Protagoras | Page 5

the poets, who ought not to be
allowed, any more than flute-girls, to come into good society. Men's
own thoughts should supply them with the materials for discussion. A
few soothing flatteries are addressed to Protagoras by Callias and
Socrates, and then the old question is repeated, 'Whether the virtues are
one or many?' To which Protagoras is now disposed to reply, that four
out of the five virtues are in some degree similar; but he still contends
that the fifth, courage, is unlike the rest. Socrates proceeds to
undermine the last stronghold of the adversary, first obtaining from him
the admission that all virtue is in the highest degree good:--
The courageous are the confident; and the confident are those who
know their business or profession: those who have no such knowledge
and are still confident are madmen. This is admitted. Then, says
Socrates, courage is knowledge--an inference which Protagoras evades
by drawing a futile distinction between the courageous and the
confident in a fluent speech.
Socrates renews the attack from another side: he would like to know
whether pleasure is not the only good, and pain the only evil?
Protagoras seems to doubt the morality or propriety of assenting to this;
he would rather say that 'some pleasures are good, some pains are evil,'
which is also the opinion of the generality of mankind. What does he
think of knowledge? Does he agree with the common opinion that
knowledge is overcome by passion? or does he hold that knowledge is
power? Protagoras agrees that knowledge is certainly a governing
power.
This, however, is not the doctrine of men in general, who maintain that
many who know what is best, act contrary to their knowledge under the
influence of pleasure. But this opposition of good and evil is really the

opposition of a greater or lesser amount of pleasure. Pleasures are evils
because they end in pain, and pains are goods because they end in
pleasures. Thus pleasure is seen to be the only good; and the only evil
is the preference of the lesser pleasure to the greater. But then comes in
the illusion of distance. Some art of mensuration is required in order to
show us pleasures and pains in their true proportion. This art of
mensuration is a kind of knowledge, and knowledge is thus proved
once more to be the governing principle of human life, and ignorance
the origin of all evil: for no one prefers the less pleasure to the greater,
or the greater pain to the less, except from ignorance. The argument is
drawn out in an imaginary 'dialogue within a dialogue,' conducted by
Socrates and Protagoras on the one part, and the rest of the world on the
other. Hippias and Prodicus, as well as Protagoras, admit the soundness
of the conclusion.
Socrates then applies this new conclusion to the case of courage--the
only virtue which still holds out against the assaults of the Socratic
dialectic. No one chooses the evil or refuses the good except through
ignorance. This explains why cowards refuse to go to war:--because
they form a wrong estimate of good, and honour, and pleasure. And
why are the courageous willing to go to war?--because they form a
right estimate of pleasures and pains, of things terrible and not terrible.
Courage then is knowledge, and cowardice is ignorance. And the five
virtues, which were originally maintained to have five different natures,
after having been easily reduced to two only, at last coalesce in one.
The assent of Protagoras to this last position is extracted with great
difficulty.
Socrates concludes by professing his disinterested love of the truth, and
remarks on the singular manner in which he and his adversary had
changed sides. Protagoras began by asserting, and Socrates by denying,
the teachableness of virtue, and now the latter ends by affirming that
virtue is knowledge, which is the most teachable of all things, while
Protagoras has been striving to show that virtue is not knowledge, and
this is almost equivalent to saying that virtue cannot be taught. He is
not satisfied with the result, and would like to renew the enquiry with
the help of Protagoras in a different order, asking (1) What virtue is,
and (2) Whether virtue can be taught. Protagoras declines this offer, but
commends Socrates' earnestness and his style of discussion.

The Protagoras is often supposed to be full of difficulties. These are
partly imaginary and partly real. The imaginary ones are (1)
Chronological,--which were pointed out in ancient times by Athenaeus,
and are noticed by Schleiermacher and others, and relate to the
impossibility of all the persons in the Dialogue meeting at any one time,
whether in the year 425 B.C., or in any other. But Plato, like all writers
of fiction, aims only at the