Socrates now resumes the argument. As he is very desirous of doing justice
to Protagoras, he insists on citing his own words,--'What appears to each
man is to him.' And how, asks Socrates, are these words reconcileable with
the fact that all mankind are agreed in thinking themselves wiser than
others in some respects, and inferior to them in others? In the hour of
danger they are ready to fall down and worship any one who is their
superior in wisdom as if he were a god. And the world is full of men who
are asking to be taught and willing to be ruled, and of other men who are
willing to rule and teach them. All which implies that men do judge of one
another's impressions, and think some wise and others foolish. How will
Protagoras answer this argument? For he cannot say that no one deems
another ignorant or mistaken. If you form a judgment, thousands and tens
of thousands are ready to maintain the opposite. The multitude may not and
do not agree in Protagoras' own thesis that 'Man is the measure of all
things;' and then who is to decide? Upon his own showing must not his
'truth' depend on the number of suffrages, and be more or less true in
proportion as he has more or fewer of them? And he must acknowledge
further, that they speak truly who deny him to speak truly, which is a
famous jest. And if he admits that they speak truly who deny him to speak
truly, he must admit that he himself does not speak truly. But his
opponents will refuse to admit this of themselves, and he must allow that
they are right in their refusal. The conclusion is, that all mankind,
including Protagoras himself, will deny that he speaks truly; and his truth
will be true neither to himself nor to anybody else.

Theodorus is inclined to think that this is going too far. Socrates
ironically replies, that he is not going beyond the truth. But if the old
Protagoras could only pop his head out of the world below, he would
doubtless give them both a sound castigation and be off to the shades in an