merely abstract knowledge, wholly separated from action?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: But in the art of carpentering and all other handicrafts, the
knowledge of the workman is merged in his work; he not only knows, but
he also makes things which previously did not exist.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Then let us divide sciences in general into those which are
practical and those which are purely intellectual.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Let us assume these two divisions of science, which is
one whole.
STRANGER: And are 'statesman,' 'king,' 'master,' or 'householder,' one
and the same; or is there a science or art answering to each of these
names? Or rather, allow me to put the matter in another way.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Let me hear.
STRANGER: If any one who is in a private station has the skill to advise
one of the public physicians, must not he also be called a physician?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: And if any one who is in a private station is able to advise
the ruler of a country, may not he be said to have the knowledge which
the ruler himself ought to have?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: But surely the science of a true king is royal science?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: And will not he who possesses this knowledge, whether he
happens to be a ruler or a private man, when regarded only in reference
to his art, be truly called 'royal'?
YOUNG SOCRATES: He certainly ought to be.
STRANGER: And the householder and master are the same?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course.
STRANGER: Again, a large household may be compared to a small
state:--will they differ at all, as far as government is concerned?
YOUNG SOCRATES: They will not.
STRANGER: Then, returning to the point which we were just now
discussing, do we not clearly see that there is one science of all
of them; and this science may be called either royal or political or
economical; we will not quarrel with any one about the name.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly not.
STRANGER: This too, is evident, that the king cannot do much with his
hands, or with his whole body, towards the maintenance of his empire,
compared with what he does by the intelligence and strength of his mind.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Clearly not.
STRANGER: Then, shall we say that the king has a greater affinity to
knowledge than to manual arts and to practical life in general?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly he has.
STRANGER: Then we may put all together as one and the
same--statesmanship and the statesman--the kingly science and the king.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Clearly.
STRANGER: And now we shall only be proceeding in due order if we go on
to divide the sphere of knowledge?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good.
STRANGER: Think whether you can find any joint or parting in knowledge.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Tell me of what sort.
STRANGER: Such as this: You may remember that we made an art of
calculation?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: Which was, unmistakeably, one of the arts of knowledge?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: And to this art of calculation which discerns the differences
of numbers shall we assign any other function except to pass judgment on
their differences?
YOUNG SOCRATES: How could we?
STRANGER: You know that the master-builder does not work himself, but is
the ruler of workmen?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: He contributes knowledge, not manual labour?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: And may therefore be justly said to share in theoretical
science?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite true.
STRANGER: But he ought not, like the calculator, to regard his functions
as at an end when he has formed a judgment;--he must assign to the
individual workmen their appropriate task until they have completed the
work.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: Are not all such sciences, no less than arithmetic and the
like, subjects of pure knowledge; and is not the difference between the
two classes, that the one sort has the power of judging only, and the
other of ruling as well?
YOUNG SOCRATES: That is evident.
STRANGER: May we not very properly say, that of all knowledge, there are
two divisions--one which rules, and the other which judges?
YOUNG SOCRATES: I should think so.
STRANGER: And when men have anything to do in common, that they should
be of one mind is surely a desirable thing?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: Then while we are at unity among ourselves, we need not mind
about the fancies of others?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly not.
STRANGER: And now, in which of these divisions shall we place the
king?--Is he a judge and a kind of spectator? Or shall we assign to him
the art of command--for he is a ruler?
YOUNG SOCRATES: The latter, clearly.
STRANGER: Then we must see whether there is any mark of division in the
art of command too. I am inclined to think that there is a distinction
similar to that of manufacturer and retail dealer, which parts off the
king from the herald.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How is this?
STRANGER: Why, does not the retailer receive and sell over again the
productions of others, which have been sold before?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly he does.
STRANGER: And is not the herald under command, and does he not receive
orders, and in his turn give them to others?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: Then shall we mingle the kingly art in the same class with the
art of the herald, the interpreter, the boatswain, the prophet, and the
numerous kindred arts which exercise command; or, as in the preceding
comparison we spoke of manufacturers, or sellers for themselves, and of
retailers,--seeing, too, that the class of supreme rulers, or rulers for
themselves, is almost nameless--shall we make a word following the
same analogy, and refer kings to a supreme or ruling-for-self science,
leaving the rest to receive a name from some one else? For we are
seeking the ruler; and our enquiry is not concerned with him who is not
a ruler.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good.
STRANGER: Thus a very fair distinction has been attained between the man
who gives his own commands, and him who gives another's. And now let us
see if the supreme power allows of any further division.
YOUNG SOCRATES: By all means.
