Complete Works (76 page)

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Quite correct.

V
ISITOR
: And as for the part of weaving that we put forward for investigation, I suppose that’s now clear to anyone. When the part of combination which is contained in wool-working produces something intertwined, by the regular intertwining of woof and warp, the whole product of the intertwining we refer to as a piece of woollen clothing, and we refer to the expertise that is over this as weaving.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Quite correct.

V
ISITOR
: Good; so why ever, then, didn’t we immediately reply that [b] weaving was an intertwining of woof and warp, instead of going round in a circle defining a whole collection of things to no purpose?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: To me at least, visitor, nothing of what we have said seemed to have been said to no purpose.

V
ISITOR
: And that isn’t at all surprising, I may say; but perhaps, my dear fellow, it might seem so. So against such a malady, in case it should come [c] upon you later (that wouldn’t be at all surprising), listen to a point which it’s appropriate to make in all cases like this.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Do make it.

V
ISITOR
: First, then, let’s look at excess and deficiency in general, so that we may distribute praise and censure proportionately on each occasion, when things are said at greater length than necessary and when the opposite occurs in discussions like the present one.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: That’s what we must do, then.

V
ISITOR
: If we talked about these very things, I think we’d be proceeding correctly.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What things?

[d] V
ISITOR
: About length and brevity, and excess and deficiency in general. I suppose the art of measurement relates to all of these.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Yes.

V
ISITOR
: Then let’s divide it into two parts; that’s what we need towards our present objective.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Please tell me how we should divide it.

V
ISITOR
: This way: one part will relate to the association of greatness and smallness with each other, the other to what coming into being necessarily is.
⁴⁴

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What do you mean?

V
ISITOR
: Does it not seem to you that by its nature the greater has to be said to be greater than nothing other than the less, and the less in its turn [e] less than the greater, and than nothing else?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: It does.

V
ISITOR
: What about this: shan’t we also say that there really is such a thing as what exceeds what is in due measure, and everything of that sort, in what we say or indeed in what we do? Isn’t it just in that respect that those of us who are bad and those who are good
⁴⁵
most differ?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: It seems so.

V
ISITOR
: In that case we must lay it down that the great and the small exist and are objects of judgment in these twin ways. It is not as we said just before, that we must suppose them to exist only in relation to each other, but rather as we have now said, that we should speak of their existing in one way in relation to each other, and in another in relation to what is in due measure. Do we want to know why?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Of course.

V
ISITOR
: If someone will admit the existence of the greater and everything
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of the sort in relation to nothing other than the less, it will never be in relation to what is in due measure—you agree?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: That’s so.

V
ISITOR
: Well, with this account of things we shall destroy—shan’t we?—both the various sorts of expertise themselves and their products, and in particular we shall make the one we’re looking for now, statesmanship, disappear, and the one we said was weaving. For I imagine all such sorts of expertise guard against what is more and less than what is in due measure, not as something which is not, but as something which is and is troublesome in relation to what they do. It is by preserving measure in this way that they produce all the good and fine things they do produce. [b]

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Of course.

V
ISITOR
: If, then, we make the art of statesmanship disappear, our search after that for the knowledge of kingship will lack any way forward?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Very much so.

V
ISITOR
: Is it the case then that just as with the sophist we compelled what is not into being as well as what is, when our argument escaped us down that route,
⁴⁶
so now we must compel the more and less, in their turn, to become measurable not only in relation to each other but also in [c] relation to the coming into being of what is in due measure? For if this has not been agreed, it is certainly not possible for either the statesman or anyone else who possesses knowledge of practical subjects to acquire an undisputed existence.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Then now too we must do the same as much as we can.

V
ISITOR
: This task, Socrates, is even greater than the former one—and we remember what the length of
that
was. Still, it’s very definitely fair to propose the following hypothesis about the subject in question.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What’s that?

V
ISITOR
: That at some time we shall need what I referred to just now
⁴⁷
[d] for the sort of demonstration that would be commensurate with the precise truth itself. But so far as concerns what is presently being shown, quite adequately for our immediate purposes, the argument we are using seems to me to come to our aid in magnificent fashion. Namely, we should surely suppose that it is similarly the case that all the various sorts of expertise exist, and at the same time that greater and less are measured not only in relation to each other but also in relation to the coming into being of what is in due measure. For if the latter is the case, then so is the former, and also if it is the case that the sorts of expertise exist, the other is the case too. But if one or the other is not the case, then neither of them will ever be.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: This much is right; but what’s the next move after this? [e]

V
ISITOR
: It’s clear that we would divide the art of measurement, cutting it in two in just the way we said, positing as one part of it all those sorts of expertise that measure the number, lengths, depths, breadths and speeds of things in relation to what is opposed to them, and as the other, all those that measure in relation to what is in due measure, what is fitting, the right moment, what is as it ought to be—everything that removes itself from the extremes to the middle.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Each of the two sections you refer to is indeed a large one, and very different from the other.

