Page:The works of Plato, A new and literal version, (vol 1) (Cary, 1854).djvu/376

364 rus to advocate the cause of Protagoras, and himself undertakes to refute it. Protagoras, then, maintains that what appears to each person exists to him to whom it appears; now all men think themselves in some respects wiser than others, and others wiser than themselves, so that all admit that there is wisdom and ignorance among themselves. Now is not wisdom true opinion, and ignorance false opinion? If so, some men form false opinions, and yet that could not be if man is the measure of all things. Again, according to his doctrine, the same thing will be both true and false; for instance, Protagoras's own theory will be true to himself, but false to all who do not agree with him, and by how many more they are to whom it does not appear to be true than those to whom it does so appear, by so much the more it is not than it is: and so in admitting that the opinion of those who differ from him is true he admits that his own opinion is false. Moreover, in political matters Protagoras will admit that things honourable and base, just and unjust, are such to each city as each city considers them; but he will allow that one counsellor excels another, and that all laws are not equally expedient, though the city that enacts them thinks them so.

The mention of political matters leads Socrates to interrupt the course of the argument, and to contrast the life of a politician with that of a philosopher, in which he shews how far more exalted are the views of the latter than of the former. The digression, however, has this connexion with the subject in hand, that it exposes the utter worthlessness of political expediency, which depends on appearances only, and vindicates the aspirations of philosophers, who devote themselves to the contemplation of wisdom and true virtue.

To return, then, to the original subject. Those who maintain that whatever appears to each person exists to him to whom it appears, persist that what a city enacts as appearing just to itself is just to that city as long as it continues in force;