POLITICUS (Statesman) by Plato - Complete text

Page 10

Str. There is another thing which I should like to know.

Y. Soc. What is it?

Str. 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 them were two species of animals; man being one, and all brutes making up the other.

Y. Soc. True.

Str. 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.

Y. Soc. That again is true.

Str. 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.

Y. Soc. How can we be safe?

Str. If we do not divide the whole class of animals, we shall be less likely to fall into that error.

Y. Soc. We had better not take the whole?

Str. Yes, there lay the source of error in our former division.

Y. Soc. How?

Str. 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?

Y. Soc. Yes.

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Plato : POLITICUS

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