Statesman

Y. Soc. Quite right; but how would the next division be made?

Str. Just as we divided the art of feeding herds before by distinguishing between those that go on foot and the winged, and the unmixed breeds and the hornless, we might divide the art of tending herds by these same distinctions, embracing in the word both the kingship of the present time and that of the time of Cronus.

Y. Soc. Evidently; but again I wonder what the next step is.

Str. It Is clear that if we had used the word tending herds, we should never have met with the contention that there is no caring for them at all in statesmanship, though the earlier contention was justified that there is no art in the case of human beings that deserves the name of feeding, and if there be such an art, it belongs much more to many others than to the king.

Y. Soc. Quite right.

Str. But no other art would advance a stronger claim than that of kingship to be the art of caring for the whole human community and ruling all mankind.

Y. Soc. You are right.

Str. And after all this, Socrates, do we see that another great error was committed at the very end?

Y. Soc. What was it?

Str. Why, it was this: No matter how strong our belief that there was an art of feeding the biped herd, we ought not to have called it kingship and statecraft on the spot, as if it were all quite settled.

Y. Soc. What ought we to have done, then?

Str. In the first place, as we said, we ought to have remodelled the name, making it denote care, rather than feeding, and then we ought to have divided the art, for it may still admit of not unimportant divisions.

Y. Soc. What are they?

Str. There is one by which we might have divided the divine shepherd from the human caretaker.

Y. Soc. Quite right.

Str. And again it was essential that the art of caretaking thus isolated and assigned to man be divided into two parts.

Y. Soc. On what line of division?

Str. On that of compulsory and voluntary.

Y. Soc. Why is that?

Str. Because this was about the point at which we made our mistake before; we were more simple-minded than we should have been, and we put the king and the tyrant together, whereas they and their respective modes of ruling are quite unlike.

Y. Soc. True.

Str. But now shall we, as I said, correct ourselves and divide the care of humanity into two parts, by the criterion of the compulsory and the voluntary?

Y. Soc. By all means.

Str. And if we call the art of those who use compulsion tyrannical or something of the sort and the voluntary care of voluntary bipeds political, may we not declare that he who possesses this latter art of caretaking is really the true king and statesman?