3–4
Tychiades Well, well, your taste in titles concerns me very little. Come now to the next absurdity.
Tychiades The getting it entered on the list of arts, When any one asks what the art is, how do we describe it? Letters we know, Medicine we know; Sponging?
Simon My own opinion is, that it has an exceptionally good right to the name of art. If you care to listen, I will explain, though I have not got this properly into shape, as I remarked before.
Tychiades Oh, a brief exposition will do, provided it is true.
5
Simon I think, if you agree, we had better examine Art generically first; that will enable us to go into the question whether the specific arts really belong under it.
Tychiades Well, what is Art? Of course you know that?
Tychiades Out with it, then, as you know.
Simon An art, as I once heard a wise man say, is a body of perceptions regularly employed for some useful purpose in human life.
Tychiades And he was quite right.
Simon So, if sponging has all these marks, it must be an art?