GER: Then shall we mingle the kingly art in the same class with the
art of the herald, the interpreter, the boatswain, the prophet, and the
numerous kindred arts which exercise command; or, as in the preceding
comparison we spoke of manufacturers, or sellers for themselves, and of
retailers,--seeing, too, that the class of supreme rulers, or rulers for
themselves, is almost nameless--shall we make a word following the
same analogy, and refer kings to a supreme or ruling-for-self science,
leaving the rest to receive a name from some one else? For we are
seeking the ruler; and our enquiry is not concerned with him who is not
a ruler.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good.

STRANGER: Thus a very fair distinction has been attained between the man
who gives his own commands, and him who gives another's. And now let us
see if the supreme power allows of any further division.

YOUNG SOCRATES: By all means.

STRANGER: I think that it does; and please to assist me in making the
division.

YOUNG SOCRATES: At what point?

STRANGER: May not all rulers be supposed to command for the sake of
producing something?

YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.

STRANGER: Nor is there any difficulty in dividing the things produced
into two classes.

YOUNG SOCRATES: How would you divide them?

STRANGER: Of the whole class, some have life and some are without life.

YOUNG SOCRATES: True.

STRANGER: And by the help of this distinction we may make, if we please,
a subdivision of the section of knowledge which commands.

YOUNG SOCRATES: At what point?

STRANGER: One part may be set over the production of lifeless, the other
of living objects; and in this way the whole will be divided.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.

STRANGER: That division, then, is complete; and now we may leave one
half, and take up the other; which may also be divided into two.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Which of the two halves do you mean?

STRANGER: Of course that which exercises command about animals. For,
surely, the royal science is not like that of a master-workman,
a science presiding over lifeless objects;--the king has a nobler
function, which is the management and control of living beings.

YOUNG SOCRATES: True.

STRANGER: And the breeding and tending of living beings may be observed
to be sometimes a tending of the individual; in other cases, a common
care of creatures in flocks?

YOUNG SOCRATES: True.

STRANGER: But the statesman is not a tender of individuals--not like
th