Statesman (282-286)

Str. And among the causal arts we may properly include washing and mending and all the care of clothing in such ways; and, since the art of adornment is a wide one, we may classify them as a part of it under the name of fulling.

Y. Soc. Good.

Str. And, again, carding and spinning and all the processes concerned with the actual fabrication of the clothing under consideration, form collectively one art familiar to every one—the art of wool-working.

Y. Soc. Of course.

Str. And wool-working comprises two divisions, and each of these is a part of two arts at once.

Y. Soc. How is that?

Str. Carding, and one half of the use of the weaver’s rod, [*] and the other crafts which separate things that are joined—all this collectively is a part of the art of wool-working; and in all things we found two great arts, that of composition and that of division.

Y. Soc. Yes.

Str. Now carding and all the other processes just mentioned are parts of the art of division; for the art of division in wool and threads, exercised in one way with the rod and in another with the hands, has all the names just mentioned.

Y. Soc. Yes, certainly.

Str. Then let us again take up something which is at once a part of the arts of composition and of wool-working. Let us put aside all that belongs to division, making two parts of wool-working, by applying the principles of division and of composition.

Y. Soc. Let us make that distinction.

Str. The part which belongs at once to composition and to wool-working, Socrates, you must allow us to divide again, if we are to get a satisfactory concept of the aforesaid art of weaving.

Y. Soc. Then we must divide it.

Str. Yes, we must; and let us call one part of it the art of twisting threads, and the other the art of intertwining them.

Y. Soc. I am not sure I understand. By the art of twisting I think you mean the making of the warp.

Str. Not that only, but also the making of the woof. We shall not find that the woof is made without twisting, shall we?

Y. Soc. No, of course not.

Str. Well, just define warp and woof; perhaps the definition would serve you well at this junction.

Y. Soc. How shall I do it?

Str. In this way: A piece of carded wool, which is lengthened out and is wide, is said to be a lap of wool, is it not?

Y. Soc. Yes.

Str. And if any such lap of wool is twisted with a spindle and made into a hard thread, we call the thread warp, and the art which governs this process is the art of spinning the warp.

Y. Soc. Right.

Str. And the threads, in turn, which are more loosely twisted and have in respect to the force used in the carding a softness adapted to the interweaving with the warp we will call the woof, and the art devoted to these we will call the art of preparing the woof. [*]

Y. Soc. Quite right.

Str. So now the part of the art of weaving which we chose for our discussion is clear to pretty much every understanding; for when that part of the art of composition which is included in the art of weaving forms a web by the right intertwining of woof and warp, we call the entire web a woollen garment, and the art which directs this process we call weaving.

Y. Soc. Quite right.

Str. Very good. Then why in the world did we not say at once that weaving is the intertwining of woof and warp? Why did we beat about the bush and make a host of futile distinctions?

Y. Soc. For my part, I thought nothing that was said was futile, Stranger.

Str. And no wonder; but perhaps you might change your mind. Now to avoid any such malady, in case it should, as is not unlikely, attack you frequently hereafter, I will propose a principle of procedure which is applicable to all cases of this sort.

Y. Soc. Do so.

Str. First, then, let us scrutinize the general nature of excess and deficiency, for the sake of obtaining a rational basis for any praise or blame we may bestow upon excessive length or brevity in discussions of this kind.

Y. Soc. Yes, that is a good thing to do.

Str. Then the proper subjects for our consideration would, I fancy, be these.

Y. Soc. What?

Str. Length and shortness and excess and deficiency in general; for all of them may be regarded as the subjects of the art of measurement.

Y. Soc. Yes.

Str. Let us, then, divide that art into two parts; that is essential for our present purpose.

Y. Soc. Please tell how to make the division.

Str. In this way: one part is concerned with relative greatness or smallness, the other with the something without which production would not be possible.

Y. Soc. What do you mean?

Str. Do you not think that, by the nature of the case, we must say that the greater is greater than the less and than nothing else, and that the less is less than the greater and than nothing else?

Y. Soc. Yes.

Str. But must we not also assert the real existence of excess beyond the standard of the mean, and of inferiority to the mean, whether in words or deeds, and is not the chief difference between good men and bad found in such excess or deficiency?

Y. Soc. That is clear.

Str. Then we must assume that there are these two kinds of great and small, and these two ways of distinguishing between them; we must not, as we did a little while ago, say that they are relative to one another only, but rather, as we have just said, that one kind is relative in that way, and the other is relative to the standard of the mean. Should we care to learn the reason for this?

Y. Soc. Of course.

Str. If we assert that the greater has no relation to anything except the less, it will never have any relation to the standard of the mean, will it?

Y. Soc. No.

Str. Will not this doctrine destroy the arts and their works one and all, and do away also with statesmanship, which we are now trying to define, and with weaving, which we did define? For all these are doubtless careful about excess and deficiency in relation to the standard of the mean; they regard them not as non-existent, but as real difficulties in actual practice, and it is in this way, when they preserve the standard of the mean, that all their works are good and beautiful.

