Complete Works (77 page)

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Well said—let’s do what you say.

V
ISITOR
: Well then, the king has been separated off from the many sorts of expertise that share his field—or rather from all of them concerned with herds; there remain, we are saying, those sorts of expertise in the city itself that are contributory causes and those that are causes, which we must first divide from each other.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Correct.

V
ISITOR
: So do you recognize that it is difficult to cut them into two? [c] The cause, I think, will become more evident if we proceed.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Well, then that’s what we should do.

V
ISITOR
: Then let’s divide them limb by limb, like a sacrificial animal, since we can’t do it into two. For we must always cut into the nearest number so far as we can.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: So how are we to do it in this case?

V
ISITOR
: Just as before: the sorts of expertise that provided tools relating to weaving—all of these, of course, we put down then as contributory causes.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Yes.

[d] V
ISITOR
: We must do the same thing now too, but to a still greater degree than we did then. For we must put down as being contributory causes all the sorts of expertise that produce any tool in the city, whether small or large. Without these there would never come to be a city, nor statesmanship, but on the other hand we shan’t, I think, put down any of them as the product of the expertise of the king.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: No, we shan’t.

V
ISITOR
: And yet we’re trying to do a difficult thing in separating this class of things from the rest; in fact it is possible for someone to treat anything you like as a tool of
something
and seem to have said something [e] credible. Nevertheless, among the things people possess in a city, let’s treat the following as being of a different sort.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Different in what way?

V
ISITOR
: Because it does not have the same capacity that tools have. For it is not put together with the purpose of causing the coming into being of something, as a tool is, but for the sake of preserving what craftsmen have produced.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What do you mean?

V
ISITOR
: That varied class of things which is worked for things liquid and solid, and for things that are prepared on the fire and things that are not—what we refer to with the single name of ‘vessel’: a common class, and one that, I think, simply does not belong at all to the sort of expert
[288]
knowledge we are looking for.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Certainly not.

V
ISITOR
: We must then observe a third very extensive class of things that people possess, different from these others, which is found on land and on water, moves about a lot and is fixed, and is accorded high value and none, but has a single name, because it is all for the sake of some supporting or other, always being a seat for something.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What do you mean?

V
ISITOR
: I suppose we call it by the name of ‘vehicle’; not at all a product of the art of statesmanship, but much more of those of carpentry, pottery, and bronze-working.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: I see.

V
ISITOR
: And what is fourth? Should we say that it is something different [b] from these, something that includes the larger part of the things we mentioned before, all clothing, most armor, and walls, all those encirclements made out of earth, or out of stone, and tens of thousands of other things? Since all of them together are worked for the purpose of defending, it would be most apposite to call the whole class that of ‘defense’, and it would be thought to be a product much more of the expertise of the builder and the weaver, most of it, more correctly than it would be thought to belong to that of the statesman.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Absolutely.

V
ISITOR
: Would we want to put down as a fifth class things to do with [c] decoration, painting, and those representations that are completed by the use of painting, and of music, which have been executed solely to give us pleasures, and which would appropriately be embraced by a single name?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What name?

V
ISITOR
: I think we talk about something we call a ‘plaything’.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Of course.

V
ISITOR
: Well, this one name will be fittingly given to all of them; for not one of them is for the sake of a serious purpose, but all are done for amusement.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: This too I pretty well understand. [d]

V
ISITOR
: And what provides materials for all these things, from which and in which all of the sorts of expertise that have now been mentioned work, a varied class that is itself the offspring of many other sorts of expertise—shall we not put it down as a sixth?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What exactly are you referring to?

V
ISITOR
: Gold and silver, and everything that is mined, and all that the art of tree-felling and any lopping cuts and provides for the art of the carpenter and the basket-weaver—and again the art of stripping off the [e] outer covering of plants, and the one that removes skins from bodies of living things, the art of the skinner; and all the sorts of expertise there are in relation to such things, which by producing cork, and papyrus, and materials for bindings make possible the working up of classes of composite things from classes of things that are not put together. Let us call
⁴⁹
it all one thing, the first-born and incomposite possession of mankind, which is in no way a product of the knowledge of kingship.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Right.

V
ISITOR
: Then again that sort of possession that consists in nutrition, and all those things which when they are blended into the body, their own
[289]
parts with parts of the body, have a capacity for promoting its care, we must say is a seventh, calling it all together ‘nurture’, unless we have some more attractive term to propose. And if we place it under the arts of the farmer, the hunter, the trainer in the gymnasium, the doctor and the cook, we shall be assigning it more correctly than if we give it to the art of the statesman.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Of course.

