SOCRATES: You are a beauty, Theaetetus, and not ugly, as Theodorus was saying; for he who utters the beautiful is himself beautiful and good. And besides being beautiful, you have done me a kindness in releasing me from a very long discussion, if you are clear that the soul views some things by herself and others through the bodily organs. For that was my own opinion, and I wanted you to agree with me.
THEAETETUS: I am quite clear.
SOCRATES: And to which class would you refer being or essence; for this, of all our notions, is the most universal?
THEAETETUS: I should say, to that class which the soul aspires to know of herself.
SOCRATES: And would you say this also of like and unlike, same and other?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And would you say the same of the noble and base, and of good and evil?
THEAETETUS: These I conceive to be notions which are essentially relative, and which the soul also perceives by comparing in herself things past and present with the future.
SOCRATES: And does she not perceive the hardness of that which is hard by the touch, and the softness of that which is soft equally by the touch?
THEAETETUS: Yes.