Si. Then at table one has to outshine other people, and show the difference between amateur and professional: is that to be done without thought and ingenuity?
Tyc. No, indeed.
Si. Or perhaps you fancy that any outsider who will take the trouble can tell a good dinner from a bad one. Well, the mighty Plato says, if the guest is not versed in cookery, the dressing of the banquet will be but unworthily judged.
The next point to be established is, that sponging depends not merely on perceptions, but on perceptions regularly employed. Nothing simpler. The perceptions on which other arts are based frequently remain unemployed by their owner for days, nights, months, or years, without his art’s perishing; whereas, if those of the sponger were to miss their daily exercise, not merely his art would perish, but he with it.
There remains the ‘useful purpose in human life’; it would take a madman to question that here. I find nothing that serves a more useful purpose in human life than eating and drinking; without them you cannot live.
Tyc. That is true.
Si. Moreover, sponging is not to be classed with beauty and strength, and so called a quality instead of an art?
Tyc. No.
Si. And, in the sphere of art, it does not denote the negative condition, of unskilfulness. That never brings its owner prosperity. Take an instance: if a man who did not understand navigation took charge of a ship in a stormy sea, would he be safe?
Tyc. Not he.