of
'barbarians,' and because they have one name they are supposed to be of
one species also. Or suppose that in dividing numbers you were to
cut off ten thousand from all the rest, and make of it one species,
comprehending the rest under another separate name, you might say that
here too was a single class, because you had given it a single name.
Whereas you would make a much better and more equal and logical
classification of numbers, if you divided them into odd and even; or of
the human species, if you divided them into male and female; and only
separated off Lydians or Phrygians, or any other tribe, and arrayed them
against the rest of the world, when you could no longer make a division
into parts which were also classes.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true; but I wish that this distinction between a
part and a class could still be made somewhat plainer.

STRANGER: O Socrates, best of men, you are imposing upon me a very
difficult task. We have already digressed further from our original
intention than we ought, and you would have us wander still further
away. But we must now return to our subject; and hereafter, when there
is a leisure hour, we will follow up the other track; at the same time,
I wish you to guard against imagining that you ever heard me declare--

YOUNG SOCRATES: What?

STRANGER: That a class and a part are distinct.

YOUNG SOCRATES: What did I hear, then?

STRANGER: That a class is necessarily a part, but there is no similar
necessity that a part should be a class; that is the view which I should
always wish you to attribute to me, Socrates.

YOUNG SOCRATES: So be it.

STRANGER: There is another thing which I should like to know.

YOUNG SOCRATES: What is it?

STRANGER: The point at which we digressed; for, if I am not mistaken,
the exact place was at the question, Where you would divide the
management of herds. To this you appeared rather too ready to answer
that there were two species of animals; man being one, and all brutes
making up the other.

YOUNG SOCRATES: True.

STRANGER: I thought that in taking away a part, you imagined that the
remainder formed a class, because you were able to call them by the
common name of brutes.

YOUNG SOCRATES: That again is true.

STRANGER: Suppose now, O most courageous of dialecticians, that some
wise and understanding creature, such as a crane is reputed to be,
were, in imitation of you, to make a similar division, and set up cranes
against all oth