Y. Soc. Certainly.

Str. And if we do away with the art of statesmanship, our subsequent search for the kingly art will be hopeless, will it not?

Y. Soc. Certainly.

Str. Then just as in the case of the sophist [*] we forced the conclusion that not-being exists, since that was the point at which we had lost our hold of the argument, so now we must force this second conclusion, that the greater and the less are to be measured in relation, not only to one another, but also to the establishment of the standard of the mean, must we not? For if this is not admitted, neither the statesman nor any other man who has knowledge of practical affairs can be said without any doubt to exist.

Y. Soc. Then we must by all means do now the same that we did then.

Str. This, Socrates, is a still greater task than that was; and yet we remember how long that took us; but it is perfectly fair to make about them some such assumption as this.

Y. Soc. As what?

Str. That sometime we shall need this principle of the mean for the demonstration of absolute precise truth. But our belief that the demonstration is for our present purpose good and sufficient is, in my opinion, magnificently supported by this argument—that we must believe that all the arts alike exist and that the greater and the less are measured in relation not only to one another but also to the establishment of the standard of the mean. For if this exists, they exist also, and if they exist, it exists also, but neither can ever exist if the other does not.

Y. Soc. That is quite right. But what comes next?

Str. We should evidently divide the science of measurement into two parts in accordance with what has been said. One part comprises all the arts which measure number, length, depth, breadth, and thickness in relation to their opposites; the other comprises those which measure them in relation to the moderate, the fitting, the opportune, the needful, and all the other standards that are situated in the mean between the extremes.

Y. Soc. Both of your divisions are extensive, and there is a great difference between them.

Str. Yes, for what many clever persons occasionally say, Socrates, fancying that it is a wise remark, namely, that the science of measurement has to do with everything, is precisely the same as what we have just said. For in a certain way all things which are in the province of art do partake of measurement; but because people are not in the habit of considering things by dividing them into classes, they hastily put these widely different relations [*] into the same category, thinking they are alike; and again they do the opposite of this when they fail to divide other things into parts. What they ought to do is this: when a person at first sees only the unity or common quality of many things, he must not give up until he sees all the differences in them, so far as they exist in classes; and conversely, when all sorts of dissimilarities are seen in a large number of objects he must find it impossible to be discouraged or to stop until has gathered into one circle of similarity all the things which are related to each other and has included them in some sort of class on the basis of their essential nature. No more need be said, then, about this or about deficiency and excess; let us only bear carefully in mind that two kinds of measurement which apply to them have been found, and let us remember what those kinds are.

Y. Soc. We will remember.

Str. Now that we have finished this discussion, let us take up another which concerns the actual objects of our inquiry and the conduct of such discussions in general.

Y. Soc. What is it?

Str. Suppose we were asked the following question about a group of pupils learning their letters: When a pupil is asked of what letters some word or other composed, is the question asked for the sake of the one particular word before him or rather to make him more learned about all words in the lesson?

Y. Soc. Clearly to make him more learned about them all.

Str. And how about our own investigation of the statesman? Has it been undertaken for the sake of his particular subject or rather to make us better thinkers about all subjects?

Y. Soc. Clearly this also is done with a view to them all.

Str. Of course no man of sense would wish to pursue the discussion of weaving for its own sake; but most people, it seems to me, fail to notice that some things have sensible resemblances which are easily perceived; and it is not at all difficult to show them when anyone wishes, in response to a request for an explanation of some one of them, to exhibit them easily without trouble and really without explanation. But, on the other hand, the greatest and noblest conceptions have no image wrought plainly for human vision, which he who wishes to satisfy the mind of the inquirer can apply to some one of his senses and by mere exhibition satisfy the mind.

Str. We must therefore endeavor by practice to acquire the power of giving and understanding a rational definition of each one of them; for immaterial things, which are the noblest and greatest, can be exhibited by reason only, and it is for their sake that all we are saying is said. But it is always easier to practise in small matters than in greater ones.

Y. Soc. Excellent.

Str. Let us, then, remember the reason for all that we have said about these matters.

Y. Soc. What is the reason?

Str. The reason is chiefly just that irritating impatience which we exhibited in relation to the long talk about weaving and the revolution of the universe and the sophist’s long talk about the existence of not-being. [*] We felt that they were too long, and we reproached ourselves for all of them, fearing that our talk was not only long, but irrelevant. Consider, therefore, that the reason for what has just been said is my wish to avoid any such impatience in the future.

Y. Soc. Very well. Please go on with what you have to say.

Str. What I have to say, then, is that you and I, remembering what has just been said, must praise or blame the brevity or length of our several discussions, not by comparing their various lengths with one another, but with reference to that part of the science of measurement which we said before must be borne in mind; I mean the standard of fitness.

Y. Soc. Quite right.