Str. Would that we had Socrates, but I have to satisfy myself as well as you ; and in my judgment the figure of the king is not yet perfected ; like statuaries who, in their too great haste, having overdone the several parts of their work, lose time in cutting them down, so too we, partly out of haste, partly out of haste, partly out of a magnanimous desire to expose our former error, and also because we imagined that a king required grand illustrations, have taken up a marvellous lump of fable, and have been obliged to use more than was necessary. This made us discourse at large, and, nevertheless, the story never came to an end. And our discussion might be compared to a picture of some living being which had been fairly drawn in outline, but had not yet attained the life and clearness which is given by the blending of colours. Now to intelligent persons a living being had better be delineated by language and discourse than by any painting or work of art : to the duller sort by works of art.
Y. Soc. Very true ; but what is the imperfection which still remains ? I wish that you would tell me.
Str. The higher ideas, my dear friend, can hardly be set forth except through the medium of examples ; every man seems to know all things in a dreamy sort of way, and then again to wake up and to know nothing.
Y. Soc. What do you mean ?
Str. I fear that I have been unfortunate in raising a question about our experience of knowledge.
Y. Soc. Why so ?
Str. Why, because my “example” requires the assistance of another example.
Y. Soc. Proceed ; you need not fear that I shall tire.
Str. I will proceed, finding, as I do, such a ready listener in you : when children are beginning to know their letters —
Y. Soc. What are you going to say ?
Str. That they distinguish the several letters well enough in very short and easy syllables, and are able to tell them correctly.
Y. Soc. Certainly.
Str. Whereas in other syllables they do not recognize them, and think and speak falsely of them.
Y. Soc. Very true.
Str. Will not the best and easiest way of bringing them to a knowledge of what they do not as yet know be —
Y. Soc. Be what ?
Str. To refer them first of all to cases in which they judge correctly about the letters in question, and then to compare these with the cases in which they do not as yet know, and to show them that the letters are the same, and have the same character in both combination, until all cases in which they are right have been Placed side by side with all cases in which they are wrong. In this way they have examples, and are made to learn that each letter in every combination is always the same and not another, and is always called by the same name.
Y. Soc. Certainly.
Str. Are not examples formed in this manner ? We take a thing and compare it with another distinct instance of the same thing, of which we have a right conception, and out of the comparison there arises one true notion, which includes both of them.
Y. Soc. Exactly.
Str. Can we wonder, then, that the soul has the same uncertainty about the alphabet of things, and sometimes and in some cases is firmly fixed by the truth in each particular, and then, again, in other cases is altogether at sea ; having somehow or other a correction of combinations ; but when the elements are transferred into the long and difficult language (syllables) of facts, is again ignorant of them ?
Y. Soc. There is nothing wonderful in that.
Str. Could any one, my friend, who began with false opinion ever expect to arrive even at a small portion of truth and to attain wisdom ?
Y. Soc. Hardly.
Str. Then you and I will not be far wrong in trying to see the nature of example in general in a small and particular instance ; afterwards from lesser things we intend to pass to the royal class, which is the highest form of the same nature, and endeavour to discover by rules of art what the management of cities is ; and then the dream will become a reality to us.
Y. Soc. Very true.
Str. Then, once more, let us resume the previous argument, and as there were innumerable rivals of the royal race who claim to have the care of states, let us part them all off, and leave him alone ; and, as I was saying, a model or example of this process has first to be framed.
Y. Soc. Exactly.
Str. What model is there which is small, and yet has any analogy with the political occupation ? Suppose, Socrates, that if we have no other example at hand, we choose weaving, or, more precisely, weaving of wool — this will be quite enough, without taking the whole of weaving, to illustrate our meaning ?
Y. Soc. Certainly.
Str. Why should we not apply to weaving the same processes of division and subdivision which we have already applied to other classes ; going once more as rapidly as we can through all the steps until we come to that which is needed for our purpose ?
Y. Soc. How do you mean ?
Str. I shall reply by actually performing the process.
Y. Soc. Very good.
Str. All things which we make or acquire are either creative or preventive ; of the preventive class are antidotes, divine and human, and also defences ; and defences are either military weapons or protections ; and protections are veils, and also shields against heat and cold, and shields against heat and cold are shelters and coverings ; and coverings are blankets and garments ; and garments are some of them in one piece, and others of them are made in several parts ; and of these latter some are stitched, others are fastened and not stitched ; and of the not stitched, some are made of the sinews of plants, and some of hair ; and of these, again, some are cemented with water and earth, and others are fastened together by themselves. And these last defences and coverings which are fastened together by themselves are called clothes, and the art which superintends them we may call, from the nature of the operation, the art of clothing, just as before the art of the Statesman was derived from the State ; and may we not say that the art of weaving, at least that largest portion of it which was concerned with the making of clothes, differs only in name from this art of clothing, in the same way that, in the previous case, the royal science differed from the political ?
