aculties, such as they are, and speak out what appears to us to be
true. And one thing which no one will deny is, that there are great
differences in the understandings of men.

THEODORUS: In that opinion I quite agree.

SOCRATES: And is there not most likely to be firm ground in the
distinction which we were indicating on behalf of Protagoras, viz. that
most things, and all immediate sensations, such as hot, dry, sweet,
are only such as they appear; if however difference of opinion is to be
allowed at all, surely we must allow it in respect of health or disease?
for every woman, child, or living creature has not such a knowledge of
what conduces to health as to enable them to cure themselves.

THEODORUS: I quite agree.

SOCRATES: Or again, in politics, while affirming that just and unjust,
honourable and disgraceful, holy and unholy, are in reality to each
state such as the state thinks and makes lawful, and that in determining
these matters no individual or state is wiser than another, still the
followers of Protagoras will not deny that in determining what is or is
not expedient for the community one state is wiser and one counsellor
better than another--they will scarcely venture to maintain, that what
a city enacts in the belief that it is expedient will always be really
expedient. But in the other case, I mean when they speak of justice and
injustice, piety and impiety, they are confident that in nature these
have no existence or essence of their own--the truth is that which is
agreed on at the time of the agreement, and as long as the agreement
lasts; and this is the philosophy of many who do not altogether go along
with Protagoras. Here arises a new question, Theodorus, which threatens
to be more serious than the last.

THEODORUS: Well, Socrates, we have plenty of leisure.

SOCRATES: That is true, and your remark recalls to my mind an
observation which I have often made, that those who have passed their
days in the pursuit of philosophy are ridiculously at fault when they
have to appear and speak in court. How natural is this!

THEODORUS: What do you mean?

SOCRATES: I mean to say, that those who have been trained in philosophy
and liberal pursuits are as unlike those who from their youth upwards
have been knocking about in the courts and such places, as a freeman is
in breeding unlike a slave.

THEODORUS: In what is the difference seen?

SOCRATES: In the leisure spoken of by you, which a freeman can