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The depreciating spirit in which Socrates speaks of the introduction of the poets as a substitute for original conversation, which is intended to contrast with Protagoras' exaltation of the study of them this again is hardly consistent with the serious defence of Simonides. the marked approval of Hippias, who is supposed at once to catch the familiar sound, just as in the previous conversation Prodicus is represented as ready to accept any distinctions of language however absurd.
Prodicus heard and approved; but Protagoras said: Your correction, Socrates, involves a greater error than is contained in the sentence which you are correcting. Alas! I said, Protagoras; then I am a sorry physician, and do but aggravate a disorder which I am seeking to cure. Such is the fact, he said. How so? I asked.
Quite right, said Prodicus. And then he blames Pittacus, not, as Protagoras imagines, for repeating that which he says himself, but for saying something different from himself.
And I could mention numberless other instances of persons who were good themselves, and never yet made any one else good, whether friend or stranger. Now I, Protagoras, having these examples before me, am inclined to think that virtue cannot be taught.
"Well, my fabric of thought is shattered against this certainty as everything else is shattered." "Farewell, then, Aspasia, Socrates, friends, fatherland! "Farewell!" Protagoras departed with his mantle drawn over his head. "Will Athens miss Protagoras?" asked Aspasia. "He has taught the Athenians to think and to doubt; and doubt is the beginning of wisdom."
For if truth is only sensation, and one man's discernment is as good as another's, and every man is his own judge, and everything that he judges is right and true, then what need of Protagoras to be our instructor at a high figure; and why should we be less knowing than he is, or have to go to him, if every man is the measure of all things?" . . . Socrates now resumes the argument.
But who is to be the umpire? rejoins Socrates; he would rather suggest as a compromise that Protagoras shall ask and he will answer, and that when Protagoras is tired of asking he himself will ask and Protagoras shall answer. To this the latter yields a reluctant assent. Protagoras selects as his thesis a poem of Simonides of Ceos, in which he professes to find a contradiction.
Is not the lesson to be gathered from the whole procession of systems best summed up in the dictum of Protagoras: "Man is the measure of all things" each has his own truth, and this need not be truth to another? This, I say, is a first impression and a natural one. I hasten to add: this should not be the last impression of those who read with thoughtful attention.
The more I read about him, the less I wonder that they poisoned him. If he had treated me as he is said to have treated Protagoras, Hippias, and Gorgias, I could never have forgiven him. Nothing has struck me so much in Plato's dialogues as the raillery. At college, somehow or other, I did not understand or appreciate it. I cannot describe to you the way in which it now tickles me.
Protagoras of Abdera, whom you just now mentioned, the greatest sophist of his age, was banished by order of the Athenians from their city and territories, and his books were publicly burned, because these words were in the beginning of his treatise concerning the Gods: "I am unable to arrive at any knowledge whether there are, or are not, any Gods."
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