dice; they are more than four and less than twelve; "more and also less,"
would you not say?' 'Yes.' 'But Protagoras will retort: "Can anything be
more or less without addition or subtraction?"'

'I should say "No" if I were not afraid of contradicting my former answer.'

'And if you say "Yes," the tongue will escape conviction but not the mind,
as Euripides would say?' 'True.' 'The thoroughbred Sophists, who know all
that can be known, would have a sparring match over this, but you and I,
who have no professional pride, want only to discover whether our ideas are
clear and consistent. And we cannot be wrong in saying, first, that
nothing can be greater or less while remaining equal; secondly, that there
can be no becoming greater or less without addition or subtraction;
thirdly, that what is and was not, cannot be without having become. But
then how is this reconcilable with the case of the dice, and with similar
examples?--that is the question.' 'I am often perplexed and amazed,
Socrates, by these difficulties.' 'That is because you are a philosopher,
for philosophy begins in wonder, and Iris is the child of Thaumas. Do you
know the original principle on which the doctrine of Protagoras is based?'
'No.' 'Then I will tell you; but we must not let the uninitiated hear, and
by the uninitiated I mean the obstinate people who believe in nothing which
they cannot hold in their hands. The brethren whose mysteries I am about
to unfold to you are far more ingenious. They maintain that all is motion;
and that motion has two forms, action and passion, out of which endless
phenomena are created, also in two forms--sense and the object of sense--
which come to the birth together. There are two kinds of motions, a slow
and a fast; the motions of the agent and the patient are slower, because
they move and create in and about themselves, but the things which are born
of them have a swifter motion, and pass rapidly from place to place. The
eye and the appropriate object come together, and give birth to whiteness