d all that I have now said is only designed to prevent
the recurrence of any such disagreeables for the future.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good. Will you proceed?

STRANGER: Then I would like to observe that you and I, remembering
what has been said, should praise or blame the length or shortness of
discussions, not by comparing them with one another, but with what is
fitting, having regard to the part of measurement, which, as we said,
was to be borne in mind.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.

STRANGER: And yet, not everything is to be judged even with a view to
what is fitting; for we should only want such a length as is suited to
give pleasure, if at all, as a secondary matter; and reason tells us,
that we should be contented to make the ease or rapidity of an enquiry,
not our first, but our second object; the first and highest of all being
to assert the great method of division according to species--whether the
discourse be shorter or longer is not to the point. No offence should
be taken at length, but the longer and shorter are to be employed
indifferently, according as either of them is better calculated to
sharpen the wits of the auditors. Reason would also say to him who
censures the length of discourses on such occasions and cannot away with
their circumlocution, that he should not be in such a hurry to have
done with them, when he can only complain that they are tedious, but he
should prove that if they had been shorter they would have made
those who took part in them better dialecticians, and more capable of
expressing the truth of things; about any other praise and blame, he
need not trouble himself--he should pretend not to hear them. But we
have had enough of this, as you will probably agree with me in thinking.
Let us return to our Statesman, and apply to his case the aforesaid
example of weaving.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good;--let us do as you say.

STRANGER: The art of the king has been separated from the similar arts
of shepherds, and, indeed, from all those which have to do with herds
at all. There still remain, however, of the causal and co-operative arts
those which are immediately concerned with States, and which must first
be distinguished from one another.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good.

STRANGER: You know that these arts cannot easily be divided into two
halves; the reason will be very evident as we proceed.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Then we had better do so.

STRANGER: We must carve them like a victim int