THEAETETUS: I do not think that I shall tire, and if I do, I shall get my
friend here, young Socrates, the namesake of the elder Socrates, to help;
he is about my own age, and my partner at the gymnasium, and is constantly
accustomed to work with me.

STRANGER: Very good; you can decide about that for yourself as we proceed.
Meanwhile you and I will begin together and enquire into the nature of the
Sophist, first of the three: I should like you to make out what he is and
bring him to light in a discussion; for at present we are only agreed about
the name, but of the thing to which we both apply the name possibly you
have one notion and I another; whereas we ought always to come to an
understanding about the thing itself in terms of a definition, and not
merely about the name minus the definition. Now the tribe of Sophists
which we are investigating is not easily caught or defined; and the world
has long ago agreed, that if great subjects are to be adequately treated,
they must be studied in the lesser and easier instances of them before we
proceed to the greatest of all. And as I know that the tribe of Sophists
is troublesome and hard to be caught, I should recommend that we practise
beforehand the method which is to be applied to him on some simple and
smaller thing, unless you can suggest a better way.

THEAETETUS: Indeed I cannot.

STRANGER: Then suppose that we work out some lesser example which will be
a pattern of the greater?

THEAETETUS: Good.

STRANGER: What is there which is well known and not great, and is yet as
susceptible of definition as any larger thing? Shall I say an angler? He