190
Socrates
SOC. Now call to mind whether you have ever said to yourself that the beautiful is most assuredly ugly, or the wrong right, or—and this is the sum of the whole matter—consider whether you have ever tried to persuade yourself that one thing is most assuredly another, or whether quite the contrary is the case, and you have never ventured, even in sleep, to say to yourself that the odd is, after all, certainly even, or anything of that sort.
5
Theaetetus
THEAET. You are right.
Socrates
SOC. Do you imagine that anyone else, sane or insane, ever ventured to say to himself seriously and try to persuade himself that the ox must necessarily be a horse, or two one?
Theaetetus
THEAET. No, by Zeus, I do not.
Socrates
SOC. Then if forming opinion is talking to oneself, no one who talks and forms opinion of two objects and apprehends them both with his soul, could say and have the opinion that one is the other. But you will also have to give up the expression one and other. This is what I mean, that nobody holds the opinion that the ugly is beautiful, or anything of that sort.
Theaetetus
THEAET. Well, Socrates, I do give it up; and I agree with you in what you say.
10
Socrates
SOC. You agree, therefore, that he who holds an opinion of both things cannot hold the opinion that one is the other.
Theaetetus
THEAET. So it seems.
Socrates
SOC. But surely he who holds an opinion of one only, and not of the other at all, will never hold the opinion that one is the other.
Theaetetus
THEAET. You are right; for he would be forced to apprehend also that of which he holds no opinion.
