at Athens and elsewhere, of whose endless activity of mind Aristotle in his
Metaphysics has preserved an anonymous memorial.

V. The Sophist is the sequel of the Theaetetus, and is connected with the
Parmenides by a direct allusion (compare Introductions to Theaetetus and
Parmenides). In the Theaetetus we sought to discover the nature of
knowledge and false opinion. But the nature of false opinion seemed
impenetrable; for we were unable to understand how there could be any
reality in Not-being. In the Sophist the question is taken up again; the
nature of Not-being is detected, and there is no longer any metaphysical
impediment in the way of admitting the possibility of falsehood. To the
Parmenides, the Sophist stands in a less defined and more remote relation.
There human thought is in process of disorganization; no absurdity or
inconsistency is too great to be elicited from the analysis of the simple
ideas of Unity or Being. In the Sophist the same contradictions are
pursued to a certain extent, but only with a view to their resolution. The
aim of the dialogue is to show how the few elemental conceptions of the
human mind admit of a natural connexion in thought and speech, which
Megarian or other sophistry vainly attempts to deny.

...

True to the appointment of the previous day, Theodorus and Theaetetus meet
Socrates at the same spot, bringing with them an Eleatic Stranger, whom
Theodorus introduces as a true philosopher. Socrates, half in jest, half
in earnest, declares that he must be a god in disguise, who, as Homer would
say, has come to earth that he may visit the good and evil among men, and
detect the foolishness of Athenian wisdom. At any rate he is a divine
person, one of a class who are hardly recognized on earth; who appear in
divers forms--now as statesmen, now as sophists, and are often deemed