herds. And the Statesman is not a groom,
but a herdsman, and his art may be called either the art of managing
a herd, or the art of collective management:--Which do you prefer? 'No
matter.' Very good, Socrates, and if you are not too particular about
words you will be all the richer some day in true wisdom. But how would
you subdivide the herdsman's art? 'I should say, that there is one
management of men, and another of beasts.' Very good, but you are in too
great a hurry to get to man. All divisions which are rightly made should
cut through the middle; if you attend to this rule, you will be more
likely to arrive at classes. 'I do not understand the nature of my
mistake.' Your division was like a division of the human race into
Hellenes and Barbarians, or into Lydians or Phrygians and all other
nations, instead of into male and female; or like a division of number
into ten thousand and all other numbers, instead of into odd and even.
And I should like you to observe further, that though I maintain a class
to be a part, there is no similar necessity for a part to be a class.
But to return to your division, you spoke of men and other animals as
two classes--the second of which you comprehended under the general name
of beasts. This is the sort of division which an intelligent crane would
make: he would put cranes into a class by themselves for their special
glory, and jumble together all others, including man, in the class of
beasts. An error of this kind can only be avoided by a more regular
subdivision. Just now we divided the whole class of animals into
gregarious and non-gregarious, omitting the previous division into tame
and wild. We forgot this in our hurry to arrive at man, and found by
experience, as the proverb says, that 'the more haste the worse speed.'

And now let us begin again at the art of managing herds. You have
probably heard of the fish-preserves in the Nile and in the ponds of the
Great King, and of the nurseries of geese and cranes in Thessaly. These
suggest a new division into the rearing or management of land-herds and
of water-herds:--I need not say with which the king is concerned. And
land-herds may be divided into walking and flying; and every idiot knows
that the political animal is a pedestrian. At this point we may take a
longer or a shorter road, and as we are already near the end, I see no
harm in taking the longer, which is the way of mesotomy, and accords
with the principle which we we