inly; he who so manifests his thought, is said to
explain himself.

SOCRATES: And every one who is not born deaf or dumb is able sooner or
later to manifest what he thinks of anything; and if so, all those who
have a right opinion about anything will also have right explanation;
nor will right opinion be anywhere found to exist apart from knowledge.

THEAETETUS: True.

SOCRATES: Let us not, therefore, hastily charge him who gave this
account of knowledge with uttering an unmeaning word; for perhaps he
only intended to say, that when a person was asked what was the nature
of anything, he should be able to answer his questioner by giving the
elements of the thing.

THEAETETUS: As for example, Socrates...?

SOCRATES: As, for example, when Hesiod says that a waggon is made up
of a hundred planks. Now, neither you nor I could describe all of
them individually; but if any one asked what is a waggon, we should be
content to answer, that a waggon consists of wheels, axle, body, rims,
yoke.

THEAETETUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And our opponent will probably laugh at us, just as he would
if we professed to be grammarians and to give a grammatical account of
the name of Theaetetus, and yet could only tell the syllables and not
the letters of your name--that would be true opinion, and not knowledge;
for knowledge, as has been already remarked, is not attained until,
combined with true opinion, there is an enumeration of the elements out
of which anything is composed.

THEAETETUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: In the same general way, we might also have true opinion about
a waggon; but he who can describe its essence by an enumeration of the
hundred planks, adds rational explanation to true opinion, and instead
of opinion has art and knowledge of the nature of a waggon, in that he
attains to the whole through the elements.

THEAETETUS: And do you not agree in that view, Socrates?

SOCRATES: If you do, my friend; but I want to know first, whether you
admit the resolution of all things into their elements to be a rational
explanation of them, and the consideration of them in syllables or
larger combinations of them to be irrational--is this your view?

THEAETETUS: Precisely.

SOCRATES: Well, and do you conceive that a man has knowledge of any
element who at one time affirms and at another time denies that element
of something, or thinks that the same thing is composed of different
elements at different times?

THEAETETUS: Assuredly