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?

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