speak truly about
diagrams; and he is--the geometrician?

HIPPIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: He and no one else is good at it?

HIPPIAS: Yes, he and no one else.

SOCRATES: Then the good and wise geometer has this double power in the
highest degree; and if there be a man who is false about diagrams the
good man will be he, for he is able to be false; whereas the bad is
unable, and for this reason is not false, as has been admitted.

HIPPIAS: True.

SOCRATES: Once more--let us examine a third case; that of the
astronomer, in whose art, again, you, Hippias, profess to be a still
greater proficient than in the preceding--do you not?

HIPPIAS: Yes, I am.

SOCRATES: And does not the same hold of astronomy?

HIPPIAS: True, Socrates.

SOCRATES: And in astronomy, too, if any man be able to speak falsely
he will be the good astronomer, but he who is not able will not speak
falsely, for he has no knowledge.

HIPPIAS: Clearly not.

SOCRATES: Then in astronomy also, the same man will be true and false?

HIPPIAS: It would seem so.

SOCRATES: And now, Hippias, consider the question at large about all
the sciences, and see whether the same principle does not always hold.
I know that in most arts you are the wisest of men, as I have heard you
boasting in the agora at the tables of the money-changers, when you were
setting forth the great and enviable stores of your wisdom; and you said
that upon one occasion, when you went to the Olympic games, all that you
had on your person was made by yourself. You began with your ring, which
was of your own workmanship, and you said that you could engrave rings;
and you had another seal which was also of your own workmanship, and
a strigil and an oil flask, which you had made yourself; you said also
that you had made the shoes which you had on your feet, and the cloak
and the short tunic; but what appeared to us all most extraordinary and
a proof of singular art, was the girdle of your tunic, which, you said,
was as fine as the most costly Persian fabric, and of your own weaving;
moreover, you told us that you had brought with you poems, epic, tragic,
and dithyrambic, as well as prose writings of the most various kinds;
and you said that your skill was also pre-eminent in the arts which
I was just now mentioning, and in the true principles of rhythm and
harmony and of orthography; and if I remember rightly, there were a
great many other accomplishments in which you excelled. I have forgotte