protagoras   

imagine that no human care could make men good; but I know better now.

Yet I have still one very small difficulty which I am sure that

Protagoras will easily explain, as he has already explained so much.

If a man were to go and consult Pericles or any of our great

speakers about these matters, he might perhaps hear as fine a

discourse; but then when one has a question to ask of any of them,

like books, they can neither answer nor ask; and if any one challenges

the least particular of their speech, they go ringing on in a long

harangue, like brazen pots, which when they are struck continue to

sound unless some one puts his hand upon them; whereas our friend

Protagoras can not only make a good speech, as he has already shown,

but when he is asked a question he can answer briefly; and when he

asks he will wait and hear the answer; and this is a very rare gift.

Now I, Protagoras, want to ask of you a little question, which if

you will only answer, I shall be quite satisfied. You were saying that

virtue can be taught;-that I will take upon your authority, and

there is no one to whom I am more ready to trust. But I marvel at

one thing about which I should like to have my mind set at rest. You

were speaking of Zeus sending justice and reverence to men; and

several times while you were speaking, justice, and temperance, and

holiness, and all these qualities, were described by you as if

together they made up virtue. Now I want you to tell me truly

whether virtue is one whole, of which justice and temperance and

holiness are parts; or whether all these are only the names of one and

the same thing: that is the doubt which still lingers in my mind.

There is no difficulty, Socrates, in answering that the qualities of

which you are speaking are the parts of virtue which is one.

And are they parts, I said, in the same sense in which mouth,

nose, and eyes, and ears, are the parts of a face; or are they like

the parts of gold, which differ from the whole and from one another

only in being larger or smaller?

I should say that they differed, Socrates, in the first way; they