Part 5 (1/2)

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 a.s.sured 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 cla.s.s 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.