long story, friend Theaetetus, because I suspect, as indeed you seem to
think yourself, that you are in labour--great with some conception. Come
then to me, who am a midwife's son and myself a midwife, and do your best
to answer the questions which I will ask you. And if I abstract and expose
your first-born, because I discover upon inspection that the conception
which you have formed is a vain shadow, do not quarrel with me on that
account, as the manner of women is when their first children are taken from
them. For I have actually known some who were ready to bite me when I
deprived them of a darling folly; they did not perceive that I acted from
goodwill, not knowing that no god is the enemy of man--that was not within
the range of their ideas; neither am I their enemy in all this, but it
would be wrong for me to admit falsehood, or to stifle the truth. Once
more, then, Theaetetus, I repeat my old question, 'What is knowledge?'--and
do not say that you cannot tell; but quit yourself like a man, and by the
help of God you will be able to tell.

THEAETETUS: At any rate, Socrates, after such an exhortation I should be
ashamed of not trying to do my best. Now he who knows perceives what he
knows, and, as far as I can see at present, knowledge is perception.

SOCRATES: Bravely said, boy; that is the way in which you should express
your opinion. And now, let us examine together this conception of yours,
and see whether it is a true birth or a mere wind-egg:--You say that
knowledge is perception?

THEAETETUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Well, you have delivered yourself of a very important doctrine
about knowledge; it is indeed the opinion of Protagoras, who has another
way of expressing it. Man, he says, is the measure of all things, of the