Scenes and Portraits

by Frederic Manning

"Very well, Philip."

"Then there is a knowledge of knowing, and a knowledge of not knowing; and we know the things we know, and the things we do not know?"

"That seems absurd," said Socrates.

"What? Will you go back on the argument, Socrates, and say that knowledge is only the knowledge of something?"

"Let us try that way then," Socrates said.

"By Zeus, Socrates, that way will do as well as another," said Philip; "for if you know something you can distinguish it from other things, can you not?"

"Yes."

"You can distinguish one thing you know, from another thing you know; and both from what you do not know."

"You have made me giddy, Philip. Let me think."

"Well, Socrates, you can distinguish Euripides from Protagoras, can you not? And you can distinguish both these people whom you know, from the tyrant Archelaus, whom you do not know?"