'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