have arrived at any clearer view, and once more say
what is knowledge.

THEAETETUS: I cannot say, Socrates, that all opinion is knowledge,
because there may be a false opinion; but I will venture to assert, that
knowledge is true opinion: let this then be my reply; and if this is
hereafter disproved, I must try to find another.

SOCRATES: That is the way in which you ought to answer, Theaetetus, and
not in your former hesitating strain, for if we are bold we shall gain
one of two advantages; either we shall find what we seek, or we shall be
less likely to think that we know what we do not know--in either case we
shall be richly rewarded. And now, what are you saying?--Are there
two sorts of opinion, one true and the other false; and do you define
knowledge to be the true?

THEAETETUS: Yes, according to my present view.

SOCRATES: Is it still worth our while to resume the discussion touching
opinion?

THEAETETUS: To what are you alluding?

SOCRATES: There is a point which often troubles me, and is a great
perplexity to me, both in regard to myself and others. I cannot make out
the nature or origin of the mental experience to which I refer.

THEAETETUS: Pray what is it?

SOCRATES: How there can be false opinion--that difficulty still troubles
the eye of my mind; and I am uncertain whether I shall leave the
question, or begin over again in a new way.

THEAETETUS: Begin again, Socrates,--at least if you think that there is
the slightest necessity for doing so. Were not you and Theodorus just
now remarking very truly, that in discussions of this kind we may take
our own time?

SOCRATES: You are quite right, and perhaps there will be no harm in
retracing our steps and beginning again. Better a little which is well
done, than a great deal imperfectly.

THEAETETUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Well, and what is the difficulty? Do we not speak of false
opinion, and say that one man holds a false and another a true opinion,
as though there were some natural distinction between them?

THEAETETUS: We certainly say so.

SOCRATES: All things and everything are either known or not known.
I leave out of view the intermediate conceptions of learning and
forgetting, because they have nothing to do with our present question.

THEAETETUS: There can be no doubt, Socrates, if you exclude these, that
there is no other alternative but knowing or not knowing a thing.

SOCRATES: That point being now determined, must we not say that