preparation for a biting jest); for those who reap the fruit are most
likely to know on what soil the plants will grow. But respectable midwives
avoid this department of practice--they do not want to be called
procuresses. There are some other differences between the two sorts of
pregnancy. For women do not bring into the world at one time real children
and at another time idols which are with difficulty distinguished from
them. 'At first,' says Socrates in his character of the man-midwife, 'my
patients are barren and stolid, but after a while they "round apace," if
the gods are propitious to them; and this is due not to me but to
themselves; I and the god only assist in bringing their ideas to the birth.
Many of them have left me too soon, and the result has been that they have
produced abortions; or when I have delivered them of children they have
lost them by an ill bringing up, and have ended by seeing themselves, as
others see them, to be great fools. Aristides, the son of Lysimachus, is
one of these, and there have been others. The truants often return to me
and beg to be taken back; and then, if my familiar allows me, which is not
always the case, I receive them, and they begin to grow again. There come
to me also those who have nothing in them, and have no need of my art; and
I am their matchmaker (see above), and marry them to Prodicus or some other
inspired sage who is likely to suit them. I tell you this long story
because I suspect that you are in labour. Come then to me, who am a
midwife, and the son of a midwife, and I will deliver you. And do not bite
me, as the women do, if I abstract your first-born; for I am acting out of
good-will towards you; the God who is within me is the friend of man,
though he will not allow me to dissemble the truth. Once more then,
Theaetetus, I repeat my old question--"What is knowledge?" Take courage,
and by the help of God you will discover an answer.' 'My answer is, that
knowledge is perception.' 'That is the theory of Protagoras, who has
another way of expressing the same thing when he says, "Man is the measure
of all things." He was a very wise man, and we should try to understand