But no one would maintain that the laws of the State were always good or
expedient, although this may be the intention of them. For the expedient
has to do with the future, about which we are liable to mistake. Now,
would Protagoras maintain that man is the measure not only of the present
and past, but of the future; and that there is no difference in the
judgments of men about the future? Would an untrained man, for example, be
as likely to know when he is going to have a fever, as the physician who
attended him? And if they differ in opinion, which of them is likely to be
right; or are they both right? Is not a vine-grower a better judge of a
vintage which is not yet gathered, or a cook of a dinner which is in
preparation, or Protagoras of the probable effect of a speech than an
ordinary person? The last example speaks 'ad hominen.' For Protagoras
would never have amassed a fortune if every man could judge of the future
for himself. He is, therefore, compelled to admit that he is a measure;
but I, who know nothing, am not equally convinced that I am. This is one
way of refuting him; and he is refuted also by the authority which he
attributes to the opinions of others, who deny his opinions. I am not
equally sure that we can disprove the truth of immediate states of feeling.
But this leads us to the doctrine of the universal flux, about which a
battle-royal is always going on in the cities of Ionia. 'Yes; the
Ephesians are downright mad about the flux; they cannot stop to argue with
you, but are in perpetual motion, obedient to their text-books. Their
restlessness is beyond expression, and if you ask any of them a question,
they will not answer, but dart at you some unintelligible saying, and
another and another, making no way either with themselves or with others;
for nothing is fixed in them or their ideas,--they are at war with fixed
principles.' I suppose, Theodorus, that you have never seen them in time
of peace, when they discourse at leisure to their disciples? 'Disciples!
they have none; they are a set of uneducated fanatics, and each of them
says of the other that they have no knowledge. We must trust to ourselves,