THEAETETUS [15]
and either show, if you can, that our
sensations are not relative and individual, or, if you admit them to
be so, prove that this does not involve the consequence that the
appearance becomes, or, if you will have the word, is, to the
individual only. As to your talk about pigs and baboons, you are
yourself behaving like a pig, and you teach your hearers to make sport
of my writings in the same ignorant manner; but this is not to your
credit. For I declare that the truth is as I have written, and that
each of us is a measure of existence and of non-existence. Yet one man
may be a thousand times better than another in proportion as different
things are and appear to him.
And I am far from saying that wisdom and the wise man have no
existence; but I say that the wise man is he who makes the evils which
appear and are to a man, into goods which are and appear to him. And I
would beg you not to my words in the letter, but to take the meaning
of them as I will explain them. Remember what has been already
said,-that to the sick man his food appears to be and is bitter, and
to the man in health the opposite of bitter. Now I cannot conceive
that one of these men can be or ought to be made wiser than the other:
nor can you assert that the sick man because he has one impression
is foolish, and the healthy man because he has another is wise; but
the one state requires to be changed into the other, the worse into
the better. As in education, a change of state has to be effected, and
the sophist accomplishes by words the change which the physician works
by the aid of drugs. Not that any one ever made another think truly,
who previously thought falsely. For no one can think what is not, or
think anything different from that which he feels; and this is
always true. But as the inferior habit of mind has thoughts of kindred
nature, so I conceive that a good mind causes men to have good
thoughts; and these which the inexperienced call true, I maintain to
be only better, and not truer than others. And, O my dear Socrates,
I do not call wise men tadpoles: far from it; I say that they are
the physicians of the human body, and the husbandmen of plants-for the
husbandmen also take away the evil and disordered sensations of
plants, and infuse into them good and healthy sensations-aye and
true ones; and the wise and good rhetoricians make the good instead of
the evil to seem just to states; for whatever appears to a state to be
just and fair, so long as it is regarded as such, is just and fair
to it; but the teacher of wisdom causes the good to take the place
of the evil, both in appearance and in reality. And in like manner the
Sophist who is able to train his pupils in this spirit is a wise
man, and deserves to be well paid by them. And so one man is wiser
than another; and no one thinks falsely, and you, whether you will
or not, must endure to be a measure. On these foundations the argument
stands firm, which you, Socrates, may, if you please, overthrow by
an opposite argument, or if you like you may put questions to me-a
method to which no intelligent person will object, quite the
reverse. But I must beg you to put fair questions: for there is
great inconsistency in saying that you have a zeal for virtue, and
then always behaving unfairly in argument. The unfairness of which I
complain is that you do not distinguish between mere disputation and
dialectic: the disputer may trip up his opponent as often as he likes,
and make fun; but the dialectician will be in earnest, and only
correct his adversary when necessary, telling him the errors into
which he has fallen through his own fault, or that of the company
which he has previously kept. If you do so, your adversary will lay
the blame of his own confusion and perplexity on himself, and not on
you; will follow and love you, and will hate himself, and escape
from himself into philosophy, in order that he may become different
from what he was. But the other mode of arguing, which
sensations are not relative and individual, or, if you admit them to
be so, prove that this does not involve the consequence that the
appearance becomes, or, if you will have the word, is, to the
individual only. As to your talk about pigs and baboons, you are
yourself behaving like a pig, and you teach your hearers to make sport
of my writings in the same ignorant manner; but this is not to your
credit. For I declare that the truth is as I have written, and that
each of us is a measure of existence and of non-existence. Yet one man
may be a thousand times better than another in proportion as different
things are and appear to him.
And I am far from saying that wisdom and the wise man have no
existence; but I say that the wise man is he who makes the evils which
appear and are to a man, into goods which are and appear to him. And I
would beg you not to my words in the letter, but to take the meaning
of them as I will explain them. Remember what has been already
said,-that to the sick man his food appears to be and is bitter, and
to the man in health the opposite of bitter. Now I cannot conceive
that one of these men can be or ought to be made wiser than the other:
nor can you assert that the sick man because he has one impression
is foolish, and the healthy man because he has another is wise; but
the one state requires to be changed into the other, the worse into
the better. As in education, a change of state has to be effected, and
the sophist accomplishes by words the change which the physician works
by the aid of drugs. Not that any one ever made another think truly,
who previously thought falsely. For no one can think what is not, or
think anything different from that which he feels; and this is
always true. But as the inferior habit of mind has thoughts of kindred
nature, so I conceive that a good mind causes men to have good
thoughts; and these which the inexperienced call true, I maintain to
be only better, and not truer than others. And, O my dear Socrates,
I do not call wise men tadpoles: far from it; I say that they are
the physicians of the human body, and the husbandmen of plants-for the
husbandmen also take away the evil and disordered sensations of
plants, and infuse into them good and healthy sensations-aye and
true ones; and the wise and good rhetoricians make the good instead of
the evil to seem just to states; for whatever appears to a state to be
just and fair, so long as it is regarded as such, is just and fair
to it; but the teacher of wisdom causes the good to take the place
of the evil, both in appearance and in reality. And in like manner the
Sophist who is able to train his pupils in this spirit is a wise
man, and deserves to be well paid by them. And so one man is wiser
than another; and no one thinks falsely, and you, whether you will
or not, must endure to be a measure. On these foundations the argument
stands firm, which you, Socrates, may, if you please, overthrow by
an opposite argument, or if you like you may put questions to me-a
method to which no intelligent person will object, quite the
reverse. But I must beg you to put fair questions: for there is
great inconsistency in saying that you have a zeal for virtue, and
then always behaving unfairly in argument. The unfairness of which I
complain is that you do not distinguish between mere disputation and
dialectic: the disputer may trip up his opponent as often as he likes,
and make fun; but the dialectician will be in earnest, and only
correct his adversary when necessary, telling him the errors into
which he has fallen through his own fault, or that of the company
which he has previously kept. If you do so, your adversary will lay
the blame of his own confusion and perplexity on himself, and not on
you; will follow and love you, and will hate himself, and escape
from himself into philosophy, in order that he may become different
from what he was. But the other mode of arguing, which