Theaet. Yes.

  Soc. Then they must be distinguished?

  Theaet. I suppose that they must.

  Soc. Once more we shall have to begin, and ask "What is
knowledge?" and yet, Theaetetus, what are we going to do?

  Theaet. About what?

  Soc. Like a good-for-nothing cock, without having won the victory,
we walk away from the argument and crow.

  Theaet. How do you mean?

  Soc. After the manner of disputers, we were satisfied with mere
verbal consistency, and were well pleased if in this way we could gain
an advantage. Although professing not to be mere Eristics, but
philosophers, I suspect that we have unconsciously fallen into the
error of that ingenious class of persons.

  Theaet. I do not as yet understand you.

  Soc. Then I will try to explain myself: just now we asked the
question, whether a man who had learned and remembered could fail to
know, and we showed that a person who had seen might remember when
he had his eyes shut and could not see, and then he would at the
same time remember and not know. But this was an impossibility. And so
the Protagorean fable came to nought, and yours also, who maintained
that knowledge is the same as perception.

  Theaet. True.

  Soc. And yet, my friend, I rather suspect that the result would have
been different if Protagoras, who was the father of the first of the
two-brats, had been alive; he would have had a great deal to say on
their behalf. But he is dead, and we insult over his orphan child; and
even the guardians whom he left, and of whom our friend Theodorus is
one, are unwilling to give any help, and therefore I suppose that must
take up his cause myself, and see justice done?

  Theod. Not I, Socrates, but rather Callias, the son of Hipponicus,
is guardian of his orphans. I was too soon diverted from the
abstractions of dialectic to geometry. Nevertheless, I shall be
grateful to you if you assist him.

  Soc. Very good, Theodorus; you shall see how I will come to the
rescue. If a person does not attend to the meaning of terms as they