would be more peace and fewer evils among mankind.

SOC. But it is impossible that evils should be done away with, Theodorus, for there must always be something opposed to the good; and they cannot have their place among the gods, but must inevitably hover about mortal nature and this earth. Therefore we ought to try to escape from earth to the dwelling of the gods as quickly as we can; and to escape is to become like God, so far as this is possible; and to become like God is to become righteous and holy and wise. But, indeed, my good friend, it is not at all easy to persuade people that the reason generally advanced for the pursuit of virtue and the avoidance of vice—namely, in order that a man may not seem bad and may seem good—is not the reason why the one should be practiced and the other not; that, I think, is merely old wives’ chatter, as the saying is. Let us give the true reason. God is in no wise and in no manner unrighteous, but utterly and perfectly righteous, and there is nothing so like him as that one of us who in turn becomes most nearly perfect in righteousness. It is herein that the true cleverness of a man is found and also his worthlessness and cowardice; for the knowledge of this is wisdom or true virtue, and ignorance of it is folly or manifest wickedness; and all the other kinds of seeming cleverness and wisdom are paltry when they appear in public affairs and vulgar in the arts. Therefore by far the best thing for the unrighteous man and the man whose words or deeds are impious is not to grant that he is clever through knavery; for such men glory in that reproach, and think it means that they are not triflers,

useless burdens upon the earth,

THEO. What penalty do you mean?

SOC. Two patterns, my friend, are set up in the world, the divine, which is most blessed, and the godless, which is most wretched. But these men do not see that this is the case, and their silliness and extreme foolishness blind them to the fact that through their unrighteous acts they are made like the one and unlike the other. They therefore pay the penalty for this by living a life that conforms to the pattern they resemble; and if we tell them that, unless they depart from their cleverness, the blessed place that is pure of all things evil will not receive them after death, and here on earth they will always live the life like themselves—evil men associating with evil—when they hear this, they will be so confident in their unscrupulous cleverness that they will think our words the talk of fools.

THEO. Very true, Socrates.

SOC. Yes, my friend, I know. However, there is one thing that has happened to them: whenever they have to carry on a personal argument about the doctrines to which they object, if they are willing to stand their ground for a while like men and do not run away like cowards, then, my friend, they at last become strangely dissatisfied with themselves and their arguments; their brilliant rhetoric withers away, so that they seem no better than children. But this is a digression. Let us turn away from these matters—if we do not, they will come on like an ever-rising flood and bury in silt our original argument—and let us, if you please, proceed.

THEO. To me, Socrates, such digressions are quite as agreeable as the argument; for they are easier for a man of my age to follow. However, if you prefer, let us return to our argument.

SOC. Very well. We were at about the point in our argument where we said that those who declare that only motion is reality, and that whatever seems to each man really is to him to whom it seems, are willing to maintain their position in regard to other matters and to maintain especially in regard to justice that whatever laws a state makes, because they seem to it just, are just to the state that made them, as long as they remain in force; but as regards the good, that nobody has the courage to go on and contend that whatever laws a state passes thinking them advantageous to it are really advantageous as long as they remain in force, unless what he means is merely the name advantageous [*](The legislator may call his laws advantageous, and that name, if it is given them when they are enacted, will belong to them, whatever their character may be.); and that would be making a joke of our argument. Am I right?

THEO. Certainly.

SOC. Yes; for he must not mean merely the name, but the thing named must be the object of his attention.

THEO. True.

SOC. But the state, in making laws, aims, of course, at advantage, whatever the name it gives it, and makes all its laws as advantageous as possible to itself, to the extent of its belief and ability; or has it in making laws anything else in view?

THEO. Certainly not.

SOC. And does it always hit the mark, or does every state often miss it?

THEO. I should say they do often miss it!

SOC. Continuing, then, and proceeding from this point, every one would more readily agree to this assertion, if the question were asked concerning the whole class to which the advantageous belongs; and that whole class, it would seem, pertains to the future. For when we make laws, we make them with the idea that they will be advantageous in after time; and this is rightly called the future.

THEO. Certainly.

