STRANGER: Lest we should assign to them too high a prerogative.

THEAETETUS: Yet the Sophist has a certain likeness to our minister of

purification.

STRANGER: Yes, the same sort of likeness which a wolf, who is the

fiercest of animals, has to a dog, who is the gentlest. But he who

would not be found tripping, ought to be very careful in this matter

of comparisons, for they are most slippery things. Nevertheless, let us

assume that the Sophists are the men. I say this provisionally, for I

think that the line which divides them will be marked enough if proper

care is taken.

THEAETETUS: Likely enough.

STRANGER: Let us grant, then, that from the discerning art comes

purification, and from purification let there be separated off a

part which is concerned with the soul; of this mental purification

instruction is a portion, and of instruction education, and of

education, that refutation of vain conceit which has been discovered

in the present argument; and let this be called by you and me the

nobly-descended art of Sophistry.

THEAETETUS: Very well; and yet, considering the number of forms in which

he has presented himself, I begin to doubt how I can with any truth or

confidence describe the real nature of the Sophist.