Part 2 (1/2)

S. ”But not, I presume, between objective truth and subjective truth, whereof Protagoras spoke?”

A. ”What trap are you laying now? I distinguish between them also, of course.”

S. ”Tell me, then, dear youth, of your indulgence, what they are; for I am shamefully ignorant on the matter.”

A. ”Why, do they not call a thing objectively true, when it is true absolutely in itself; but subjectively true, when it is true in the belief of a particular person?”

S. ”-Though not necessarily true objectively, that is, absolutely and in itself?”

A. ”No.”

S. ”But possibly true so?”

A. ”Of course.”

S. ”Now, tell me-a thing is objectively true, is it not, when it is a fact as it is?”

A. ”Yes.”

S. ”And when it is a fact as it is not, it is objectively false; for such a fact would not be true absolutely, and in itself, would it?”

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 G.o.ds? 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.”