Phaethon | Page 5

Whence did the discussion arise?"
"From something," said Alcibiades, "which Protagoras said in his
lecture yesterday-How truth was what each man troweth, or believeth,
to be true. 'So that,' he said, 'one thing is true to me, if I believe it true,
and another opposite thing to you, if you believe that opposite. For,'
continued he, 'there is an objective and a subjective truth; the former,
doubtless, one and absolute, and contained in the nature of each thing;
but the other manifold and relative, varying with the faculties of each
perceiver thereof.' But as each man's faculties, he said, were different
from his neighbour's, and all more or less imperfect, it was impossible
that the absolute objective truth of anything could be seen by any
mortal, but only some partial approximation, and, as it were, sketch of
it, according as the object was represented with more or less refraction
on the mirror of his subjectivity. And therefore, as the true inquirer
deals only with the possible, and lets the impossible go, it was the
business of the wise man, shunning the search after absolute truth as an
impious attempt of the Titans to scale Olympus, to busy himself
humbly and practically with subjective truth, and with those
methods-rhetoric, for instance-by which he can make the subjective
opinions of others either similar to his own, or, leaving them as they
are-for it may be very often unnecessary to change them-useful to his
own ends."
Then Socrates, laughing:
"My fine fellow, you will have made more than one oration in the Pnyx

to-day. And indeed, I myself felt quite exalted, and rapt aloft, like
Bellerophon on Pegasus, upon the eloquence of Protagoras and you.
But yet forgive me this one thing; for my mother bare me, as you know,
a man-midwife, after her own trade, and not a sage."
ALCIBIADES. "What then?"
SOCRATES. "This, my astonishing friend-for really I am altogether
astonished and struck dumb, as I always am whensoever I hear a
brilliant talker like you discourse concerning objectivities and
subjectivities, and such mysterious words; at such moments I am like
an old war-horse, who, though he will rush on levelled lances, shudders
and sweats with terror at a boy rattling pebbles in a bladder; and I feel
altogether dizzy, and dread lest I should suffer some such
transformation as Scylla, when I hear awful words, like incantations,
pronounced over me, of which I, being no sage, understand nothing.
But tell me now, Alcibiades, did the opinion of Protagoras altogether
please you?"
A. "Why not? Is it not certain that two equally honest men may differ
in their opinions on the same matter?"
S. "Undeniable."
A. "But if each is equally sincere in speaking what he believes, is not
each equally moved by the spirit of truth?"
S. "You seem to have been lately initiated, and that not at Eleusis
merely, nor in the Cabiria, but rather in some Persian or Babylonian
mysteries, when you discourse thus of spirits. But you, Phaethon"
(turning to me), "how did you like the periods of Protagoras?"
"Do not ask me, Socrates," said I, "for indeed we have fought a weary
battle together ever since sundown last night, and all that I had to say I
learnt from you."
S. "From me, good fellow?"

PHAETHON. "Yes, indeed. I seemed to have heard from you that truth
is simply 'facts as they are.' But when I urged this on Alcibiades, his
arguments seemed superior to mine."
A. "But I have been telling him, drunk and sober, that it is my opinion
also as to what truth is. Only I, with Protagoras, distinguish between
objective fact and subjective opinion."
S. "Doing rightly, too, fair youth. But how comes it then that you and
Phaethon cannot agree?"
"That," said I, "you know better than either of us."
"You seem both of you," said Socrates, "to be, as usual, in the family
way. Shall I exercise my profession on you?"
"No, by Zeus!" answered Alcibiades, laughing; "I fear thee, thou
juggler, lest I suffer once again the same fate with the woman in the
myth, and after I have conceived a fair man-child, and, as I fancy,
brought it forth; thou hold up to the people some dead puppy, or log, or
what not, and cry: 'Look what Alcibiades has produced!'"
S. "But, beautiful youth, before I can do that, you will have spoken
your oration on the bema, and all the people will be ready and able to
say 'Absurd! Nothing but what is fair can come from so fair a body.'
Come, let us consider the question together."
I assented willingly; and Alcibiades, mincing and pouting, after his
fashion, still was loath to refuse.
S. "Let us see, then. Alcibiades distinguishes, he says, between
objective fact and subjective opinion?"