Theaetetus

SOCRATES: Then, you ridiculous boy, have you not heard that I am the son of a very noble and sturdy midwife, Phaenarete? THEAETETUS: I have heard that before. SOCRATES: And have you also heard that I practice the same art? THEAETETUS: By no means. SOCRATES: But be assured that I do; yet do not betray me to the others. For I keep it secret, my friend, that I possess this art. And they, since they do not know it, do not say this about me, but they say that I am a most strange person and make people find themselves at a loss. Have you also heard this? THEAETETUS: Yes, I have. SOCRATES: Shall I tell you the reason, then? THEAETETUS: By all means. SOCRATES: Consider the whole business of midwives, and you will more easily understand what I mean. For you know, I suppose, that none of them attends other women while she herself is still conceiving and bearing children, but only those who are already unable to bear. THEAETETUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And they say the cause of this is Artemis, because, being childless herself, she has been allotted the patronage of childbirth. Now she did not allow barren women to practice midwifery, because human nature is too weak to acquire an art of which it has no experience; but she assigned it to those who are past childbearing because of age, honoring their likeness to herself. THEAETETUS: That is likely. SOCRATES: Is this not also likely and indeed necessary, that those who are pregnant and those who are not are better recognized by midwives than by others? THEAETETUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: Moreover, by giving drugs and singing incantations, midwives are able to arouse the labor pains and to make them milder if they wish, and to bring to birth those who have difficult labor, and if they think it right to cause a miscarriage when the child is still young, do they not cause it? THEAETETUS: That is so. SOCRATES: Have you also noticed this about them, that they are also the most skillful matchmakers, being all-wise in knowing what kind of woman meeting what kind of man would bear the best children? THEAETETUS: I did not quite know this. SOCRATES: But be assured that they pride themselves on this more than on cutting the umbilical cord. For consider: do you think the care and harvesting of the fruits of the earth, and on the other hand, knowing into what kind of soil what kind of plant and seed must be cast, belong to the same art or to different ones? THEAETETUS: No, to the same. SOCRATES: And for a woman, my friend, do you think one art belongs to such sowing, and another to the harvesting? THEAETETUS: It is not likely.

SOCRATES: No indeed. But because of the unjust and unscientific bringing together of man and woman, which indeed is called pandering, the midwives, being honorable women, avoid even matchmaking, fearing lest they should fall into that accusation on account of this; whereas it belongs surely only to the true midwives to practice matchmaking correctly. THEAETETUS: So it appears. SOCRATES: The role of midwives, then, is so great, yet it is smaller than my drama. For it does not happen to women sometimes to bring forth phantoms, and sometimes true children, and that this is not easy to distinguish. For if it did, the greatest and most beautiful work for the midwives would be to judge what is true and what is not; or do you not think so? THEAETETUS: I do. SOCRATES: Now, my art of midwifery has all the other features that theirs has, but it differs in that it attends men and not women, and in that it supervises their souls in labor and not their bodies. And the greatest thing in our art is this, that it is capable of testing in every way whether the mind of the young man is bringing forth a phantom and a falsehood, or a fertile and true offspring. For this also belongs to me which belongs to the midwives: I am barren of wisdom, and what many have already reproached me with, namely that I ask others but bring forward nothing myself about anything because I have nothing wise, they reproach me with truth. And the cause of this is the following: the god compels me to attend others, but forbade me to bring forth. I am, then, myself not at all wise, nor do I have any such discovery that has been born as the offspring of my soul. But those who associate with me, at first some of them appear even utterly ignorant, but all of them, as the association goes on, if the god permits, make wonderful progress, as it seems to themselves and to others. And this is clear, that they have never learned anything from me, but have themselves from themselves discovered and brought forth many beautiful things. Of this midwifery, however, the god and I are the cause. And it is clear in this way: many already, being ignorant of this and accusing themselves, but despising me, either themselves or persuaded by others, went away earlier than they should. And having gone away, they miscarried the rest of their offspring because of evil association, and lost those brought forth by me by nurturing them badly, setting more value on falsehoods and phantoms than on the truth; and in the end they seemed to themselves and to others to be ignorant.