Dialogues

company will respond kindly to you, and you can choose whom you like of them; I should recommend you to take a young person⁠—Theaetetus, for example⁠—unless you have a preference for someone else. Stranger I feel ashamed, Socrates, being a newcomer into your society, instead of talking a little and hearing others talk, to be spinning out a long soliloquy or address, as if I wanted to show off. For the true answer will certainly be a very long one, a great deal longer than might be expected from such a short and simple question. At the same time, I fear that I may seem rude and ungracious if I refuse your courteous request, especially after what you have said. For I certainly cannot object to your proposal, that Theaetetus should respond, having already conversed with him myself, and being recommended by you to take him. Theaetetus But are you sure, Stranger, that this will be quite so acceptable to the rest of the company as Socrates imagines? Stranger You hear them applauding, Theaetetus; after that, there is nothing more to be said. Well then, I am to argue with you, and if you tire of the argument, you may complain of your friends and not of me. Theaetetus I do not think that I shall tire, and if I do, I shall get my friend here, young Socrates, the namesake of the elder Socrates, to help; he is about my own age, and my partner at the gymnasium, and is constantly accustomed to work with me. Stranger Very good; you can decide about that for yourself as we proceed. Meanwhile you and I will begin together and enquire into the nature of the Sophist, first of the three: I should like you to make out what he is and bring him to light in a discussion; for at present we are only agreed about the name, but of the thing to which we both apply the name possibly you have one notion and I another; whereas we ought always to come to an understanding about the thing itself in terms of a definition, and not merely about the name minus the definition. Now the tribe of Sophists which we are investigating is not easily caught or defined; and the world has long ago agreed, that if great subjects are to be adequately treated, they must be studied in the lesser and easier instances of them before we proceed to the greatest of all. And as I know that the tribe of Sophists is troublesome and hard to be caught, I should recommend that we practise beforehand the method which is to be applied to him on some simple and smaller thing, unless you can suggest a better way. Theaetetus Indeed I cannot. Stranger Then suppose that we work out some lesser example which will be a pattern of the greater? Theaetetus Good. Stranger What is there which is well known and not great, and is yet as susceptible of definition as any larger thing? Shall I say an angler? He is familiar to all of us, and not a very interesting or important person. Theaetetus He is not. Stranger Yet I suspect that he will furnish us with the sort of definition and line of enquiry which we want. Theaetetus Very good. Stranger Let us begin by asking whether he is a man having art or not having art, but some other power. Theaetetus He is clearly a man of art. Stranger And of arts there are two kinds? Theaetetus What are they? Stranger There is agriculture, and the tending of mortal creatures, and the art of constructing or moulding vessels, and there is the art of imitation⁠—all these may be appropriately called by a single name. Theaetetus What do you mean? And what is the name? Stranger He who brings into existence something that did not exist before is said to be a producer, and that which is brought into existence is said to be produced. Theaetetus True. Stranger And all the arts which were just now mentioned are characterized by this power of producing? Theaetetus They are. Stranger Then let us sum them up under the name of productive or creative art. Theaetetus Very good. Stranger Next follows the whole class of learning and cognition; then comes trade, fighting, hunting. And since none of these produces anything, but is only engaged in conquering by word or deed, or in preventing others from conquering, things which exist and have been already produced⁠—in each and all of these branches there appears to be an art which may be called acquisitive. Theaetetus Yes, that is the proper name. Stranger Seeing, then, that all arts are either acquisitive or creative, in which class shall we place the art of the angler? Theaetetus Clearly in the acquisitive class. Stranger And the acquisitive may be subdivided into two parts: there is exchange, which is voluntary and is effected by gifts, hire, purchase; and the other part of acquisitive, which takes by force of word or deed, may be termed conquest? Theaetetus That is implied in what has been said. Stranger And may not conquest be again subdivided? Theaetetus How? Stranger Open force may be called fighting, and secret force may have the general name of hunting? Theaetetus Yes. Stranger And there is no reason why the art of hunting should not be further divided. Theaetetus How would you make the division? Stranger Into the hunting of living and of lifeless prey. Theaetetus Yes, if both kinds exist. Stranger Of course they exist; but the hunting after lifeless things having no special name, except some sorts of diving, and other small matters, may be omitted; the hunting after living things may be called animal hunting. Theaetetus Yes. Stranger And animal hunting may be truly said to have two divisions, land-animal hunting, which has many kinds and names, and water-animal hunting, or the hunting after animals who swim? Theaetetus True. Stranger And of swimming animals, one class lives on the wing and the other in the water? Theaetetus Certainly. Stranger Fowling is the general term under which the hunting of all birds is included. Theaetetus True. Stranger The hunting of animals who live in the water has the general name of