281–282
Stranger
Str. The one is a contingent cause, the other is the actual cause.
Younger Socrates
Y. Soc. What do you mean?
Stranger
Str. Those arts which do not produce the actual thing in question, but which supply to the arts which do produce it the tools without which no art could ever perform its prescribed work, may be called contingent causes, and those which produce the actual thing are causes.
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Younger Socrates
Y. Soc. At any rate, that is reasonable.
Stranger
Str. Next, then, shall we designate all the arts which produce spindles, shuttles, and the various other tools that partake in the production of clothing as contingent causes, and those which treat and manufacture the clothing itself as causes?
Younger Socrates
Y. Soc. Quite right.
Stranger
Str. And among the causal arts we may properly include washing and mending and all the care of clothing in such ways; and, since the art of adornment is a wide one, we may classify them as a part of it under the name of fulling.
Younger Socrates
Y. Soc. Good.
Stranger
Str. And, again, carding and spinning and all the processes concerned with the actual fabrication of the clothing under consideration, form collectively one art familiar to every one—the art of wool-working.
Younger Socrates
Y. Soc. Of course.
Stranger
Str. And wool-working comprises two divisions, and each of these is a part of two arts at once.
5
Younger Socrates
Y. Soc. How is that?
