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Str. We must remember that there were to be two parts of the image-making class, the likeness-making and the fantastic, if we should find that falsehood really existed and was in the class of real being.
266
Theaet. Yes, there were.
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Str. But we found that falsehood does exist, and therefore we shall now, without any doubts, number the kinds of image-making art as two, shall we not?
266
Theaet. Yes.
267
Str. Let us, then, again bisect the fantastic art.
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Theaet. How?
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Str. One kind is that produced by instruments, the other that in which the producer of the appearance offers himself as the instrument.
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Theaet. What do you mean?
267
Str. When anyone, by employing his own person as his instrument, makes his own figure or voice seem similar to yours, that kind of fantastic art is called mimetic.
267
Theaet. Yes.
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Str. Let us, then, classify this part under the name of mimetic art; but as for all the rest, let us be so self-indulgent as to let it go and leave it for someone else to unify and name appropriately.
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Theaet. Very well, let us adopt that classification and let the other part go.
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Str. But it is surely worth while to consider, Theaetetus, that the mimetic art also has two parts; and I will tell you why.
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Theaet. Please do.
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Str. Some who imitate do so with knowledge of that which they imitate, and others without such knowledge. And yet what division can we imagine more complete than that which separates knowledge and ignorance?
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Theaet. None.
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Str. The example I just gave was of imitation by those who know, was it not? For a man who imitates you would know you and your figure.
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Theaet. Of course.
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Str. But what of the figure of justice and, in a word, of virtue in general? Are there not many who have no knowledge of it, but only a sort of opinion, and who try with the greatest eagerness to make this which they themselves think is virtue seem to exist within them, by imitating it in acts and words to the best of their ability?
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Theaet. Yes, there are very many such people.