Soc. one of them anyhow, as you say, looks like me in his cast of countenance, and the other has the same name and appellation, which implies some sort of kinship. Of course we ought always to be eager to get acquainted with our relatives by debating with them. Now I myself had an argument with Theaetetus yesterday and have been listening to his answers just now, but I do not know Socrates in either way and must examine him, too. But let him reply to you now; my turn will come by and by.

Str. Very well; Socrates, do you hear what Socrates says?

Y. Soc. Yes.

Str. And do you agree?

Y. Soc. Certainly.

Y. Soc. Quite right.

Str. Then since a reasonable distinction between this class and the rest has been made, by distinguishing the commands given as one’s own or another’s, shall we again divide this class, if there is in it any further line of section?

Y. Soc. Certainly.

Str. I think there is one; please help me in making the section.

Y. Soc. On what line?

Str. Take the case of all those whom we conceive of as rulers who give commands: shall we not find that they all issue commands for the sake of producing something?

Y. Soc. Of course.

Str. Furthermore it is not at all difficult to divide all that is produced into two classes.

Y. Soc. How?

Str. Of the whole class, some have life and others have no life.

Y. Soc. Yes.

Str. And on these same lines we may, if we like, make a division of the part of intellectual science which commands.

Y. Soc. In what way?

Str. By assigning one part of it to the production of lifeless, the other to that of living objects; and in this way the whole will be divided into two parts.

Y. Soc. Certainly.

Str. Let us then leave one half and take up the other, and then let us divide that entire half into two parts.

Y. Soc. Which half shall we take up?

Str. That which issues commands relating to living objects, assuredly. For certainly the science of the king is not, like that of the architect, one which supervises lifeless objects; it is a nobler science, since it exercises its power among living beings and in relation to them alone.

Y. Soc. True.

Str. Now you may notice that the breeding and nurture of living beings is sometimes the nurture of a single animal and sometimes the common care of creatures in droves.

Y. Soc. True.

Str. But we shall find that the statesman is not one who tends a single creature, like the driver of a single ox or the groom who tends a horse; he has more resemblance to a man who tends a herd of cattle or a drove of horses.

Y. Soc. That seems to be true, now that you mention it.

Str. Good, Socrates! If you preserve this attitude of indifference to mere names, you will turn out richer in wisdom when you are old. But now we will, as you suggest, not trouble ourselves about the name; but do you see a way in which a man may show that the art of herding is twofold, and may thereby cause that which is now sought among a double number of things to be sought among half as many?

Y. Soc. I am quite willing to try. I think one kind is the care of men, the other that of beasts.

Str. You made the division with perfect willingness and courage. However, let us do our best not to fall again into your error.

Y. Soc. What error?

Str. We must not take a single small part, and set it off against many large ones, nor disregard species in making our division. On the contrary, the part must be also a species. It is a very fine thing to separate the object of our search at once from everything else, if the separation can be made correctly, and so, just now, you thought you had the right division and you hurried our discussion along, because you saw that it was leading towards man. But, my friend, it is not safe to whittle off shavings; it is safer to proceed by cutting through the middle, and in that way one is more likely to find classes. This makes all the difference in the conduct of research.

Y. Soc. What do you mean by that, Stranger?

Str. I must try to speak still more clearly, Socrates, out of regard for your capacity. Just at present it is impossible to make the matter entirely plain, but I will try to lay it before you a little more fully for the sake of clearness.

Y. Soc. What is it, then, that you say we did wrongly in making our division just now?

Str. It was very much as if, in undertaking to divide the human race into two parts, one should make the division as most people in this country do; they separate the Hellenic race from all the rest as one, and to all the other races, which are countless in number and have no relation in blood or language to one another, they give the single name barbarian; then, because of this single name, they think it is a single species. Or it was as if a man should think he was dividing number into two classes by cutting off a myriad from all the other numbers, with the notion that he was making one separate class, and then should give one name to all the rest, and because of that name should think that this also formed one class distinct from the other. A better division, more truly classified and more equal, would be made by dividing number into odd and even, and the human race into male and female; as for the Lydians and Phrygians and various others they could be opposed to the rest and split off from them when it was impossible to find and separate two parts, each of which formed a class.

Y. Soc. Very true; but that’s just the trouble, Stranger: how can we get a clearer knowledge of class and part, and see that they are not the same thing, but different?

Str. Socrates, you most excellent young man, it is no small task you impose upon me. We have already strayed away from our subject more than we ought, and you wish us to wander still farther afield. So for the present let us return to our subject, as is proper; then we will go on the trail of this other matter by and by, when we have time. Only take very good care not to imagine that you ever heard me declare flatly—

Y. Soc. What?

Str. That class and part are separate from one another.

Y. Soc. But what did you say?

Str. That when there is a class of anything, it must necessarily be a part of the thing of which it is said to be a class; but there is no necessity that a part be also a class. Please always give this, rather than the other, as my doctrine.

Y. Soc. I will do so.

Str. Well, even at that stage of our discussion all animals had already been divided into tame and wild. For if their nature admits of domestication they are called tame; if it does not, they are called wild.

Y. Soc. Excellent.

Str. But the science we are hunting for was, and is, to be sought among tame creatures, more specifically creatures in herds.

Y. Soc. Yes.

Str. Let us, then, not make our division as we did before, with a view to all, nor in a hurry, with the idea that we may thus reach political science quickly, for that has already brought upon us the proverbial penalty.

Y. Soc. What penalty?

Str. The penalty of having made less speed, because we made too much haste and did not make our division right.

Y. Soc. And it was a good thing for us, Stranger

Str. I do not deny it. So let us begin again and try to divide the art of tending animals in common; for perhaps the information you desire so much will come to you in the ordinary course of our conversation better than by other means. Tell me—

Y. Soc. What?

Str. Whether, as I suppose, you have often heard people speak of this,— for I know you never actually saw the preserves of fish in the Nile and in the ponds of the Persian king. But perhaps you have noticed the like in fountain-pools.

Y. Soc. Yes, I have often seen the fish in fountain-pools and have heard many tales of those foreign preserves.

Str. And surely, even if you have not wandered over the plains of Thessaly, you have heard of goose-farms and crane-farms there and you believe that they exist.

Y. Soc. Yes, of course.