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Younger Socrates
Y. Soc. How?
Stranger
Str. Of the whole class, some have life and others have no life.
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Younger Socrates
Y. Soc. Yes.
Stranger
Str. And on these same lines we may, if we like, make a division of the part of intellectual science which commands.
Younger Socrates
Y. Soc. In what way?
Stranger
Str. By assigning one part of it to the production of lifeless, the other to that of living objects; and in this way the whole will be divided into two parts.
Younger Socrates
Y. Soc. Certainly.
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Stranger
Str. Let us then leave one half and take up the other, and then let us divide that entire half into two parts.
Younger Socrates
Y. Soc. Which half shall we take up?
Stranger
Str. That which issues commands relating to living objects, assuredly. For certainly the science of the king is not, like that of the architect, one which supervises lifeless objects; it is a nobler science, since it exercises its power among living beings and in relation to them alone.
Younger Socrates
Y. Soc. True.
Stranger
Str. Now you may notice that the breeding and nurture of living beings is sometimes the nurture of a single animal and sometimes the common care of creatures in droves.
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Younger Socrates
Y. Soc. True.
Stranger
Str. But we shall find that the statesman is not one who tends a single creature, like the driver of a single ox or the groom who tends a horse; he has more resemblance to a man who tends a herd of cattle or a drove of horses.
Younger Socrates
Y. Soc. That seems to be true, now that you mention it.
Stranger
Str. Shall we call the art of caring for many living creatures the art of tending a herd or something like community management?
Younger Socrates
Y. Soc. Whichever we happen to say.
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