Part 143

Socr. The free use of names and words and without excessive precision, is for the most part not unbecoming a person of education, but rather the contrary to this is illiberal, though sometimes it is necessary; as in the present case it is necessary to find fault with your answer, so far as it is not correct. For consider, which answer is more correct, that it is the eyes with which we see or by which we see, and the ears with which we hear, or by which we hear?

Theæ. By which we receive each perception, it seems to me, Socrates, rather than with which.

Socr. For surely it would be strange, my boy, if many senses were seated in us, as in wooden horses, and they did not all tend to one certain form, whether it is soul, or whatever it is proper to call it, with which, by means of these as instruments, we perceive all objects of perception.

Theæ. The case appears to me to be rather in this way than in that.

103. Socr. But why do I require so much accuracy from you on this point? For this reason, that we may discover whether by some one and the same part in us we, by means of the eyes, attain to things white and black, and again other things by means of the other senses, and whether, when questioned, you will be able to refer all such things to the bodily organs. But perhaps it will be better that you should say this by answering my questions, than that I should take all this trouble for you. Tell me, then; the things by which you perceive things hot and dry, and light and sweet, do you refer each of them to the body, or to any thing else?

Theæ. To nothing else.

Socr. Are you also willing to allow, that such things as you perceive by means of one faculty it is impossible for you to perceive by means of another, for instance, that what you perceive by means of hearing you cannot perceive by means of sight, and what you perceive by means of sight, you cannot perceive by means of hearing?

Theæ. How should I not be willing to allow it?

Socr. If, then, you form a notion of them both together, you cannot receive this perception of both together by means of one organ or the other.

Theæ. Surely not.

104. Socr. Now with respect to sound and colour, is not this the very first notion that you have of them both, that they both exist.

Theæ. It is.

Socr. Is it not also, that each is different from the other, and the same with itself?

Theæ. How not?

Socr. And that both are two, but each one?

Theæ. And this also.

Socr. Are you not also able to consider whether they are like or unlike each other?

Theæ. Probably.

Socr. By means of what, then, do you acquire all these notions about them? For it is not possible by means either of hearing or sight to apprehend that which is common between them. Moreover, this too is a proof of what we say. For, if it were possible to examine respecting them both, whether they are salt or not, you know you would be able to say with what you would make this examination, and this proves to be neither sight nor hearing, but something else.

Theæ. How not, and that the faculty of taste by means of the tongue?

Socr. You say well. But in what does the faculty consist which shews you that which is common to all things, and to these two, to which you give the name of existence and non-existence, and those other names about which we were just now asking? what organs will you attribute to all these, by means of which our perceptive faculty perceives these several things?

105. Theæ. You speak of existence and non-existence, similitude and dissimilitude, identity and difference, and moreover of unity and other numbers: and it is evident that you ask about the even and odd and whatever else depends on them, by which of the organs of the body we perceive these things in our soul.

Socr. You follow me exceedingly well, and these, Theætetus, are the very things about which I ask.

Theæ. But by Jupiter, Socrates, I know not what to say, except that it seems to me that there is no organ at all peculiar to these things as there is to the others, but the soul of itself appears to me to examine that which is common in all things.

Socr. You are beautiful, Theætetus, and not ugly, as Theodorus said; for he who speaks beautifully is beautiful and good. But, besides being beautiful, you have done well in having released me from a very long discussion, if it appears to you that the soul beholds some things by itself, and others by the faculties of the body. For this was the very thing that seemed to me, and I wished it might likewise seem so to you.

Theæ. And indeed it does appear so to me.

106. Socr. To which of the two classes, then, do you refer existence? For this especially attaches to all things.

Theæ. I refer it to those things which the soul of itself reaches after.