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?