n
to mention your art of memory, which you regard as your special glory,
and I dare say that I have forgotten many other things; but, as I was
saying, only look to your own arts--and there are plenty of them--and to
those of others; and tell me, having regard to the admissions which
you and I have made, whether you discover any department of art or any
description of wisdom or cunning, whichever name you use, in which the
true and false are different and not the same: tell me, if you can, of
any. But you cannot.

HIPPIAS: Not without consideration, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Nor will consideration help you, Hippias, as I believe; but
then if I am right, remember what the consequence will be.

HIPPIAS: I do not know what you mean, Socrates.

SOCRATES: I suppose that you are not using your art of memory, doubtless
because you think that such an accomplishment is not needed on the
present occasion. I will therefore remind you of what you were saying:
were you not saying that Achilles was a true man, and Odysseus false and
wily?

HIPPIAS: I was.

SOCRATES: And now do you perceive that the same person has turned out to
be false as well as true? If Odysseus is false he is also true, and if
Achilles is true he is also false, and so the two men are not opposed to
one another, but they are alike.

HIPPIAS: O Socrates, you are always weaving the meshes of an argument,
selecting the most difficult point, and fastening upon details instead
of grappling with the matter in hand as a whole. Come now, and I will
demonstrate to you, if you will allow me, by many satisfactory proofs,
that Homer has made Achilles a better man than Odysseus, and a truthful
man too; and that he has made the other crafty, and a teller of many
untruths, and inferior to Achilles. And then, if you please, you shall
make a speech on the other side, in order to prove that Odysseus is the
better man; and this may be compared to mine, and then the company will
know which of us is the better speaker.

SOCRATES: O Hippias, I do not doubt that you are wiser than I am. But I
have a way, when anybody else says anything, of giving close attention
to him, especially if the speaker appears to me to be a wise man. Having
a desire to understand, I question him, and I examine and analyse and
put together what he says, in order that I may understand; but if the
speaker appears to me to be a poor hand, I do not interrogate him, or
trouble myself about him, and you may know