SOC. Come then, on this assumption, let us question Protagoras or someone of those who agree with him. Man is the measure of all things, as your school says, Protagoras, of the white, the heavy, the light, everything of that sort without exception; for he possesses within himself the standard by which to judge them, and when his thoughts about them coincide with his sensations, he thinks what to him is true and really is. Is not that what they say?

THEO. Yes.

SOC. Does he, then, also, Protagoras, we shall say, possess within himself the standard by which to judge of the things which are yet to be, and do those things which he thinks will be actually come to pass for him who thought them? Take, for instance, heat; if some ordinary man thinks he is going to take a fever, that is to say, that this particular heat will be, and some other man, who is a physician, thinks the contrary, whose opinion shall we expect the future to prove right? Or perhaps the opinion of both, and the man will become, not hot or feverish to the physician, but to himself both?

THEO. No, that would be ridiculous.

SOC. But, I imagine, in regard to the sweetness or dryness which will be in a wine, the opinion of the husbandman, not that of the lyre-player, will be valid.

THEO. Of course.

SOC. And again, in a matter of discord or tunefulness in music that has never been played, a gymnastic teacher could not judge better than a musician what will, when performed, seem tuneful even to a gymnastic teacher himself.

THEO. Certainly not.

SOC. Then, too, when a banquet is in preparation the opinion of him who is to be a guest, unless he has training in cookery, is of less value concerning the pleasure that will be derived from the viands than that of the cook. For we need not yet argue about that which already is or has been pleasant to each one but concerning that which will in the future seem and be pleasant to each one, is he himself the best judge for himself, or would you, Protagoras—at least as regards the arguments which will be persuasive in court to each of us—be able to give an opinion beforehand better than anyone whatsoever who has no especial training?

THEO. Certainly, Socrates, in this, at any rate, he used to declare emphatically that he himself excelled everyone.

SOC. Yes, my friend, he certainly did; otherwise nobody would have paid him a high fee for his conversations, if he had not made his pupils believe that neither a prophet nor anyone else could judge better than himself what was in the future to be and seem.

THEO. Very true.

SOC. Both lawmaking, then, and the advantageous are concerned with the future, and everyone would agree that a state in making laws must often fail to attain the greatest advantage?

THEO. Assuredly.

SOC. Then it will be a fair answer if we say to your master that he is obliged to agree that one man is wiser than another, and that such a wise man is a measure, but that I, who am without knowledge, am not in the least obliged to become a measure, as the argument in his behalf just now tried to oblige me to be, whether I would or no.

THEO. In that respect, Socrates, I think that the argument is most clearly proved to be wrong, and it is proved wrong in this also, in that it declares the opinions of others to be valid, whereas it was shown that they do not consider his arguments true at all.

SOC. In many other respects, Theodorus, it could be proved that not every opinion of every person is true, at any rate in matters of that kind; but it is more difficult to prove that opinions are not true in regard to the momentary states of feeling of each person, from which our perceptions and the opinions concerning them arise. But perhaps I am quite wrong; for it may be impossible to prove that they are not true, and those who say that they are manifest and are forms of knowledge may perhaps be right, and Theaetetus here was not far from the mark in saying that perception and knowledge are identical. So we must, as the argument in behalf of Protagoras [*](See 168 B.) enjoined upon us, come up closer and examine this doctrine of motion as the fundamental essence, rapping on it to see whether it rings sound or unsound. As you know, a strife has arisen about it, no mean one, either, and waged by not a few combatants.

THEO. Yes, far from mean, and it is spreading far and wide all over Ionia; for the disciples of Heracleitus are supporting this doctrine very vigorously.

SOC. Therefore, my dear Theodorus, we must all the more examine it from the beginning as they themselves present it.

