st
you and are of an opposite judgment and opinion, deeming that you judge
falsely?

THEODORUS: Yes, indeed, Socrates, thousands and tens of thousands, as
Homer says, who give me a world of trouble.

SOCRATES: Well, but are we to assert that what you think is true to you
and false to the ten thousand others?

THEODORUS: No other inference seems to be possible.

SOCRATES: And how about Protagoras himself? If neither he nor the
multitude thought, as indeed they do not think, that man is the measure
of all things, must it not follow that the truth of which Protagoras
wrote would be true to no one? But if you suppose that he himself
thought this, and that the multitude does not agree with him, you must
begin by allowing that in whatever proportion the many are more than
one, in that proportion his truth is more untrue than true.

THEODORUS: That would follow if the truth is supposed to vary with
individual opinion.

SOCRATES: And the best of the joke is, that he acknowledges the truth
of their opinion who believe his own opinion to be false; for he admits
that the opinions of all men are true.

THEODORUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And does he not allow that his own opinion is false, if he
admits that the opinion of those who think him false is true?

THEODORUS: Of course.

SOCRATES: Whereas the other side do not admit that they speak falsely?

THEODORUS: They do not.

SOCRATES: And he, as may be inferred from his writings, agrees that this
opinion is also true.

THEODORUS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: Then all mankind, beginning with Protagoras, will contend,
or rather, I should say that he will allow, when he concedes that his
adversary has a true opinion--Protagoras, I say, will himself allow that
neither a dog nor any ordinary man is the measure of anything which he
has not learned--am I not right?

THEODORUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And the truth of Protagoras being doubted by all, will be true
neither to himself to any one else?

THEODORUS: I think, Socrates, that we are running my old friend too
hard.

SOCRATES: But I do not know that we are going beyond the truth.
Doubtless, as he is older, he may be expected to be wiser than we are.
And if he could only just get his head out of the world below, he would
have overthrown both of us again and again, me for talking nonsense and
you for assenting to me, and have been off and underground in a trice.
But as he is not within call, we must make the best use of our own
f