STRANGER: I think that it does; and please to assist me in making the
division.
YOUNG SOCRATES: At what point?
STRANGER: May not all rulers be supposed to command for the sake of
producing something?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Nor is there any difficulty in dividing the things produced
into two classes.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How would you divide them?
STRANGER: Of the whole class, some have life and some are without life.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: And by the help of this distinction we may make, if we please,
a subdivision of the section of knowledge which commands.
YOUNG SOCRATES: At what point?
STRANGER: One part may be set over the production of lifeless, the other
of living objects; and in this way the whole will be divided.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: That division, then, is complete; and now we may leave one
half, and take up the other; which may also be divided into two.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Which of the two halves do you mean?
STRANGER: Of course that which exercises command about animals. For,
surely, the royal science is not like that of a master-workman,
a science presiding over lifeless objects;--the king has a nobler
function, which is the management and control of living beings.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: And the breeding and tending of living beings may be observed
to be sometimes a tending of the individual; in other cases, a common
care of creatures in flocks?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: But the statesman is not a tender of individuals--not like
the driver or groom of a single ox or horse; he is rather to be compared
with the keeper of a drove of horses or oxen.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, I see, thanks to you.
STRANGER: Shall we call this art of tending many animals together, the
art of managing a herd, or the art of collective management?
YOUNG SOCRATES: No matter;--whichever suggests itself to us in the
course of conversation.
STRANGER: Very good, Socrates; and, if you continue to be not too
particular about names, you will be all the richer in wisdom when you
are an old man. And now, as you say, leaving the discussion of the
name,--can you see a way in which a person, by showing the art of
herding to be of two kinds, may cause that which is now sought amongst
twice the number of things, to be then sought amongst half that number?
YOUNG SOCRATES: I will try;--there appears to me to be one management of
men and another of beasts.
STRANGER: You have certainly divided them in a most straightforward and
manly style; but you have fallen into an error which hereafter I think
that we had better avoid.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is the error?
STRANGER: I think that we had better not cut off a single small portion
which is not a species, from many larger portions; the part should be a
species. To separate off at once the subject of investigation, is a most
excellent plan, if only the separation be rightly made; and you were
under the impression that you were right, because you saw that you would
come to man; and this led you to hasten the steps. But you should not
chip off too small a piece, my friend; the safer way is to cut through
the middle; which is also the more likely way of finding classes.
Attention to this principle makes all the difference in a process of
enquiry.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean, Stranger?
STRANGER: I will endeavour to speak more plainly out of love to your
good parts, Socrates; and, although I cannot at present entirely explain
myself, I will try, as we proceed, to make my meaning a little clearer.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What was the error of which, as you say, we were guilty
in our recent division?
STRANGER: The error was just as if some one who wanted to divide the
human race, were to divide them after the fashion which prevails in this
part of the world; here they cut off the Hellenes as one species, and
all the other species of mankind, which are innumerable, and have
no ties or common language, they include under the single name of
'barbarians,' and because they have one name they are supposed to be of
one species also. Or suppose that in dividing numbers you were to
cut off ten thousand from all the rest, and make of it one species,
comprehending the rest under another separate name, you might say that
here too was a single class, because you had given it a single name.
Whereas you would make a much better and more equal and logical
classification of numbers, if you divided them into odd and even; or of
the human species, if you divided them into male and female; and only
separated off Lydians or Phrygians, or any other tribe, and arrayed them
against the rest of the world, when you could no longer make a division
into parts which were also classes.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true; but I wish that this distinction between a
part and a class could still be made somewhat plainer.
STRANGER: O Socrates, best of men, you are imposing upon me a very
difficult task. We have already digressed further from our original
intention than we ought, and you would have us wander still further
away. But we must now return to our subject; and hereafter, when there
is a leisure hour, we will follow up the other track; at the same time,
I wish you to guard against imagining that you ever heard me declare--
YOUNG SOCRATES: What?
STRANGER: That a class and a part are distinct.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What did I hear, then?
STRANGER: That a class is necessarily a part, but there is no similar
necessity that a part should be a class; that is the view which I should
always wish you to attribute to me, Socrates.
YOUNG SOCRATES: So be it.
STRANGER: There is another thing which I should like to know.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is it?
STRANGER: The point at which we digressed; for, if I am not mistaken,
the exact place was at the question, Where you would divide the
management of herds. To this you appeared rather too ready to answer
that there were two species of animals; man being one, and all brutes
making up the other.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: I thought that in taking away a part, you imagined that the
remainder formed a class, because you were able to call them by the
common name of brutes.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That again is true.
