rs.' Theaetetus at once divines that Socrates means him to
extend to all kinds of knowledge the same process of generalization
which he has already learned to apply to arithmetic. For he has
discovered a division of numbers into square numbers, 4, 9, 16, etc.,
which are composed of equal factors, and represent figures which have
equal sides, and oblong numbers, 3, 5, 6, 7, etc., which are composed of
unequal factors, and represent figures which have unequal sides. But
he has never succeeded in attaining a similar conception of knowledge,
though he has often tried; and, when this and similar questions were
brought to him from Socrates, has been sorely distressed by them.
Socrates explains to him that he is in labour. For men as well as
women have pangs of labour; and both at times require the assistance of
midwives. And he, Socrates, is a midwife, although this is a secret; he
has inherited the art from his mother bold and bluff, and he ushers into
light, not children, but the thoughts of men. Like the midwives, who are
'past bearing children,' he too can have no offspring--the God will not
allow him to bring anything into the world of his own. He also reminds
Theaetetus that the midwives are or ought to be the only matchmakers
(this is the preparation for a biting jest); for those who reap the
fruit are most likely to know on what soil the plants will grow. But
respectable midwives avoid this department of practice--they do not want
to be called procuresses. There are some other differences between the
two sorts of pregnancy. For women do not bring into the world at one
time real children and at another time idols which are with difficulty
distinguished from them. 'At first,' says Socrates in his character of
the man-midwife, 'my patients are barren and stolid, but after a while
they "round apace," if the gods are propitious to them; and this is due
not to me but to themselves; I and the god only assist in bringing their
ideas to the birth. Many of them have left me too soon, and the result
has been that they have produced abortions; or when I have delivered
them of children they have lost them by an ill bringing up, and have
ended by seeing themselves, as others see them, to be great fools.
Aristides, the son of Lysimachus, is one of these, and there have been
others. The truants often return to me and beg to be taken back; and
then, if my familiar allows me, which is not always the case, I receive
them, and they begin t