Part 9 (1/2)
YOUNG SOCRATES: Proceed; you need not fear that I shall tire.
STRANGER: I will proceed, finding, as I do, such a ready listener in you: when children are beginning to know their letters--
YOUNG SOCRATES: What are you going to say?
STRANGER: That they distinguish the several letters well enough in very short and easy syllables, and are able to tell them correctly.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Whereas in other syllables they do not recognize them, and think and speak falsely of them.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: Will not the best and easiest way of bringing them to a knowledge of what they do not as yet know be--
YOUNG SOCRATES: Be what?
STRANGER: 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 combinations, 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.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: 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.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Exactly.
STRANGER: 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 correct notion of combinations; but when the elements are transferred into the long and difficult language (syllables) of facts, is again ignorant of them?
YOUNG SOCRATES: There is nothing wonderful in that.
STRANGER: 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?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Hardly.
STRANGER: 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 pa.s.s to the royal cla.s.s, 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.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: 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.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Exactly.
STRANGER: What model is there which is small, and yet has any a.n.a.logy 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 ill.u.s.trate our meaning?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Why should we not apply to weaving the same processes of division and subdivision which we have already applied to other cla.s.ses; going once more as rapidly as we can through all the steps until we come to that which is needed for our purpose?
YOUNG SOCRATES: How do you mean?
STRANGER: I shall reply by actually performing the process.