Y. Soc. Most true.
Str. In the next place, let us make the reflection, that the art of weaving clothes, which an incompetent person might fancy to have been sufficiently described, has been separated off from several others which are of the same family, but not from the co-operative arts.
Y. Soc. And which are the kindred arts ?
Str. I see that I have not taken you with me. So I think that we had better go backwards, starting from the end. We just now parted off from the weaving of clothes, the making of blankets, which differ from each other in that one is put under and the other is put around ! and these are what I termed kindred arts.
Y. Soc. I understand.
Str. And we have subtracted the manufacture of all articles made of flax and cords, and all that we just now metaphorically termed the sinews of plants, and we have also separated off the process of felting and the putting together of materials by stitching and sewing, of which the most important part is the cobbler’s art.
Y. Soc. Precisely.
Str. Then we separated off the currier’s art, which prepared coverings in entire pieces, and the art of sheltering, and subtracted the various arts of making water-tight which are employed in building, and in general in carpentering, and in other crafts, and all such arts as furnish impediments to thieving and acts of violence, and are concerned with making the lids of boxes and the fixing of doors, being divisions of the art of joining ; and we also cut off the manufacture of arms, which is a section of the great and manifold art of making defences ; and we originally began by parting off the whole of the magic art which is concerned with antidoter, and have left, as would appear, the very art of which we were in search, the art of protection against winter cold, which fabricates woollen defences, and has the name of weaving.
Y. Soc. Very true.
Str. Yes, my boy, but that is not all ; for the first process to which the material is subjected is the opposite of weaving.
Y. Soc. How so ?
Str. Weaving is a sort of uniting ?
Y. Soc. Yes.
Str. But the first process is a separation of the clotted and matted fibres ?
Y. Soc. What do you mean ?
Str. I mean the work of the carder’s art ; for we cannot say that carding is weaving, or that the carder is a weaver.
Y. Soc. Certainly not.
Str. Again, if a person were to say that the art of making the warp and the woof was the art of weaving, he would say what was paradoxical and false.
Y. Soc. To be sure.
Str. Shall we say that the whole art of the fuller or of the mender has nothing to do with the care and treatment clotes, or are we to regard all these as arts of weaving ?
Y. Soc. Certainly not.
Str. And yet surely all these arts will maintain that they are concerned with the treatment and production of clothes ; they will dispute the exclusive prerogative of weaving, and though assigning a larger sphere to that, will still reserve a considerable field for themselves.
Y. Soc. Very true.
Str. Besides these, there are the arts which make tools and instruments of weaving, and which will claim at least to be cooperative causes in every work of the weaver.
Y. Soc. Most true.
Str. Well, then, suppose that we define weaving, or rather that part of it which has been selected by us, to be the greatest and noblest of arts which are concerned with woollen garments — shall we be right ? Is not the definition, although true, wanting in clearness and completeness ; for do not all those other arts require to be first cleared away ?
Y. Soc. True.
Str. Then the next thing will be to separate them, in order that the argument may proceed in a regular manner ?
Y. Soc. By all means.
Str. Let us consider, in the first place, that there are two kinds of arts entering into everything which we do.
Y. Soc. What are they ?
Str. The one kind is the conditional or cooperative, the other the principal cause.
Y. Soc. What do you mean ?
Str. The arts which do not manufacture the actual thing, but which furnish the necessary tools for the manufacture, without which the several arts could not fulfil their appointed work, are co-operative ; but those which make the things themselves are causal.
Y. Soc. A very reasonable distinction.
Str. Thus the arts which make spindles, combs, and other instruments of the production of clothes may be called co-operative, and those which treat and fabricate the things themselves, causal.
Y. Soc. Very true.
Str. The arts of washing and mending, and the other preparatory arts which belong to the causal class, and form a division of the great art of adornment, may be all comprehended under what we call the fuller’s art.
Y. Soc. Very good.
Str. Carding and spinning threads and all the parts of the process which are concerned with the actual manufacture of a woollen garment form a single art, which is one of thow universally acknowledged — the art of working in wool.
Y. Soc. To be sure.
Str. Of working in wool again, there are two divisions, and both these are parts of two arts at once.
Y. Soc. How is that ?
Str. Carding and one half of the use of the comb, and the other processes of wool-working which separate the composite, may be classed together as belonging both to the art of woolworking, and also to one of the two great arts which are of universal application — the art of composition and the art of division.
Y. Soc. Yes.
Str. To the latter belong carding and the other processes of which I was just now speaking the art of discernment or division in wool and yarn, which is effected in one manner with the comb and in another with the hands, is variously described under all the names which I just now mentioned.
