any design of
injuring you in the argument?

Nay, he replied, 'suppose' is not the word--I know it; but you will be
found out, and by sheer force of argument you will never prevail.

I shall not make the attempt, my dear man; but to avoid any
misunderstanding occurring between us in future, let me ask, in what
sense do you speak of a ruler or stronger whose interest, as you were
saying, he being the superior, it is just that the inferior should
execute--is he a ruler in the popular or in the strict sense of the
term?

In the strictest of all senses, he said. And now cheat and play the
informer if you can; I ask no quarter at your hands. But you never will
be able, never.

And do you imagine, I said, that I am such a madman as to try and cheat,
Thrasymachus? I might as well shave a lion.

Why, he said, you made the attempt a minute ago, and you failed.

Enough, I said, of these civilities. It will be better that I should ask
you a question: Is the physician, taken in that strict sense of which
you are speaking, a healer of the sick or a maker of money? And remember
that I am now speaking of the true physician.

A healer of the sick, he replied.

And the pilot--that is to say, the true pilot--is he a captain of
sailors or a mere sailor?

A captain of sailors.

The circumstance that he sails in the ship is not to be taken into
account; neither is he to be called a sailor; the name pilot by which he
is distinguished has nothing to do with sailing, but is significant of
his skill and of his authority over the sailors.

Very true, he said.

Now, I said, every art has an interest?

Certainly.

For which the art has to consider and provide?

Yes, that is the aim of art.

And the interest of any art is the perfection of it--this and nothing
else?

What do you mean?

I mean what I may illustrate negatively by the example of the body.
Suppose you were to ask me whether the body is self-sufficing or has
wants, I should reply: Certainly the body has wants; for the body may
be ill and require to be cured, and has therefore interests to which
the art of medicine ministers; and this is the origin and intention of
medicine, as you will acknowledge. Am I not right?

Quite right, he replied.

But is the art of medicine or any other art faulty or deficient in any
quality in the same way that the eye may be deficient in sight or the
ear fail of hearing, and therefore requires another art to provide
for the inter