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[386a] that man is the measure of all things—that things are to me such as they seem to me, and to you such as they seem to you—or do you think things have some fixed reality of their own?

Hermogenes
It has sometimes happened to me, Socrates, to be so perplexed that I have been carried away even into this doctrine of Protagoras; but I do not at all believe he is right.

Socrates
Well, have you ever been carried away so far [386b] as not to believe at all that any man is bad?

Hermogenes
Lord, no; but I have often been carried away into the belief that certain men, and a good many of them, are very bad.

Socrates
Well, did you never think any were very good?

Hermogenes
Very few.

Socrates
But you did think them so?

Hermogenes
Yes.

Socrates
And what is your idea about that? Are the very good very wise and the very bad very foolish? [386c]

Hermogenes
Yes, that is my opinion.

Socrates
Now if Protagoras is right and the truth is as he says, that all things are to each person as they seem to him, is it possible for some of us to be wise and some foolish?

Hermogenes
No, it is not.

Socrates
And you are, I imagine, strongly of the opinion that if wisdom and folly exist, it is quite impossible that Protagoras is right, for one man would not in reality be at all wiser than another [386d] if whatever seems to each person is really true to him.

Hermogenes
Quite right.

Socrates
But neither do you believe with Euthydemus that all things belong equally to all men at the same time and perpetually,1 for on this assumption also some could not be good and others bad, if virtue and its opposite were always equally possessed by all.

Hermogenes
True.

Socrates
Then if neither all things belong equally to all men at the same time and perpetually nor each thing to each man individually, it is clear that things have some fixed reality of their own, [386e] not in relation to us nor caused by us; they do not vary, swaying one way and another in accordance with our fancy, but exist of themselves in relation to their own reality imposed by nature.

Hermogenes
I think, Socrates, that is the case.

Socrates
Can things themselves, then, possess such a nature as this, and that of their actions be different? Or are not actions also a class of realities?

Hermogenes
Certainly they are.


1 The doctrine here attributed to Euthydemus is not expressly enunciated by him in the dialogue which bears his name, but it is little more than a comprehensive statement of the several doctrines there proclaimed by him and his brother Dionysodorus.

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