Sophist

Theaet. Yes.

Str. But I hope he offers us a method and is capable of a definition not unsuitable to our purpose.

Theaet. That would be good.

Str. Come now; let us begin with him in this way: Tell me, shall we say that he is a man with an art, or one without an art, but having some other power?

Theaet. Certainly not one without an art.

Str. But of all arts there are, speaking generally, two kinds?

Theaet. How so?

Str. Agriculture and all kinds of care of any living beings, and that which has to do with things which are put together or molded (utensils we call them), and the art of imitation—all these might properly be called by one name.

Theaet. How so, and what is the name?

Str. When anyone brings into being something which did not previously exist, we say that he who brings it into being produces it and that which is brought into being is produced.

Theaet. Certainly.

Str. Now all the arts which we have just mentioned direct their energy to production.

Theaet. Yes, they do.

Str. Let us, then, call these collectively the productive art.

Theaet. Agreed.

Str. And after this comes the whole class of learning and that of acquiring knowledge, and money making, and fighting, and hunting. None of these is creative, but they are all engaged in coercing, by deeds or words, things which already exist and have been produced, or in preventing others from coercing them; therefore all these divisions together might very properly be called acquisitive art.

Theaet. Yes, that would be proper.

Str. Then since acquisitive and productive art comprise all the arts, in which, Theaetetus, shall we place the art of angling?

Theaet. In acquisitive art, clearly.

Str. And are there not two classes of acquisitive art—one the class of exchange between voluntary agents by means of gifts and wages and purchases, and the other, which comprises all the rest of acquisitive art, and, since it coerces either by word or deed, might be called coercive?

Theaet. It appears so, at any rate, from what you have said.

Str. Well then, shall we not divide coercive art into two parts?

Theaet. In what way?

Str. By calling all the open part of it fighting and all the secret part hunting.

Theaet. Yes.

Str. But it would be unreasonable not to divide hunting into two parts.

Theaet. Say how it can be done.

Str. By dividing it into the hunting of the lifeless and of the living.

Theaet. Certainly, if both exist.