Dialogues

epub:type="z3998:persona">Stranger And when things having motion, and aiming at an appointed mark, continually miss their aim and glance aside, shall we say that this is the effect of symmetry among them, or of the want of symmetry? Theaetetus Clearly of the want of symmetry. Stranger But surely we know that no soul is voluntarily ignorant of anything? Theaetetus Certainly not. Stranger And what is ignorance but the aberration of a mind which is bent on truth, and in which the process of understanding is perverted? Theaetetus True. Stranger Then we are to regard an unintelligent soul as deformed and devoid of symmetry? Theaetetus Very true. Stranger Then there are these two kinds of evil in the soul⁠—the one which is generally called vice, and is obviously a disease of the soul⁠ ⁠… Theaetetus Yes. Stranger And there is the other, which they call ignorance, and which, because existing only in the soul,326 they will not allow to be vice. Theaetetus I certainly admit what I at first disputed⁠—that there are two kinds of vice in the soul, and that we ought to consider cowardice, intemperance, and injustice to be alike forms of disease in the soul, and ignorance, of which there are all sorts of varieties, to be deformity. Stranger And in the case of the body are there not two arts which have to do with the two bodily states? Theaetetus What are they? Stranger There is gymnastic, which has to do with deformity, and medicine, which has to do with disease. Theaetetus True. Stranger And where there is insolence and injustice and cowardice, is not chastisement the art which is most required?327 Theaetetus That certainly appears to be the opinion of mankind. Stranger Again, of the various kinds of ignorance, may not instruction be rightly said to be the remedy? Theaetetus True. Stranger And of the art of instruction, shall we say that there is one or many kinds? At any rate there are two principal ones. Think. Theaetetus I will. Stranger I believe that I can see how we shall soonest arrive at the answer to this question. Theaetetus How? Stranger If we can discover a line which divides ignorance into two halves. For a division of ignorance into two parts will certainly imply that the art of instruction is also twofold, answering to the two divisions of ignorance. Theaetetus Well, and do you see what you are looking for? Stranger I do seem to myself to see one very large and bad sort of ignorance which is quite separate, and may be weighed in the scale against all other sorts of ignorance put together. Theaetetus What is it? Stranger When a person supposes that he knows, and does not know; this appears to be the great source of all the errors of the intellect. Theaetetus True. Stranger And this, if I am not mistaken, is the kind of ignorance which specially earns the title of stupidity. Theaetetus True. Stranger What name, then, shall be given to the sort of instruction which gets rid of this? Theaetetus The instruction which you mean, Stranger, is, I should imagine, not the teaching of handicraft arts, but what, thanks to us, has been termed education in this part the world. Stranger Yes, Theaetetus, and by nearly all Hellenes. But we have still to consider whether education admits of any further division. Theaetetus We have. Stranger I think that there is a point at which such a division is possible. Theaetetus Where? Stranger Of education, one method appears to be rougher, and another smoother. Theaetetus How are we to distinguish the two? Stranger There is the time-honoured mode which our fathers commonly practised towards their sons, and which is still adopted by many⁠—either of roughly reproving their errors, or of gently advising them; which varieties may be correctly included under the general term of admonition. Theaetetus True. Stranger But whereas some appear to have arrived at the conclusion that all ignorance is involuntary, and that no one who thinks himself wise is willing to learn any of those things in which he is conscious of his own cleverness, and that the admonitory sort of instruction gives much trouble and does little good⁠— Theaetetus There they are quite right. Stranger Accordingly, they set to work to eradicate the spirit of conceit in another way. Theaetetus In what way? Stranger They cross-examine a man’s words, when he thinks that he is saying something and is really saying nothing, and easily convict him of inconsistencies in his opinions; these they then collect by the dialectical process, and placing them side by side, show that they contradict one another about the same things, in relation to the same things, and in the same respect. He, seeing this, is angry with himself, and grows gentle towards others, and thus is entirely delivered from great prejudices and harsh notions, in a way which is most amusing to the hearer, and produces the most lasting good effect on the person who is the subject of the operation. For as the physician considers that the body will receive no benefit from taking food until the internal obstacles have been removed, so the purifier of the soul is conscious that his patient will receive no benefit from the application of knowledge until he is refuted, and from refutation learns modesty; he must be purged of his prejudices first and made to think that he knows only what he knows, and no more. Theaetetus That is certainly the best and wisest state of mind. Stranger For all these reasons, Theaetetus, we must admit that refutation is the greatest and chiefest of purifications, and he who has not been refuted, though he be the Great King himself, is in an awful state of impurity; he is uninstructed and deformed in those things in which he who would be truly blessed ought to be fairest and purest. Theaetetus Very true. Stranger And who are the ministers of this art? I am afraid to say the Sophists. Theaetetus Why? Stranger Lest we should assign to them too high a prerogative. Theaetetus Yet the Sophist has a certain likeness to our minister of purification. Stranger Yes, the same sort of likeness which a wolf, who is the fiercest of animals, has to a