red 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