; and we are left in doubt at last how far in this
interpretation of Simonides Socrates is 'fooling,' how far he is in
earnest.

All the interests and contrasts of character in a great dramatic work
like the Protagoras are not easily exhausted. The impressiveness of
the scene should not be lost upon us, or the gradual substitution of
Socrates in the second part for Protagoras in the first. The characters
to whom we are introduced at the beginning of the Dialogue all play a
part more or less conspicuous towards the end. There is Alcibiades, who
is compelled by the necessity of his nature to be a partisan, lending
effectual aid to Socrates; there is Critias assuming the tone of
impartiality; Callias, here as always inclining to the Sophists, but
eager for any intellectual repast; Prodicus, who finds an opportunity
for displaying his distinctions of language, which are valueless and
pedantic, because they are not based on dialectic; Hippias, who has
previously exhibited his superficial knowledge of natural philosophy,
to which, as in both the Dialogues called by his name, he now adds the
profession of an interpreter of the Poets. The two latter personages
have been already damaged by the mock heroic description of them in
the introduction. It may be remarked that Protagoras is consistently
presented to us throughout as the teacher of moral and political virtue;
there is no allusion to the theories of sensation which are attributed
to him in the Theaetetus and elsewhere, or to his denial of the
existence of the gods in a well-known fragment ascribed to him; he is
the religious rather than the irreligious teacher in this Dialogue.
Also it may be observed that Socrates shows him as much respect as is
consistent with his own ironical character; he admits that the
dialectic which has overthrown Protagoras has carried himself round to
a conclusion opposed to his first thesis. The force of argument,
therefore, and not Socrates or Protagoras, has won the day.

But is Socrates serious in maintaining (1) that virtue cannot be taught;
(2) that the virtues are one; (3) that virtue is the knowledge of
pleasures and pains present and future? These propositions to us have an
appearance of paradox--they are really moments or aspects of the truth
by the help of which we pass from the old conventional morality to a
higher conception of virtue and knowledge. That virtue cannot be taught
is a paradox of the same sort as the profession of Soc