V
ISITOR
: Well then, we have, I think, pretty well dealt, in these seven classes, with all the things that have to do with possessions, with the exception of tame living creatures. Look at our list: it would be most [b] appropriate if we put down the ‘first-born’ class of things at the beginning, and after this ‘tool’, ‘vessel’, ‘vehicle’, ‘defense’, ‘plaything’, ‘nourishment’. If anything of no great importance has escaped us, we leave it to one side,
⁵⁰
because it is capable of fitting into one or other of these, for example the class consisting of currency, seals, and any sort of engraving. For these do not have any great shared class among them, but if some of them are dragged off into decoration, others into tools, it will be forcibly done, but nevertheless they’ll wholly agree to it. As for what relates to possession [c] of tame living creatures, apart from slaves, the art of herd-rearing which we divided into its parts before will clearly be seen to have caught them all.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Absolutely.

V
ISITOR
: Then what remains is the class of slaves and all those people who are subordinate to others, among whom, I strongly suspect, those who dispute with the king about the ‘woven fabric’ itself will come into view, just as in the case of weaving we found those concerned with spinning and carding and all the other things we mentioned disputing with the weavers over their product.
⁵¹
All the others, who have been described as ‘contributory causes’, have been disposed of along with the products we have just listed, as each was separated off from the practical activity which [d] is the sphere of the art of kingship and statesmanship.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: So it seems, at any rate.

V
ISITOR
: Come along, then: let’s get up close to those people that are left and take a look at them, so that we may get a firmer knowledge of them.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: That’s what we should do.

V
ISITOR
: Well, those who are subordinate to the greatest degree, looked at from our present perspective, we find possessing a function and condition which are the opposite of what we suspected just now.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Who are they?

V
ISITOR
: Those who are bought, and acquired as possessions by this means; people whom we can indisputably call slaves, and who least pretend [e] to kingly expertise.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Quite.

V
ISITOR
: What then of all those among free men who voluntarily place themselves in the service of those we have been discussing, conveying their products—the products of farming and the other sorts of expertise—between them, and establishing equality between these products; some in market-places, others moving from one city to another, whether by sea or by land, exchanging currency both for everything else and for itself—people to whom we give the names of ‘money-changers’, ‘merchants’,
[290]
‘ship-owners’, and ‘retailers’: surely they won’t lay claim at all to the art of statesmanship?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: It may be, perhaps, that they will—to the sort that has to do with commercial matters.

V
ISITOR
: But those we see placing themselves with complete readiness at the service of all, for hire, as day-laborers—these we shall never find pretending to kingly expertise.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Quite so.

V
ISITOR
: What in that case are we to say about those who perform services of the following sorts for us whenever we need them?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What services do you mean, and who is it you’re talking about?

V
ISITOR
: Among others, the tribe of heralds, and all those who become [b] accomplished at writing by having repeatedly given their services in this respect, and certain others who are very clever at working through many different tasks relating to public offices: what shall we call these?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What you called them just now—subordinates, and not themselves rulers in cities.

V
ISITOR
: But I certainly wasn’t dreaming, I think, when I said that somewhere here there would appear those who particularly lay claim to the art of statesmanship. And yet it would seem very odd indeed to look for them in some portion of the subordinate arts.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Yes, quite. [c]

V
ISITOR
: Then let’s get still closer to those we haven’t yet cross-examined. There are those who have a part of a subordinate sort of expert knowledge in relation to divination; for they are, I believe, considered to be interpreters from gods to men.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Yes.

V
ISITOR
: And then too the class of priests, in its turn, has—as custom tells us—expert knowledge about the giving through sacrifices of gifts [d] from us to the gods which are pleasing to them, and about asking from them through prayers for the acquisition of good things for us. I imagine that both of these things are parts of a subordinate art.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: It appears so, at any rate.

V
ISITOR
: Well now, it seems to me that at this point we are, as it were, getting close to some sort of trail leading to our destination. For the type of priests and seers is filled full of self-importance and gets a lofty reputation because of the magnitude of what they undertake, so that in Egypt it is [e] not even permitted for a king to hold office without also exercising that of priest. If in fact he happens to have acceded to power at the beginning by force from another class, it is later necessary for him to be initiated into the class of priests. And again among the Greeks too, in many places, it is to the greatest offices that one would find being assigned the performance of the greatest of the sacrifices in relation to such things. And in fact what I’m saying receives the clearest illustration in your case; for they say that the most solemn and ancestral of the ancient sacrifices are assigned here to the person who becomes king by lot.
⁵²

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Most certainly.

[291]
V
ISITOR
: Well then, we must look both at these king-priests by lot, and their subordinates, and also at a certain other very large crowd of people which has just become visible to us,
⁵³
now that the previous ones have been separated off.