Soc. But is a proposition true as a whole only, and are the parts
untrue?
Her. No; the parts are true as well as the whole.
Soc. Would you say the large parts and not the smaller ones, or every
part?
Her. I should say that every part is true.
Soc. Is a proposition resolvable into any part smaller than a name?
Her. No; that is the smallest.
Soc. Then the name is a part of the true proposition?
Her. Yes.
Soc. Yes, and a true part, as you say.
Her. Yes.
Soc. And is not the part of a falsehood also a falsehood?
Her. Yes.
Soc. Then, if propositions may be true and false, names may be true
and false?
Her. So we must infer.
Soc. And the name of anything is that which any one affirms to be the
name?
Her. Yes.
Soc. And will there be so many names of each thing as everybody says
that there are? and will they be true names at the time of uttering
them?
Her. Yes, Socrates, I can conceive no correctness of names other than
this; you give one name, and I another; and in different cities and
countries there are different names for the same things; Hellenes
differ from barbarians in their use of names, and the several Hellenic
tribes from one another.
Soc. But would you say, Hermogenes, that the things differ as the
names differ? and are they relative to individuals, as Protagoras
tells us? For he says that man is the measure of all things, and that
things are to me as they appear to me, and that they are to you as
they appear to you. Do you agree with him, or would you say that
things have a permanent essence of their own?
Her. There have been times, Socrates, when I have been driven in my
perplexity to take refuge with Protagoras; not that I agree with him
at all.
Soc. What! have you ever been driven to admit that there was no such
thing as a bad man?
Her. No, indeed; but I have often had reason to think that there are
very bad men, and a good many of them.
Soc. Well, and have you ever found any very good ones?
Her. Not many.
Soc. Still you have found them?
Her. Yes.
Soc. And would you hold that the very good were the very wise, and the
very evil very foolish? Would that be your view?
Her. It would.
Soc. But if Protagoras is right, and the truth is that things are as
they appear to any one, how can some of us be wise and some of us
foolish?
Her. Impossible.
Soc. And if, on the other hand, wisdom and folly are really
distinguishable, you will allow, I think, that the assertion of
Protagoras can hardly be correct. For if what appears to each man is
true to him, one man cannot in reality be wiser than another.
Her. He cannot.
Soc. Nor will you be disposed to say with Euthydemus, that all things
equally belong to all men at the same moment and always; for neither
on his view can there be some good and other bad, if virtue and vice
are always equally to be attributed to all.
Her. There cannot.
Soc. But if neither is right, and things are not relative to
individuals, and all things do not equally belong to all at the same