Sophist Part 4

STRANGER: Seeing, then, that all arts are either acquisitive or creative, in which cla.s.s shall we place the art of the angler?

THEAETETUS: Clearly in the acquisitive cla.s.s.

STRANGER: And the acquisitive may be subdivided into two parts: there is exchange, which is voluntary and is effected by gifts, hire, purchase; and the other part of acquisitive, which takes by force of word or deed, may be termed conquest?

THEAETETUS: That is implied in what has been said.

STRANGER: And may not conquest be again subdivided?

THEAETETUS: How?

STRANGER: Open force may be called fighting, and secret force may have the general name of hunting?

THEAETETUS: Yes.

STRANGER: And there is no reason why the art of hunting should not be further divided.

THEAETETUS: How would you make the division?

STRANGER: Into the hunting of living and of lifeless prey.

THEAETETUS: Yes, if both kinds exist.

STRANGER: Of course they exist; but the hunting after lifeless things having no special name, except some sorts of diving, and other small matters, may be omitted; the hunting after living things may be called animal hunting.

THEAETETUS: Yes.

STRANGER: And animal hunting may be truly said to have two divisions, land-animal hunting, which has many kinds and names, and water-animal hunting, or the hunting after animals who swim?

THEAETETUS: True.

STRANGER: And of swimming animals, one cla.s.s lives on the wing and the other in the water?

THEAETETUS: Certainly.

STRANGER: Fowling is the general term under which the hunting of all birds is included.

THEAETETUS: True.

STRANGER: The hunting of animals who live in the water has the general name of fishing.

THEAETETUS: Yes.

STRANGER: And this sort of hunting may be further divided also into two princ.i.p.al kinds?

THEAETETUS: What are they?

STRANGER: There is one kind which takes them in nets, another which takes them by a blow.

THEAETETUS: What do you mean, and how do you distinguish them?

STRANGER: As to the first kind--all that surrounds and encloses anything to prevent egress, may be rightly called an enclosure.

THEAETETUS: Very true.

STRANGER: For which reason twig baskets, casting-nets, nooses, creels, and the like may all be termed 'enclosures'?

THEAETETUS: True.

STRANGER: And therefore this first kind of capture may be called by us capture with enclosures, or something of that sort?

THEAETETUS: Yes.

STRANGER: The other kind, which is practised by a blow with hooks and three-p.r.o.nged spears, when summed up under one name, may be called striking, unless you, Theaetetus, can find some better name?

THEAETETUS: Never mind the name--what you suggest will do very well.

STRANGER: There is one mode of striking, which is done at night, and by the light of a fire, and is by the hunters themselves called firing, or spearing by firelight.

THEAETETUS: True.

STRANGER: And the fishing by day is called by the general name of barbing, because the spears, too, are barbed at the point.

THEAETETUS: Yes, that is the term.

STRANGER: Of this barb-fishing, that which strikes the fish who is below from above is called spearing, because this is the way in which the three-p.r.o.nged spears are mostly used.

THEAETETUS: Yes, it is often called so.

STRANGER: Then now there is only one kind remaining.

THEAETETUS: What is that?

STRANGER: When a hook is used, and the fish is not struck in any chance part of his body, as he is with the spear, but only about the head and mouth, and is then drawn out from below upwards with reeds and rods:--What is the right name of that mode of fishing, Theaetetus?

THEAETETUS: I suspect that we have now discovered the object of our search.

STRANGER: Then now you and I have come to an understanding not only about the name of the angler's art, but about the definition of the thing itself. One half of all art was acquisitive--half of the acquisitive art was conquest or taking by force, half of this was hunting, and half of hunting was hunting animals, half of this was hunting water animals--of this again, the under half was fishing, half of fishing was striking; a part of striking was fishing with a barb, and one half of this again, being the kind which strikes with a hook and draws the fish from below upwards, is the art which we have been seeking, and which from the nature of the operation is denoted angling or drawing up (aspalieutike, anaspasthai).

THEAETETUS: The result has been quite satisfactorily brought out.

STRANGER: And now, following this pattern, let us endeavour to find out what a Sophist is.

THEAETETUS: By all means.

STRANGER: The first question about the angler was, whether he was a skilled artist or unskilled?

THEAETETUS: True.