268
Str. I am considering, and I think I can see two classes I see one who can dissemble in long speeches in public before a multitude, and the other who does it in private in short speeches and forces the person who converses with him to contradict himself.
268
Theaet. You are quite right.
268
Str. And what name shall we give to him who makes the longer speeches? Statesman or popular orator?
268
Theaet. Popular orator.
268
Str. And what shall we call the other? Philosopher or sophist?
268
Theaet. We cannot very well call him philosopher, since by our hypothesis he is ignorant; but since he is all imitator of the philosopher, he will evidently have a name derived from his, and I think I am sure at last that we must truly call him the absolutely real and actual sophist.
268
Str. Shall we then bind up his name as we did before, winding it up from the end to the beginning?
268
Theaet. By all means.
268
Str. The imitative kind of the dissembling part of the art of opinion which is part of the art of contradiction and belongs to the fantastic class of the image-making art, and is not divine, but human, and has been defined in arguments as the juggling part of productive activity—he who says that the true sophist is of this descent and blood will, in my opinion, speak the exact truth.
268
Theaet. Yes, he certainly will.
