also as to what truth is. Only I, with Protagoras,
distinguish between objective fact and subjective opinion."

S. "Doing rightly, too, fair youth. But how comes it then that you
and Phaethon cannot agree?"

"That," said I, "you know better than either of us."

"You seem both of you," said Socrates, "to be, as usual, in the
family way. Shall I exercise my profession on you?"

"No, by Zeus!" answered Alcibiades, laughing; "I fear thee, thou
juggler, lest I suffer once again the same fate with the woman in
the myth, and after I have conceived a fair man-child, and, as I
fancy, brought it forth; thou hold up to the people some dead puppy,
or log, or what not, and cry: 'Look what Alcibiades has produced!'"

S. "But, beautiful youth, before I can do that, you will have
spoken your oration on the bema, and all the people will be ready
and able to say 'Absurd! Nothing but what is fair can come from so
fair a body.' Come, let us consider the question together."

I assented willingly; and Alcibiades, mincing and pouting, after his
fashion, still was loath to refuse.

S. "Let us see, then. Alcibiades distinguishes, he says, between
objective fact and subjective opinion?"

A. "Of course I do."

S. "But not, I presume, between objective truth and subjective
truth, whereof Protagoras spoke?"

A. "What trap are you laying now? I distinguish between them also,
of course."

S. "Tell me, then, dear youth, of your indulgence, what they are;
for I am shamefully ignorant on the matter."

A. "Why, do they not call a thing objectively true, when it is true
absolutely in itself; but subjectively true, when it is true in the
belief of a particular person?"

S. "-Though not necessarily true objectively, that is, absolutely
and in itself?"

A. "No."

S. "But possibly true so?"

A. "Of course."

S. "Now, tell me-a thing is objectively true, is it not, when it is
a fact as it is?"

A. "Yes."

S. "And when it is a fact as it is not, it is objectively false;
for such a fact would not be true absolutely, and in itself, would
it?"

A. "Of course not."

S. "Such a fact would be, therefore, no fact, and nothing."

A. "Why so?"

S. "Because, if a thing exists, it can only exist as it is, not as
it is not; at least my opinion inclines that way."

"Certainly not," said I; "why do you haggle so, Alcibiades?"

S. "Fair and softly, Phaethon! How do you know that he is not
fighting for wife and c