385–386
Socrates
Socrates. And whatever the number of names anyone says a thing has, it will really have that number at the time when he says it?
Hermogenes
Hermogenes. Yes, Socrates, for I cannot conceive of any other kind of correctness in names than this; I may call a thing by one name, which I gave, and you by another, which you gave. And in the same way, I see that states have their own different names for the same things, and Greeks differ from other Greeks and from barbarians in their use of names.
Socrates
Socrates. Now, Hermogenes, let us see. Do you think this is true of the real things, that their reality is a separate one for each person, as Protagoras said with his doctrine that man is the measure of all things—that things are to me such as they seem to me, and to you such as they seem to you—or do you think things have some fixed reality of their own?
Hermogenes
Hermogenes. It has sometimes happened to me, Socrates, to be so perplexed that I have been carried away even into this doctrine of Protagoras; but I do not at all believe he is right.
Socrates
Socrates. Well, have you ever been carried away so far as not to believe at all that any man is bad?
Hermogenes
Hermogenes. Lord, no; but I have often been carried away into the belief that certain men, and a good many of them, are very bad.
Socrates
Socrates. Well, did you never think any were very good?
5
Hermogenes
Hermogenes. Very few.
Socrates
Socrates. But you did think them so?
Hermogenes
Hermogenes. Yes.
Socrates
Socrates. And what is your idea about that? Are the very good very wise and the very bad very foolish?
