Statesman

Str. So he may fairly be said to participate in intellectual science.

Y. Soc. Certainly.

Str. But it is his business, I suppose, not to pass judgement and be done with it and go away, as the calculator did, but to give each of the workmen the proper orders, until they have finished their appointed task.

Y. Soc. You are right.

Str. Then all such sciences, and all those that are in the class with calculating, are alike intellectual sciences, but these two classes differ from one another in the matter of judging and commanding. Am I right?

Y. Soc. I think so.

Str. Then if we bisected intellectual science as a whole and called one part the commanding and the other the judging part, might we say we had made fitting division?

Y. Soc. Yes, in my opinion.

Str. And surely when men are doing anything in common it is pleasant for them to agree.

Y. Soc. Of course it is.

Str. On this point, then, so long as we ourselves are in agreement, we need not bother about the opinions of others.

Y. Soc. Of course not.

Str. Now to which of these two classes is the kingly man to be assigned? Shall we assign him to the art of judging, as a kind of spectator, or rather to the art of commanding, inasmuch as he is a ruler?

Y. Soc. Rather to the latter, of course.

Str. Then once more we must see whether the art of command falls into two divisions. It seems to me that it does, and I think there is much the same distinction between the kingly class and the class of heralds as between the art of men who sell what they themselves produce and that of retail dealers.

Y. Soc. How so?

Str. Retail dealers receive and sell over again the productions of others, which have generally been sold before.

Y. Soc. Certainly.

Str. And in like manner heralds receive the purposes of others in the form of orders, and then give the orders a second time to others.

Y. Soc. Very true.

Str. Shall we, then, join the art of the king in the same class with the art of the interpreter, the boatswain, the prophet, the herald, and many other kindred arts, all of which involve giving orders? Or, as we just now made a comparison of functions, shall we now by comparison make a name also—since the class of those who issue orders of their own is virtually nameless—and assign kings to the science of giving orders of one’s own, disregarding all the rest and leaving to someone else the task of naming them? For the object of our present quest is the ruler, not his opposite.