Y. Soc. Very true.
Str. Again, let us take some process of woolworking which is also a portion of the art of composition, and, dismissing the elements of division which we found there, make two halves, one on the principle of composition, and the other on the principle of division.
Y. Soc. Let that be done.
Str. And once more, Socrates, we must divide the part which belongs at once both to woolworking and composition, if we are ever to discover satisfactorily the aforesaid art of weaving.
Y. Soc. We must.
Str. Yes, certainly, and let us call one part of the art the art of twisting threads, the other the art of combining them.
Y. Soc. Do I understand you, in speaking of twisting, to be referring to manufacture of the warp ?
Str. Yes, and of the woof too ; how, if not by twisting, is the woof made ?
Y. Soc. There is no other way.
Str. Then suppose that you define the warp and the woof, for I think that the definition will be of use to you.
Y. Soc. How shall I define them ?
Str. As thus : A piece of carded wool which is drawn out lengthwise and breadth-wise is said to be pulled out.
Y. Soc. Yes.
Str. And the wool thus prepared when twisted by the spindle, and made into a firm thread, is called the warp, And the art which regulates these operations the art of spinning the warp.
Y. Soc. True.
Str. And the threads which are more loosely spun, having a softness proportioned to the intertexture of the warp and to the degree of force used in dressing the cloth — the threads which are thus spun are called the woof, and the art which is set over them may be called the art of spinning the woof.
Y. Soc. Very true.
Str. And, now, there can be no mistake about the nature of the part of weaving which we have undertaken to define. For when that part of the art of composition which is employed in the working of wool forms a web by the regular intertexture of warp and woof, the entire woven substance is called by us a woollen garment, and the art which presides over this is the art of weaving.
Y. Soc. Very true.
Str. But why did we not say at once that weaving is the art of entwining warp and woof, instead of making a long and useless circuit ?
Y. Soc. I thought, Stranger, that there was nothing useless in what was said.
Str. Very likely, but you may not always think so, my sweet friend ; and in case any feeling of dissatisfaction should hereafter arise in your mind, as it very well may, let me lay down a principle which will apply to arguments in general.
Y. Soc. Proceed.
Str. Let us begin by considering the whole nature of excess and defect, and then we shall have a rational ground on which we may praise or blame too much length or too much shortness in discussions of this kind.
Y. Soc. Let us do so.
Str. The points on which I think that we ought to dwell are the following : —
Y. Soc. What ?
Str. Length and shortness, excess and defect ; with all of these the art of measurement is conversant.
Y. Soc. Yes.
Str. And the art of measurement has to be divided into two parts, with a view to our present purpose.
Y. Soc. Where would you make the division ?
Str. As thus : I would make two parts, one having regard to the relativity of greatness and smallness to each other ; and there is another, without which the existence of production would be impossible.
Y. Soc. What do you mean ?
Str. Do you not think that it is only natural for the greater to be called greater with reference to the less alone, and the less reference to the greater alone ?
Y. Soc. Yes.
Str. Well, but is there not also something exceeding and exceeded by the principle of the mean, both in speech and action, and is not this a reality, and the chief mark of difference between good and bad men ?
Y. Soc. Plainly.
Str. Then we must suppose that the great and small exist and are discerned in both these ways, and not, as we were saying before, only relatively to one another, but there must also be another comparison of them with the mean or ideal standard ; would you like to hear the reason why ?
Y. Soc. Certainly.
Str. If we assume the greater to exist only in relation to the less, there will never be any comparison of either with the mean.
Y. Soc. True.
Str. And would not this doctrine be the ruin of all the arts and their creations ; would not the art of the Statesman and the aforesaid art of weaving disappear ? For all these arts are on the watch against excess and defect, not as unrealities, but as real evils, which occasion a difficulty in action ; and the excellence of beauty of every work of art is due to this observance of measure.
Y. Soc. Certainly.
Str. But if the science of the Statesman disappears, the search for the royal science will be impossible.
Y. Soc. Very true.
Str. Well, then, as in the case of the Sophist we extorted the inference that not-being had an existence, because here was the point at which the argument eluded our grasp, so in this we must endeavour to show that the greater and, less are not only to be measured with one another, but also have to do with the production of the mean ; for if this is not admitted, neither a statesman nor any other man of action can be an undisputed master of his science.