V
ISITOR
: Yes, Socrates; and what many sophisticated people sometimes
[285]
say, supposing themselves to be expressing something clever, to the effect that there is in fact an art of measurement relating to everything that comes into being—that’s actually the very thing we have just said. For it is indeed the case, in a certain way, that all the products of the various sorts of expertise share in measurement. But because of their not being accustomed to carrying on their investigations by dividing according to real classes, the people in question throw these things together at once, despite the degree of difference between them, thinking them alike—and then again they also do the opposite of this by dividing other things not according [b] to parts, when the rule is that when one perceives first the community between the members of a group of many things, one should not desist until one sees in it all those differences that are located in classes, and conversely, with the various unlikenesses, when they are seen in multitudes, one should be incapable of pulling a face and stopping before one has penned all the related things within one likeness and actually surrounded them in some real class. So let this be enough for us to say about these things, and about modes of defect and excess; and let’s just [c] keep hold of the fact that two distinct classes of measurement have been discovered in relation to them, and remember what we say they are.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: We’ll remember.

V
ISITOR
: Well then, after this point, let’s admit another one that relates both to the very things we are inquiring into and to the whole business of discussions of this sort.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What’s that?

V
ISITOR
: What if someone put the following question about our pupils sitting together learning their letters. When one of them is asked what letters make up some word or other, are we to say that for him on that [d] occasion the inquiry takes place more for the sake of the single question set before him, or for the sake of his becoming more able to answer all questions relating to letters?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Clearly for the sake of his being able to answer all.

V
ISITOR
: What then about our inquiry now about the statesman? Has it been set before us more for the sake of that very thing, or for the sake of our becoming better dialecticians in relation to all subjects?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: That’s clear too—for the sake of our becoming better dialecticians generally.

V
ISITOR
: I certainly don’t suppose that anyone with any sense would want to hunt down the definition of
weaving
for the sake of weaving itself. But I think the majority of people fail to recognize that for some of the things there are, there are certain perceptible likenesses which are there [e] to be easily understood, and which it is not at all hard to point out when one wants to make an easy demonstration, involving no trouble and without recourse to verbal means, to someone who asks for an account of one of these things. Conversely, for those things that are greatest and most valuable, there is no image at all which has been worked in plain view for the
[286]
use of mankind, the showing of which will enable the person who wants to satisfy the mind of an inquirer to satisfy it adequately, just by fitting it to one of the senses. That is why one must practice at being able to give and receive an account of each thing; for the things that are without body, which are finest and greatest, are shown clearly only by verbal means and by nothing else, and everything that is now being said is for the sake of these things. But practice in everything is easier in smaller things, rather [b] than in relation to the greater.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Very well said.

V
ISITOR
: Well then, let’s remind ourselves of the reasons why we’ve said all this on these subjects.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Why did we say it all?

V
ISITOR
: Not least because of the difficulty we found in accepting the length of our talk about weaving—and about the reversal of the universe, and about the being of the non-being which is the sphere of the sophist; we reflected that it had a rather great length, and in all these cases we rebuked ourselves, out of fear that what we were saying would turn out [c] to be superfluous as well as long. So, the thing for you to say is that the foregoing was for the sake of all those cases, in order that we shan’t suffer any of this sort of misgiving on any future occasion.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: I shall do as you say. Tell me what comes next.

V
ISITOR
: Well, I say that you and I must be careful to remember what we have now said, and to distribute censure and praise of both shortness and length, whatever subjects we happen to be talking about on each occasion, by judging lengths not in relation to each other but, in accordance with the part of the art of measurement we previously said we must [d] remember, in relation to what is fitting.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Correct.

V
ISITOR
: Well, that’s right, but we mustn’t refer
everything
to this. For one thing, we shan’t have any need for a length that fits in relation to pleasure, except perhaps as an incidental consideration. And again, as for what contributes towards the inquiry into the subject set before us, what we have said commits us to making a second and not a first priority of the question how we might find it most easily and quickly, and to give by far the greatest and primary value to the pursuit itself of the ability to divide by classes. In particular, if an account is very long but renders the [e] hearer better at discovering things, our business is to take this one seriously and not feel at all irritated at its length, and similarly if a shorter one, in its turn, has the same effect. Then again, over and above this, if in relation to such discussions someone finds fault with the length of what is said and will not put up with going round in circles, we must not let such a
[287]
person go just like that
⁴⁸
without a backward glance—with his having made the simple complaint that what has been said has taken a long time. We should think it right that he should also demonstrate, in addition, that if it had been shorter it would make the partners in the discussion better dialecticians and better at discovering how to display in words the things there are. We shall take no notice at all of the other sorts of censure and praise, relating to some other criteria, nor even seem to hear such things at all when they are said. Now enough of these things, if I have your [b] agreement too; let’s go back again to the statesman, and bring the model of weaving, which we talked about before, to bear on it.