Sofista

Concerning the things about which you ask to be informed I believe that I am not ill-prepared with an answer. For the day before yesterday I was coming from my own home at Phalerum to the city, and one of my acquaintance, who had caught a sight of me from behind, hind, out playfully in the distance, said : Apollodorus, O thou Phalerian man, halt !

Str. Then let us not be discouraged about the future ; but now having made this discovery, let us go back to our previous classification.

Theaet. What classification ?

Str. We divided image-making into two sorts ; the one likeness-making, the other imaginative or phantastic.

Theaet. True.

Str. And we said that we were uncertain in which we should place the Sophist.

Theaet. We did say so.

Str. And now, do we seem to have gained a fair notion of being ?

Theaet. Yes truly.

Str. Alas, Theaetetus, methinks that we are now only beginning to see the real difficulty of the enquiry into the nature of it.

Theaet. What do you mean ?

Str. O my friend, do you not see that nothing can exceed out ignorance, and yet we fancy that we are saying something good ?

Theaet. I certainly thought that we were ; and I do not at all understand how we never found out our desperate case.

Str. And where shall I begin the perilous enterprise ? I think that the road which I must take is —

Theaet. Which ? — Let me hear.

Str. I think that we had better, first of all, consider the points which at present are regard as self-evident, lest we may have fallen into some confusion, and be too ready to assent to one another, fancying that we are quite clear about them.

Theaet. Say more distinctly what you mean.