  Many ancient Platonists read the midwife analogy, and more recently Cornford 1935 has read it, as alluding to the theory of recollection. But it is better not to import metaphysical assumptions into the text without good reason, and it is hard to see what the reason would be beyond a determination to insist that Plato always maintained the theory of recollection.  With or without this speculation, the midwife passage does tell us something important about how the Theaetetus is going to proceed. In line with the classification that the ancient editors set at the front of the dialogue, it is going to be peirastikos, an experimental dialogue. It will try out a number of suggestions about the nature of knowledge. As in the aporetic dialogues, there is no guarantee that any of these suggestions will be successful (and every chance that none of them will be).