o hear (Borrowed by Milton, "Paradise
Lost".).'

At length, when the truth dawned upon me, that he had really finished,
not without difficulty I began to collect myself, and looking at
Hippocrates, I said to him: O son of Apollodorus, how deeply grateful
I am to you for having brought me hither; I would not have missed the
speech of Protagoras for a great deal. For I used to imagine that no
human care could make men good; but I know better now. Yet I have still
one very small difficulty which I am sure that Protagoras will easily
explain, as he has already explained so much. If a man were to go and
consult Pericles or any of our great speakers about these matters, he
might perhaps hear as fine a discourse; but then when one has a question
to ask of any of them, like books, they can neither answer nor ask;
and if any one challenges the least particular of their speech, they
go ringing on in a long harangue, like brazen pots, which when they
are struck continue to sound unless some one puts his hand upon them;
whereas our friend Protagoras can not only make a good speech, as he has
already shown, but when he is asked a question he can answer briefly;
and when he asks he will wait and hear the answer; and this is a very
rare gift. Now I, Protagoras, want to ask of you a little question,
which if you will only answer, I shall be quite satisfied. You were
saying that virtue can be taught;--that I will take upon your authority,
and there is no one to whom I am more ready to trust. But I marvel at
one thing about which I should like to have my mind set at rest. You
were speaking of Zeus sending justice and reverence to men; and several
times while you were speaking, justice, and temperance, and holiness,
and all these qualities, were described by you as if together they made
up virtue. Now I want you to tell me truly whether virtue is one whole,
of which justice and temperance and holiness are parts; or whether all
these are only the names of one and the same thing: that is the doubt
which still lingers in my mind.

There is no difficulty, Socrates, in answering that the qualities of
which you are speaking are the parts of virtue which is one.

And are they parts, I said, in the same sense in which mouth, nose, and
eyes, and ears, are the parts of a face; or are they like the parts of
gold, which differ from the whole and from one another only in being
larger or smaller?

I should say that they differed, Socrates, in the f