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,