SOCRATES: I think that we were wrong in denying that a man could think what he knew to be what he did not know; and that there is a way in which such a deception is possible.
THEAETETUS: You mean to say, as I suspected at the time, that I may know Socrates, and at a distance see some one who is unknown to me, and whom I mistake for him—then the deception will occur?
SOCRATES: But has not that position been relinquished by us, because involving the absurdity that we should know and not know the things which we know?
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: Let us make the assertion in another form, which may or may not have a favourable issue; but as we are in a great strait, every argument should be turned over and tested. Tell me, then, whether I am right in saying that you may learn a thing which at one time you did not know?
THEAETETUS: Certainly you may.
SOCRATES: And another and another?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: I would have you imagine, then, that there exists in the mind of man a block of wax, which is of different sizes in different men; harder, moister, and having more or less of purity in one than another, and in some of an intermediate quality.
THEAETETUS: I see.