164
SOC. Well, I will try to make my thought clear. We asked, you recollect, whether a man who has learned something and remembers it does not know it. We showed first that the one who has seen and then shuts his eyes remembers, although he does not see, and then we showed that he does not know, although at the same time he remembers; but this, we said, was impossible. And so the Protagorean tale was brought to naught, and yours also about the identity of knowledge and perception.
164
THEAET. Evidently.
164
SOC. It would not be so, I fancy, my friend, if the father of the first of the two tales were alive; he would have had a good deal to say in its defence. But he is dead, and we are abusing the orphan. Why, even the guardians whom Protagoras left—one of whom is Theodorus here—are unwilling to come to the child’s assistance. So it seems that we shall have to do it ourselves, assisting him in the name of justice.
165
THEO. Do so, for it is not I, Socrates, but rather Callias the son of Hipponicus, who is the guardian of his children. As for me, I turned rather too soon from abstract speculations to geometry. However, I shall be grateful to you if you come to his assistance.
165
SOC. Good, Theodorus! Now see how I shall help him; for a man might find himself involved in still worse inconsistencies than those in which we found ourselves just now, if he did not pay attention to the terms which we generally use in assent and denial. Shall I explain this to you, or only to Theaetetus?
165
THEO. To both of us, but let the younger answer; for he will be less disgraced if he is discomfited.
165
SOC. Very well; now I am going to ask the most frightfully difficult question of all. It runs, I believe, something like this: Is it possible for a person, if he knows a thing, at the same time not to know that which he knows?
165
THEO. Now, then, what shall we answer, Theaetetus?
165
THEAET. It is impossible, I should think.