THEO. Certainly we must. For it is no more possible, Socrates, to discuss these doctrines of Heracleitus (or, as you say, of Homer or even earlier sages) with the Ephesians themselves—those, at least, who profess to be familiar with them—than with madmen. For they are, quite in accordance with their text-books, in perpetual motion; but as for keeping to an argument or a question and quietly answering and asking in turn, their power of doing that is less than nothing; or rather the words nothing at all fail to express the absence from these fellows of even the slightest particle of rest. But if you ask one of them a question, he pulls out puzzling little phrases, like arrows from a quiver, and shoots them off; and if you try to get hold of an explanation of what he has said, you will be struck with another phrase of novel and distorted wording, and you never make any progress whatsoever with any of them, nor do they themselves with one another, for that matter, but they take very good care to allow nothing to be settled either in an argument or in their own minds, thinking, I suppose, that this is being stationary; but they wage bitter war against the stationary, and, so far as they can, they banish it altogether.

SOC. Perhaps, Theodorus, you have seen the men when they are fighting, but have not been with them when they are at peace; for they are no friends of yours; but I fancy they utter such peaceful doctrines at leisure to those pupils whom they wish to make like themselves.

THEO. What pupils, my good man? Such people do not become pupils of one another, but they grow up of themselves, each one getting his inspiration from any chance source, and each thinks the other knows nothing. From these people, then, as I was going to say, you would never get an argument either with their will or against it; but we must ourselves take over the question and investigate it as if it were a problem of mathematics.

SOC. Yes, what you say is reasonable. Now as for the problem, have we not heard from the ancients, who concealed their meaning from the multitude by their poetry, that the origin of all things is Oceanus and Tethys, flowing streams, and that nothing is at rest and likewise from the modern, who, since they are wiser, declare their meaning openly, in order that even cobblers may hear and know their wisdom and may cease from the silly belief that some things are at rest and others in motion, and, after learning that everything is in motion, may honor their teachers? But, Theodorus, I almost forgot that others teach the opposite of this,

1. So that it is motionless, the name of which is the All,

SO.What shall we do with all these people, my friend? For, advancing little by little, we have unwittingly fallen between the two parties, and, unless we protect ourselves and escape somehow, we shall pay the penalty, like those in the palaestra, who in playing on the line are caught by both sides and dragged in opposite directions. [*](In the game referred to (called διελκυστίνδα by Pollux, ix. 112) the players were divided into two parties, each of which tried to drag its opponents over a line drawn across the palaestra.) I think, then, we had better examine first the one party, those whom we originally set out to join, the flowing ones, and if we find their arguments sound, we will help them to pull us over, trying thus to escape the others; but if we find that the partisans of the whole seem to have truer doctrines, we will take refuge with them from those who would move what is motionless. But if we find that neither party has anything reasonable to say, we shall be ridiculous if we think that we, who are of no account, can say anything worth while after having rejected the doctrines of very ancient and very wise men. Therefore, Theodorus, see whether it is desirable to go forward into so great a danger.

THEO. Oh, it would be unendurable, Socrates, not to examine thoroughly the doctrines of both parties.

SOC. Then they must be examined, since you are so urgent. Now I think the starting-point of our examination of the doctrine of motion is this: Exactly what do they mean, after all, when they say that all things are in motion? What I wish to ask is this: Do they mean to say that there is only one kind of motion or, as I believe, two? But it must not be my belief alone; you must share it also, that if anything happens to us we may suffer it in common. Tell me, do you call it motion when a thing changes its place or turns round in the same place?

THEO. Yes.

SOC. Let this, then, be one kind of motion. Now when a thing remains in the same place, but grows old, or becomes black instead of white, or hard instead of soft, or undergoes any other kind of alteration, is it not proper to say that this is another kind of motion?

THEO. I think so.

SOC. Nay, it must be true. So I say that there are these two kinds of motion: alteration, and motion in space.

THEO. And you are right.

SOC. Now that we have made this distinction, let us at once converse with those who say that all things are in motion, and let us ask them, Do you mean that everything moves in both ways, moving in space and undergoing alteration, or one thing in both ways and another in one of the two ways only?

THEO. By Zeus, I cannot tell! But I think they would say that everything moves in both ways.

SOC. Yes; otherwise, my friend, they will find that things in motion are also things at rest, and it will be no more correct to say that all things are in motion than that all things are at rest.

THEO. What you say is very true.

SOC. Then since they must be in motion, and since absence of motion must be impossible for anything, all things are always in all kinds of motion.

