Sophist

Str. The purification of living creatures, having to do with impurities within the body, such as are successfully discriminated by gymnastics and medicine, and with those outside of the body, not nice to speak of, such as are attended to by the bath-keeper’s art; and the purification of inanimate bodies, which is the special care of the fuller’s art and in general of the art of exterior decoration; this, with its petty subdivisions, has taken on many names which seem ridiculous.

Theaet. Very.

Str. Certainly they do, Theaetetus. However, the method of argument is neither more nor less concerned with the art of medicine than with that of sponging, but is indifferent if the one benefits us little, the other greatly by its purifying. It endeavors to understand what is related and what is not related in all arts, for the purpose of acquiring intelligence; and therefore it honors them all equally and does not in making comparisons think one more ridiculous than another, and does not consider him who employs, as his example of hunting, the art of generalship, any more dignified than him who employs the art of louse-catching, but only, for the most part, as more pretentious. And now as to your question, what name we shall give to all the activities whose function it is to purify the body, whether animate or inanimate, it will not matter at all to our method what name sounds finest; it cares only to unite under one name all purifications of everything else and to keep them separate from the purification of the soul. For it has in our present discussion been trying to separate this purification definitely from the rest, if we understand its desire.

Theaet. But I do understand and I agree that there are two kinds of purification and that one kind is the purification of the soul, which is separate from that of the body.

Str. Most excellent. Now pay attention to the next point and try again to divide the term.

Theaet. In whatever way you suggest, I will try to help you in making the division.

Str. Do we say that wickedness is distinct from virtue in the soul?

Theaet. Of course.

Str. And purification was retaining the one and throwing out whatever is bad anywhere?

Theaet. Yes, it was.

Str. Hence whenever we find any removal of evil from the soul, we shall be speaking properly if we call that a purification.

Theaet. Very properly.

Str. We must say that there are two kinds of evil in the soul.

Theaet. What kinds?