STRANGER: Suppose now, O most courageous of dialecticians, that some
wise and understanding creature, such as a crane is reputed to be,
were, in imitation of you, to make a similar division, and set up cranes
against all other animals to their own special glorification, at the
same time jumbling together all the others, including man, under the
appellation of brutes,--here would be the sort of error which we must
try to avoid.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How can we be safe?
STRANGER: If we do not divide the whole class of animals, we shall be
less likely to fall into that error.
YOUNG SOCRATES: We had better not take the whole?
STRANGER: Yes, there lay the source of error in our former division.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How?
STRANGER: You remember how that part of the art of knowledge which
was concerned with command, had to do with the rearing of living
creatures,--I mean, with animals in herds?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: In that case, there was already implied a division of all
animals into tame and wild; those whose nature can be tamed are called
tame, and those which cannot be tamed are called wild.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: And the political science of which we are in search, is and
ever was concerned with tame animals, and is also confined to gregarious
animals.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: But then we ought not to divide, as we did, taking the whole
class at once. Neither let us be in too great haste to arrive quickly at
the political science; for this mistake has already brought upon us the
misfortune of which the proverb speaks.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What misfortune?
STRANGER: The misfortune of too much haste, which is too little speed.
YOUNG SOCRATES: And all the better, Stranger;--we got what we deserved.
STRANGER: Very well: Let us then begin again, and endeavour to divide
the collective rearing of animals; for probably the completion of the
argument will best show what you are so anxious to know. Tell me, then--
YOUNG SOCRATES: What?
STRANGER: Have you ever heard, as you very likely may--for I do not
suppose that you ever actually visited them--of the preserves of fishes
in the Nile, and in the ponds of the Great King; or you may have seen
similar preserves in wells at home?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, to be sure, I have seen them, and I have often
heard the others described.
STRANGER: And you may have heard also, and may have been assured by
report, although you have not travelled in those regions, of nurseries
of geese and cranes in the plains of Thessaly?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: I asked you, because here is a new division of the management
of herds, into the management of land and of water herds.
YOUNG SOCRATES: There is.
STRANGER: And do you agree that we ought to divide the collective
rearing of herds into two corresponding parts, the one the rearing of
water, and the other the rearing of land herds?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: There is surely no need to ask which of these two contains the
royal art, for it is evident to everybody.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Any one can divide the herds which feed on dry land?
YOUNG SOCRATES: How would you divide them?
STRANGER: I should distinguish between those which fly and those which
walk.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Most true.
STRANGER: And where shall we look for the political animal? Might not an
idiot, so to speak, know that he is a pedestrian?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: The art of managing the walking animal has to be further
divided, just as you might halve an even number.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Clearly.
STRANGER: Let me note that here appear in view two ways to that part
or class which the argument aims at reaching,--the one a speedier way,
which cuts off a small portion and leaves a large; the other agrees
better with the principle which we were laying down, that as far as we
can we should divide in the middle; but it is longer. We can take either
of them, whichever we please.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Cannot we have both ways?
STRANGER: Together? What a thing to ask! but, if you take them in turn,
you clearly may.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Then I should like to have them in turn.
STRANGER: There will be no difficulty, as we are near the end; if we had
been at the beginning, or in the middle, I should have demurred to your
request; but now, in accordance with your desire, let us begin with the
longer way; while we are fresh, we shall get on better. And now attend
to the division.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Let me hear.
STRANGER: The tame walking herding animals are distributed by nature
into two classes.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Upon what principle?
STRANGER: The one grows horns; and the other is without horns.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Clearly.
STRANGER: Suppose that you divide the science which manages pedestrian
animals into two corresponding parts, and define them; for if you try to
invent names for them, you will find the intricacy too great.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How must I speak of them, then?
STRANGER: In this way: let the science of managing pedestrian animals
be divided into two parts, and one part assigned to the horned herd, and
the other to the herd that has no horns.
YOUNG SOCRATES: All that you say has been abundantly proved, and may
therefore be assumed.
STRANGER: The king is clearly the shepherd of a polled herd, who have no
horns.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That is evident.
STRANGER: Shall we break up this hornless herd into sections, and
endeavour to assign to him what is his?
YOUNG SOCRATES: By all means.
STRANGER: Shall we distinguish them by their having or not having cloven
feet, or by their mixing or not mixing the breed? You know what I mean.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What?
STRANGER: I mean that horses and asses naturally breed from one another.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: But the remainder of the hornless herd of tame animals will
not mix the breed.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: And of which has the Statesman charge,--of the mixed or of the
unmixed race?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Clearly of the unmixed.
