Str. And the art of management which is assigned to man would
again have to be subdivided.

  Y. Soc. On what principle?

  Str. On the principle of voluntary and compulsory.

  Y. Soc. Why?

  Str. Because, if I am not mistaken, there has been an error here;
for our simplicity led us to rank king and tyrant together, whereas
they are utterly distinct, like their modes of government.

  Y. Soc. True.

  Str. Then, now, as I said, let us make the correction and divide
human care into two parts, on the principle of voluntary and
compulsory.

  Y. Soc. Certainly.

  Str. And if we call the management of violent rulers tyranny, and
the voluntary management of herds of voluntary bipeds politics, may we
not further assert that he who has this latter art of management is
the true king and statesman?

  Y. Soc. I think, Stranger, that we have now completed the account of
the Statesman.

  Str. Would that we had Socrates, but I have to satisfy myself as
well as you; and in my judgment the figure of the king is not yet
perfected; like statuaries who, in their too great haste, having
overdone the several parts of their work, lose time in cutting them
down, so too we, partly out of haste, partly out of haste, partly
out of a magnanimous desire to expose our former error, and also
because we imagined that a king required grand illustrations, have
taken up a marvellous lump of fable, and have been obliged to use more
than was necessary. This made us discourse at large, and,
nevertheless, the story never came to an end. And our discussion might
be compared to a picture of some living being which had been fairly
drawn in outline, but had not yet attained the life and clearness
which is given by the blending of colours. Now to intelligent
persons a living being had better be delineated by language and
discourse than by any painting or work of art: to the duller sort by
works of art.

  Y. Soc. Very true; but what is the imperfection which still remains?
I wish that you would tell me.

  Str. The higher ideas, my dear friend, can hardly be set forth
except through the medium of examples; every man seems to know all
things in a dreamy sort of way, and then again to wake up and to
know nothing.

  Y. Soc. What do you mean?

  Str. I fear that I have been unfortunate in raising a question about
our experience of knowledge.

  Y. Soc. Why so?

  Str. Why, because my "example" requires the assistance of another
example.

  Y. Soc. Proceed; you need not fear that I shall tire.

  Str. I will proceed, finding, as I do, such a ready listener in you:
when children are beginning to know their letters-

  Y. Soc. What are you going to say?

  Str. That they distinguish the several letters well enough in very
short and easy syllables, and are able to tell them correctly.

  Y. Soc. Certainly.

  Str. Whereas in other syllables they do not recognize them, and
think and speak falsely of them.

  Y. Soc. Very true.

  Str. Will not the best and easiest way of bringing them to a
knowledge of what they do not as yet know be-

  Y. Soc. Be what?

  Str. 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
combination, 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.

  Y. Soc. Certainly.

  Str. Are not examples formed in this manner? We take a thing and
compare it with another distinct instance of the same thing, of