Part 131

Theæ. To me indeed, when I hear you thus explaining the matter, it is wonderful how far you appear to have reason on your side, and I think that your statements must be admitted.

39. Socr. Let us not, then, omit what remains of it. But it remains that we should speak of dreams, diseases, and, besides other things, of madness; and whatever else is called error of hearing or seeing, or of any other perception. For you know, without doubt, that in all these cases the doctrine which we have just now described, is considered to be completely confuted, since the sensations produced in these instances are utterly false, and so far are the things that appear to each person from existing, that quite contrariwise none of the things that appear have any real existence.

Theæ. You speak most truly, Socrates.

Socr. What argument, then, remains for him, who asserts that perception is science, and that things which appear to every one are to that person what they appear to be?

Theæ. I am afraid to say, Socrates, that I have no answer to give, because you just now blamed me for having said so: but in truth I cannot controvert the fact, that those who are mad or dreaming, form false opinions, since some of the former think they are gods, and the latter that they are winged and fancy that they are flying in their sleep.

40. Socr. Do you not know, then, the controversy that is raised on these points, especially about dreaming and being awake?

Theæ. What is that?

Socr. That which I think you have often heard, when people ask, what proof one could give, if any one should ask us now at the present moment, whether we are asleep, and all our thoughts are dreams, or whether we are awake, and really conversing with each other.

Theæ. And indeed, Socrates, it is difficult to say what proof one ought to give: for in both states all things in a manner correspond with each other. For, with respect to our present conversation, nothing hinders our fancying that we converse with each other in a dream: and when in sleep we fancy we are telling our dreams, the similarity of one with the other is surprising.

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Footnote 152:

Of conversations when awake, and of fancied conversations in dreams.

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Socr. You see, then, that it is not difficult to raise a controversy, since it is even controverted whether a state is that of being awake or dreaming; moreover since the time during which we sleep is equal to that when we are awake, in each of these states our soul persists that the opinions that are present for the time are most certainly true, so that for an equal space of time we say that these are real, and for an equal space that those are, and we are equally positive for each of them.

Theæ. Most assuredly.

41. Socr. May not, then, the same argument be used with respect to diseases and madness, except with regard to time, that it is not equal.

Theæ. Right.

Socr. What then? Shall truth be defined by length and brevity of time?

Theæ. That, indeed, would be ridiculous in many ways.

Socr. Have you, then, any other clear mark by which you can shew which of these opinions is true?

Theæ. I think not.

Socr. Hear, therefore, from me, what will be said about these things by those who maintain that appearances are always real to the person to whom they appear. They will question you thus, I think: “Theætetus, can a thing which is totally different from another, have the same power as that other?” And we are not to suppose that the thing we ask about is partly the same, and partly different, but altogether different.

Theæ. It is impossible that it should possess any thing the same, either in power, or in any other respect, since it is entirely different.

42. Socr. Must we not, then, necessarily confess, that a thing of this kind is dissimilar?

Theæ. It seems so to me.

Socr. If, therefore, any thing happens to become similar or dissimilar to any thing, whether to itself or to another, so far as it becomes similar we shall say it is the same, but, so far as dissimilar, different.

Theæ. Necessarily so.

Socr. Have we not said before, that there are many, and indeed innumerable things, which are active, and likewise passive?