THEO. Necessarily.

SOC. Then just examine this point of their doctrine. Did we not find that they say that heat or whiteness or anything you please arises in some such way as this, namely that each of these moves simultaneously with perception between the active and the passive element, and the passive becomes percipient, but not perception, and the active becomes, not a quality, but endowed with a quality? Now perhaps quality seems an extraordinary word, and you do not understand it when used with general application, so let me give particular examples. For the active element becomes neither heat nor whiteness, but hot or white, and other things in the same way; you probably remember that this was what we said earlier in our discourse, that nothing is in itself unvaryingly one, neither the active nor the passive, but from the union of the two with one another the perceptions and the perceived give birth and the latter become things endowed with some quality while the former become percipient.

THEO. I remember, of course.

SOC. Let us then pay no attention to other matters, whether they teach one thing or another; but let us attend strictly to this only, which is the object of our discussion. Let us ask them, Are all things, according to your doctrine, in motion and flux? Is that so?

THEO. Yes.

SOC. Have they then both kinds of motion which we distinguished? Are they moving in space and also undergoing alteration?

THEO. Of course; that is, if they are to be in perfect motion.

SOC. Then if they moved only in space, but did not undergo alteration, we could perhaps say what qualities belong to those moving things which are in flux, could we not?

THEO. That is right.

SOC. But since not even this remains fixed—that the thing in flux flows white, but changes, so that there is a flux of the very whiteness, and a change of color, that it may not in that way be convicted of remaining fixed, is it possible to give any name to a color, and yet to speak accurately?

THEO. How can it be possible, Socrates, or to give a name to anything else of this sort, if while we are speaking it always evades us, being, as it is, in flux?

SOC. But what shall we say of any of the perceptions, such as seeing or hearing? Does it perhaps remain fixed in the condition of seeing or hearing?

THEO. It must be impossible, if all things are in motion.

SOC. Then we must not speak of seeing more than not seeing, or of any other perception more than of non-perception, if all things are in all kinds of motion.

THEO. No, we must not.

SOC. And yet perception is knowledge, as Theaetetus and I said.

THEO. Yes, you did say that.

SOC. Then when we were asked what is knowledge? we answered no more what knowledge is than what not-knowledge is.

THEO. So it seems.

SOC. This would be a fine result of the correction of our answer, when we were so eager to show that all things are in motion, just for the purpose of making that answer prove to be correct. But this, I think, did prove to be true, that if all things are in motion, every answer to any question whatsoever is equally correct, and we may say it is thus or not thus—or, if you prefer, becomes thus, to avoid giving them fixity by using the word is.

THEO. You are right.

SOC. Except, Theodorus, that I said thus, and not thus; but we ought not even to say thus; for thus would no longer be in motion; nor, again, not thus. For there is no motion in this either; but some other expression must be supplied for those who maintain this doctrine, since now they have, according to their own hypothesis, no words, unless it be perhaps the word nohow. That might be most fitting for them, since it is indefinite.

THEO. At any rate that is the most appropriate form of speech for them.

SOC. So, Theodorus, we have got rid of your friend, and we do not yet concede to him that every man is a measure of all things, unless he be a sensible man; and we are not going to concede that knowledge is perception, at least not by the theory of universal motion, unless Theaetetus here has something different to say.

THEO. An excellent idea, Socrates; for now that this matter is settled, I too should be rid of the duty of answering your questions according to our agreement, since the argument about Protagoras is ended.

THEAET. No, Theodorus, not until you and Socrates have discussed those who say all things are at rest, as you proposed just now.

THEO. A young man like you, Theaetetus, teaching your elders to do wrong by breaking their agreements! No; prepare to answer Socrates yourself for the rest of the argument.

THEAET. I will if he wishes it. But I should have liked best to hear about the doctrine I mentioned.

THEO. Calling Socrates to an argument is calling cavalry into an open plain. [*](A proverbial expression. An open plain is just what cavalry desires.) Just ask him a question and you shall hear.

SOC. Still I think, Theodorus, I shall not comply with the request of Theaetetus.

THEO. Why will you not comply with it?