STRANGER: I suppose that we must divide this again as before.
YOUNG SOCRATES: We must.
STRANGER: Every tame and herding animal has now been split up, with
the exception of two species; for I hardly think that dogs should be
reckoned among gregarious animals.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly not; but how shall we divide the two remaining
species?
STRANGER: There is a measure of difference which may be appropriately
employed by you and Theaetetus, who are students of geometry.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is that?
STRANGER: The diameter; and, again, the diameter of a diameter. (Compare
Meno.)
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?
STRANGER: How does man walk, but as a diameter whose power is two feet?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Just so.
STRANGER: And the power of the remaining kind, being the power of twice
two feet, may be said to be the diameter of our diameter.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly; and now I think that I pretty nearly
understand you.
STRANGER: In these divisions, Socrates, I descry what would make another
famous jest.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is it?
STRANGER: Human beings have come out in the same class with the freest
and airiest of creation, and have been running a race with them.
YOUNG SOCRATES: I remark that very singular coincidence.
STRANGER: And would you not expect the slowest to arrive last?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Indeed I should.
STRANGER: And there is a still more ridiculous consequence, that the
king is found running about with the herd and in close competition with
the bird-catcher, who of all mankind is most of an adept at the airy
life. (Plato is here introducing a new subdivision, i.e. that of bipeds
into men and birds. Others however refer the passage to the division
into quadrupeds and bipeds, making pigs compete with human beings and
the pig-driver with the king. According to this explanation we must
translate the words above, 'freest and airiest of creation,' 'worthiest
and laziest of creation.')
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Then here, Socrates, is still clearer evidence of the truth of
what was said in the enquiry about the Sophist? (Compare Sophist.)
YOUNG SOCRATES: What?
STRANGER: That the dialectical method is no respecter of persons, and
does not set the great above the small, but always arrives in her own
way at the truest result.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Clearly.
STRANGER: And now, I will not wait for you to ask, but will of my
own accord take you by the shorter road to the definition of a king.
YOUNG SOCRATES: By all means.
STRANGER: I say that we should have begun at first by dividing land
animals into biped and quadruped; and since the winged herd, and that
alone, comes out in the same class with man, we should divide bipeds
into those which have feathers and those which have not, and when they
have been divided, and the art of the management of mankind is brought
to light, the time will have come to produce our Statesman and ruler,
and set him like a charioteer in his place, and hand over to him the
reins of state, for that too is a vocation which belongs to him.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good; you have paid me the debt,--I mean, that you
have completed the argument, and I suppose that you added the digression
by way of interest. (Compare Republic.)
STRANGER: Then now, let us go back to the beginning, and join the links,
which together make the definition of the name of the Statesman's art.
YOUNG SOCRATES: By all means.
STRANGER: The science of pure knowledge had, as we said originally, a
part which was the science of rule or command, and from this was derived
another part, which was called command-for-self, on the analogy of
selling-for-self; an important section of this was the management of
living animals, and this again was further limited to the management
of them in herds; and again in herds of pedestrian animals. The chief
division of the latter was the art of managing pedestrian animals which
are without horns; this again has a part which can only be comprehended
under one term by joining together three names--shepherding pure-bred
animals. The only further subdivision is the art of man-herding,--this
has to do with bipeds, and is what we were seeking after, and have now
found, being at once the royal and political.
YOUNG SOCRATES: To be sure.
STRANGER: And do you think, Socrates, that we really have done as you
say?
YOUNG SOCRATES: What?
STRANGER: Do you think, I mean, that we have really fulfilled
our intention?--There has been a sort of discussion, and yet the
investigation seems to me not to be perfectly worked out: this is where
the enquiry fails.
YOUNG SOCRATES: I do not understand.
STRANGER: I will try to make the thought, which is at this moment
present in my mind, clearer to us both.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Let me hear.
STRANGER: There were many arts of shepherding, and one of them was the
political, which had the charge of one particular herd?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: And this the argument defined to be the art of rearing, not
horses or other brutes, but the art of rearing man collectively?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: Note, however, a difference which distinguishes the king from
all other shepherds.
YOUNG SOCRATES: To what do you refer?
STRANGER: I want to ask, whether any one of the other herdsmen has a
rival who professes and claims to share with him in the management of
the herd?
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?
STRANGER: I mean to say that merchants, husbandmen, providers of food,
and also training-masters and physicians, will all contend with the
herdsmen of humanity, whom we call Statesmen, declaring that they
themselves have the care of rearing or managing mankind, and that they
rear not only the common herd, but also the rulers themselves.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Are they not right in saying so?