225
Str. And that part of argumentation which deals with business contracts, in which there is controversy, to be sure, but it is carried on informally and without rules of art—all that must be considered a distinct class, now that our argument has recognized it as different from the rest, but it received no name from our predecessors, nor does it now deserve to receive one from us.
225
Theaet. True; for the divisions into which it falls are too small and too miscellaneous.
225
Str. But that which possesses rules of art and carries on controversy about abstract justice and injustice and the rest in general terms, we are accustomed to call disputation, are we not?
225
Theaet. Certainly.
225
Str. Well, of disputation, one sort wastes money, the other makes money.
225
Theaet. Certainly.
225
Str. Then let us try to tell the name by which we must call each of these.
225
Theaet. Yes, we must do so.
225
Str. Presumably the kind which causes a man to neglect his own affairs for the pleasure of engaging in it, but the style of which causes no pleasure to most of his hearers, is, in my opinion, called by no other name than garrulity.
225
Theaet. Yes, that is about what it is called.
225
Str. Then the opposite of this, the kind which makes money from private disputes—try now, for it is your turn, to give its name.
225
Theaet. What other answer could one give without making a mistake, than that now again for the fourth time that wonderful being whom we have so long been pursuing has turned up—the sophist!
226
Str. Yes, and the sophist is nothing else, apparently, than the money-making class of the disputatious, argumentative, controversial, pugnacious, combative, acquisitive art, as our argument has now again stated.
226
Theaet. Certainly.
226
Str. Do you see the truth of the statement that this creature is many-sided and, as the saying is, not to be caught with one hand?
226
Theaet. Then we must catch him with both.
