246–247
Stranger
Str. It is comparatively easy to get it from those who say that it consists in ideas, for they are peaceful folk; but from those who violently drag down everything into matter, it is more difficult, perhaps even almost impossible, to get it. However, this is the way I think we must deal with them.
Theaetetus
Theaet. What way?
Stranger
Str. Our first duty would be to make them really better, if it were in any way possible; but if this cannot be done, let us pretend that they are better, by assuming that they would be willing to answer more in accordance with the rules of dialectic than they actually are. For the acknowledgement of anything by better men is more valid than if made by worse men. But it is not these men that we care about; we merely seek the truth.
Theaetetus
Theaet. Quite right.
Stranger
Str. Now tell them, assuming that they have become better, to answer you, and do you interpret what they say.
15
Theaetetus
Theaet. I will do so.
Stranger
Str. Let them tell whether they say there is such a thing as a mortal animal.
Theaetetus
Theaet. Of course they do.
Stranger
Str. And they agree that this is a body with a soul in it, do they not?
Theaetetus
Theaet. Certainly.
20
Stranger
Str. Giving to soul a place among things which exist?
Stranger
Str. Well then, do they not say that one soul is just and another unjust, one wise and another foolish?
Theaetetus
Theaet. Of course.
Stranger
Str. And do they not say that each soul becomes just by the possession and presence of justice, and the opposite by the possession and presence of the opposite?
Theaetetus
Theaet. Yes, they agree to this also.
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