Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/97

ætetus. "Knowledge," answers Theætetus, "consists of geometry and such other matters as we have been now talking about." The reply of Socrates is very happy and highly characteristic, though not very instructive. "You have answered," says he, "most generously—indeed, most munificently;—I may say, quite like a prince. Being asked for a single thing, you have given me I know not how many things; and that, Theætetus, is what I call acting nobly towards an old ignoramus like me." This banter throws Theætetus somewhat aback; upon which Socrates proceeds to explain himself. "You have rather missed," says he, "the point of my question. I did not ask you what things there is a knowledge of,—but what knowledge itself is." This explanation, although it lays the finger on the right point, does not mend matters much; for when the two friends proceed to discuss this question, keeping as near to it as they can, which is not very near, the question is very soon lost sight of, like a river running underground, to make its appearance in occasional glimpses at the surface in some of the other dialogues. Plato did not get, or at any rate did not show that he had got to the beginning, the starting-point of philosophy.

Search for the starting-point.§ 79. We must try, therefore, what we can make of this question (What is knowledge?) for ourselves. It constitutes, as has been said, the general problem