Y. Soc. Yes, we must certainly do again what we did then.
Str. But this, Socrates, is a greater work than the other, of which we only too well remember the length. I think, however, that we may fairly assume something of this sort —
Y. Soc. What ?
Str. That we shall some day require this notion of a mean with a view to the demonstration of absolute truth ; meanwhile, the argument that the very existence of the arts must be held to depend on the possibility of measuring more or less, not only with one another, but also with a view to the attainment of the mean, seems to afford a grand support and satisfactory proof of the doctrine which we are maintaining ; for if there are arts, there is a standard of measure, and if there is a standard of measure, there are arts ; but if either is wanting, there is neither.
Y. Soc. True ; and what is the next step ?
Str. The next step clearly is to divide the art of measurement into two parts, all we have said already, and to place in the one part all the arts which measure number, length, depth, breadth, swiftness with their opposites ; and to have another part in which they are measured with the mean, and the fit, and the opportune, and the due, and with all those words, in short, which denote a mean or standard removed from the extremes.
Y. Soc. Here are two vast divisions, embracing two very different spheres.
Str. There are many accomplished men, Socrates, who say, believing themselves to speak wisely, that the art of measurement is universal, and has to do with all things. And this means what we are now saying ; for all things which come within the province of art do certainly in some sense partake of measure. But these persons, because they are not accustomed to distinguish classes according to real forms, jumble together two widely different things, relation to one another, and to a standard, under the idea that they are the same, and also fall into the converse error of dividing other things not according to their real parts. Whereas the right way is, if a man has first seen the unity of things, to go on with the enquiry and not desist until he has found all the differences contained in it which form distinct classes ; nor again should he be able to rest contented with the manifold diversities which are seen in a multitude of things until he has comprehended all of them that have any affinity within the bounds of one similarity and embraced them within the reality of a single kind. But we have said enough on this head, and also of excess and defect ; we have only to bear in mind that two divisions of the art of measurement have been discovered which are concerned with them, and not forget what they are.
Y. Soc. We will not forget.
Str. And now that this discussion is completed, let us go on to consider another question, which concerns not this argument only but the conduct of such arguments in general.
Y. Soc. What is this new question ?
Str. Take the case of a child who is engaged in learning his letters : when he is asked what letters make up a word, should we say that the question is intended to improve his grammatical knowledge of that particular word, or of all words ?
Y. Soc. Clearly, in order that he may have a better knowledge of all words.
Str. And is our enquiry about the Statesman intended only to improve our knowledge of politics, or our power of reasoning generally ?
Y. Soc. Clearly, as in the former example, the purpose is general.
Str. Still less would any rational man seek to analyse the notion of weaving for its own sake. But people seem to forget that some things have sensible images, which are readily known, and can be easily pointed out when any one desires to answer an enquirer without any trouble or argument ; whereas the greatest and highest truths have no outward image of themselves visible to man, which he who wishes to satisfy the soul of the enquirer can adapt to the eye of sense, and therefore we ought to train ourselves to give and accept a rational account of them ; for immaterial things, which are the noblest and greatest, are shown only in thought and idea, and in no other way, and all that we are now saying is said for the sake of them. Moreover, there is always less difficulty in fixing the mind on small matters than on great.
Y. Soc. Very good.
Str. Let us call to mind the bearing of all this.
Y. Soc. What is it ?
Str. I wanted to get rid of any impression of tediousness which we may have experienced in the discussion about weaving, and the reversal of the universe, and in the discussion concerning the Sophist and the being of not-being. I know that they were felt to be too long, and I reproached myself with this, fearing that they might be not only tedious but irrelevant ; and all that I have now said is only designed to prevent the recurrence of any such disagreeables for the future.
Y. Soc. Very good. Will you proceed ?
Str. Then I would like to observe that you and I, remembering what has been said, should praise or blame the length or shortness of discussions, not by comparing them with one another, but with what is fitting, having regard to the part of measurement, which, as we said, was to be borne in mind.
Y. Soc. Very true.
Str. And yet, not everything is to be judged even with a view to what is fitting ; for we should only want such a length as is suited to give pleasure, if at all, as a secondary matter ; and reason tells us, that we should be contented to make the ease or rapidity of an enquiry, not our first, but our second object ; the first and highest of all being to assert the great method of division according to species — whether the discourse be shorter or longer is not to the point. No offence should be taken at length, but the longer and shorter are to be employed indifferently, according as either of them is better calculated to sharpen the wits of the auditors. Reason would also say to him who censures the length of discourses on such occasions and cannot away with their circumlocution, that he should not be in such a hurry to have done with them, when he can only complain that they are tedious, but he should prove that if they had been shorter they would have made those who took part in them better dialecticians, and more capable of expressing the truth of things ; about any other praise and blame, he need not trouble himself — he should pretend not to hear them. But we have had enough of this, as you will probably agree with me in thinking. Let us return to our Statesman, and apply to his case the aforesaid example of weaving.
Y. Soc. Very good ; — let us do as you say.