n 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 is familiar to all of us, and not a very interesting or important
person.

THEAETETUS: He is not.

STRANGER: Yet I suspect that he will furnish us with the sort of
definition and line of enquiry which we want.

THEAETETUS: Very good.

STRANGER: Let us begin by asking whether he is a man having art or not
having art, but some other power.

THEAETETUS: He is clearly a man of art.

STRANGER: And of arts there are two kinds?

THEAETETUS: What are they?

STRANGER: There is agriculture, and the tending of mortal creatures,
and the art of constructing or moulding vessels, and there is the art of
imitation--all these may be appropriately called by a single name.

THEAETETUS: What do you mean? And what is the name?

STRANGER: He who brings into existence something that did not exist
before is said to be a producer, and that which is brought into
existence is said to be produced.

THEAETETUS: True.

STRANGER: And all the arts which were just now mentioned are
characterized by this power of producing?

THEAETETUS: They are.

STRANGER: Then let us sum them up under the name of productive or
creative art.

THEAETETUS: Very good.

STRANGER: Next follows the whole class of learning and cognition;
then comes trade, fighting, hunting. And since none of these produces
anything, but is only engaged in conquering by word or deed, or in
preventing others from conquering, things which exist and have been
already produced--in each and all of these branches there appears to be
an art which may be called acquisitive.

THEAETETUS: Yes, that is the proper name.

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

THEAETETUS: Clearly in the acquisitive class.

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 ther