follows of the thesis of Protagoras, we are criticizing the Protagoras of
Plato, and not attempting to draw a precise line between his real
sentiments and those which Plato has attributed to him.

2. The other difficulty is a more subtle, and also a more important one,
because bearing on the general character of the Platonic dialogues. On a
first reading of them, we are apt to imagine that the truth is only spoken
by Socrates, who is never guilty of a fallacy himself, and is the great
detector of the errors and fallacies of others. But this natural
presumption is disturbed by the discovery that the Sophists are sometimes
in the right and Socrates in the wrong. Like the hero of a novel, he is
not to be supposed always to represent the sentiments of the author. There
are few modern readers who do not side with Protagoras, rather than with
Socrates, in the dialogue which is called by his name. The Cratylus
presents a similar difficulty: in his etymologies, as in the number of the
State, we cannot tell how far Socrates is serious; for the Socratic irony
will not allow him to distinguish between his real and his assumed wisdom.
No one is the superior of the invincible Socrates in argument (except in
the first part of the Parmenides, where he is introduced as a youth); but
he is by no means supposed to be in possession of the whole truth.
Arguments are often put into his mouth (compare Introduction to the
Gorgias) which must have seemed quite as untenable to Plato as to a modern
writer. In this dialogue a great part of the answer of Protagoras is just
and sound; remarks are made by him on verbal criticism, and on the
importance of understanding an opponent's meaning, which are conceived in
the true spirit of philosophy. And the distinction which he is supposed to
draw between Eristic and Dialectic, is really a criticism of Plato on
himself and his own criticism of Protagoras.

The difficulty seems to arise from not attending to the dramatic character