168
SOC. Thank you, my friend. Tell me, did you observe just now that Protagoras reproached us for addressing our words to a boy, and said that we made the boy’s timidity aid us in our argument against his doctrine, and that he called our procedure a mere display of wit, solemnly insisting upon the importance of the measure of all things, and urging us to treat his doctrine seriously?
168
THEO. Of course I observed it, Socrates.
168
SOC. Well then, shall we do as he says?
168
THEO. By all means.
168
SOC. Now you see that all those present, except you and myself are boys. So if we are to do as the man asks, you and I must question each other and make reply in order to show our serious attitude towards his doctrine; then he cannot, at any rate, find fault with us on the ground that we examined his doctrine in a spirit of levity with mere boys.
168
THEO. Why is this? Would not Theaetetus follow an investigation better than many a man with a long beard?
169
SOC. Yes, but not better than you, Theodorus. So you must not imagine that I have to defend your deceased friend by any and every means, while you do nothing at all; but come, my good man, follow the discussion a little way, just until we can see whether, after all, you must be a measure in respect to diagrams, or whether all men are as sufficient unto themselves as you are in astronomy and the other sciences in which you are alleged to be superior.