STRANGER: When you tell him of something existing in a mirror, or in

sculpture, and address him as though he had eyes, he will laugh you to

scorn, and will pretend that he knows nothing of mirrors and streams, or

of sight at all; he will say that he is asking about an idea.

THEAETETUS: What can he mean?

STRANGER: The common notion pervading all these objects, which you speak

of as many, and yet call by the single name of image, as though it were

the unity under which they were all included. How will you maintain your

ground against him?

THEAETETUS: How, Stranger, can I describe an image except as something

fashioned in the likeness of the true?

STRANGER: And do you mean this something to be some other true thing, or

what do you mean?

THEAETETUS: Certainly not another true thing, but only a resemblance.

STRANGER: And you mean by true that which really is?

THEAETETUS: Yes.

STRANGER: And the not true is that which is the opposite of the true?

Sophist