them, while they
were in force; this was especially asserted of justice; but as to the
good, no one had any longer the hardihood to contend of any ordinances
which the state thought and enacted to be good that these, while they
were in force, were really good;--he who said so would be playing with
the name 'good,' and would not touch the real question--it would be a
mockery, would it not?

THEODORUS: Certainly it would.

SOCRATES: He ought not to speak of the name, but of the thing which is
contemplated under the name.

THEODORUS: Right.

SOCRATES: Whatever be the term used, the good or expedient is the aim
of legislation, and as far as she has an opinion, the state imposes all
laws with a view to the greatest expediency; can legislation have any
other aim?

THEODORUS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: But is the aim attained always? do not mistakes often happen?

THEODORUS: Yes, I think that there are mistakes.

SOCRATES: The possibility of error will be more distinctly recognised,
if we put the question in reference to the whole class under which the
good or expedient falls. That whole class has to do with the future, and
laws are passed under the idea that they will be useful in after-time;
which, in other words, is the future.

THEODORUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: Suppose now, that we ask Protagoras, or one of his disciples,
a question:--O, Protagoras, we will say to him, Man is, as you declare,
the measure of all things--white, heavy, light: of all such things he
is the judge; for he has the criterion of them in himself, and when he
thinks that things are such as he experiences them to be, he thinks what
is and is true to himself. Is it not so?

THEODORUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And do you extend your doctrine, Protagoras (as we shall
further say), to the future as well as to the present; and has he the
criterion not only of what in his opinion is but of what will be, and do
things always happen to him as he expected? For example, take the case
of heat:--When an ordinary man thinks that he is going to have a fever,
and that this kind of heat is coming on, and another person, who is a
physician, thinks the contrary, whose opinion is likely to prove right?
Or are they both right?--he will have a heat and fever in his own
judgment, and not have a fever in the physician's judgment?

THEODORUS: How ludicrous!

SOCRATES: And the vinegrower, if I am not mistaken, is a better judge of
the sweetness or dryness of the vinta