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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 child, and the altars of his gods? But if he will agree with you and me, he will confess that a thing which is objectively false does not exist at all, and is nothing.”

A. “I suppose it is necessary to do so. But I know whither you are struggling.”

S. “To this, dear youth, that, therefore, if a thing subjectively true be also objectively false, it does not exist, and is nothing.”

“It is so,” said I.

S. “Let us, then, let nothing go its own way, while we go on ours with that which is only objectively true, lest coming to a river over which it is subjectively true to us that there is a bridge, and trying to walk over that work of our own mind, but no one’s hands, the bridge prove to be objectively false, and we, walking over the bank into the water, be set free from that which is subjectively on the farther bank of Styx.”

Then I, laughing: “This hardly coincides, Alcibiades, with Protagoras’s opinion, that subjective truth was alone useful.”

“But rather proves,” said Socrates, “that undiluted draughts of it are of a hurtful and poisonous nature, and require to be tempered with somewhat of objective truth, before it is safe to use them-at least in the case of bridges.”

“Did I not tell you,” interrupted Alcibiades, “how the old deceiver would try to put me to bed of some dead puppy or log? Or do you not see how, in order, after his custom, to raise a laugh about the whole question by vulgar examples, he is blinking what he knows as well as I?”

S. “What then, fair youth?”

A. “That Protagoras was not speaking about bridges, or any other merely physical things, on which no difference of opinion need occur, because every one can satisfy himself by simply using his senses; but concerning moral and intellectual matters, which are not cognisable by the senses, and therefore permit, without blame, a greater diversity of opinion. Error on such points, he told us-on the subject of religion, for example-was both pardonable and harmless; for no blame could be imputed to the man who acted faithfully up to his own belief, whatsoever that might be.”

S. “Bravely spoken of him, and worthily of a free state. But tell me, Alcibiades, with what matters does religion deal?”

A. “With the Gods.”

S. “Then it is not hurtful to speak false things of the Gods?”

A. “Not unless you know them to be false.”

S. “But answer me this, Alcibiades. If you made a mistake concerning numbers, as that twice two made five, might it not be hurtful to you?”

A. “Certainly; for I might pay away five obols instead of four.”

S. “And so be punished, not by any anger of two and two against you, but by those very necessary laws of number, which you had mistaken?”

A. “Yes.”

S. “Or if you made a mistake concerning music, as that two consecutive notes could produce harmony, that opinion also, if you acted upon it, would be hurtful to you?”

A. “Certainly; for I should make a discord, and pain my own ears, and my hearers’.”

S. “And in this case also, be punished, not by any anger of the lyre against you, but by those very necessary laws of music which you had mistaken?”

A. “Yes.”

S. “Or if you mistook concerning a brave man, believing him to be a coward, might not this also be hurtful to you? If, for instance, you attacked him carelessly, expecting him to run away, and he defended himself valiantly, and conquered you; or if you neglected to call for his help in need, expecting him falsely, as in the former case, to run away; would not such a mistake be hurtful to you, and punish you, not by any anger of the man against you, but by your mistake itself?”