ho was specially committed to his charge in the Laches,
may be remarked by the way. The attempt to discover the definition
of knowledge is in accordance with the character of Socrates as he
is described in the Memorabilia, asking What is justice? what is
temperance? and the like. But there is no reason to suppose that he
would have analyzed the nature of perception, or traced the connexion
of Protagoras and Heracleitus, or have raised the difficulty respecting
false opinion. The humorous illustrations, as well as the serious
thoughts, run through the dialogue. The snubnosedness of Theaetetus, a
characteristic which he shares with Socrates, and the man-midwifery
of Socrates, are not forgotten in the closing words. At the end of the
dialogue, as in the Euthyphro, he is expecting to meet Meletus at the
porch of the king Archon; but with the same indifference to the result
which is everywhere displayed by him, he proposes that they shall
reassemble on the following day at the same spot. The day comes, and
in the Sophist the three friends again meet, but no further allusion is
made to the trial, and the principal share in the argument is assigned,
not to Socrates, but to an Eleatic stranger; the youthful Theaetetus
also plays a different and less independent part. And there is no
allusion in the Introduction to the second and third dialogues, which
are afterwards appended. There seems, therefore, reason to think that
there is a real change, both in the characters and in the design.

The dialogue is an enquiry into the nature of knowledge, which is
interrupted by two digressions. The first is the digression about the
midwives, which is also a leading thought or continuous image, like the
wave in the Republic, appearing and reappearing at intervals. Again and
again we are reminded that the successive conceptions of knowledge are
extracted from Theaetetus, who in his turn truly declares that Socrates
has got a great deal more out of him than ever was in him. Socrates is
never weary of working out the image in humorous details,--discerning
the symptoms of labour, carrying the child round the hearth, fearing
that Theaetetus will bite him, comparing his conceptions to wind-eggs,
asserting an hereditary right to the occupation. There is also a serious
side to the image, which is an apt similitude of the Socratic theory
of education (compare Republic, Sophist), and accords with the ironical
spirit in which the wisest of men delights