266–267
Stranger
Str. For now, Socrates, we have shown more clearly the truth of that which we said yesterday in our search for the sophist. See Plat. Soph. 227B.
Younger Socrates
Y. Soc. What was it?
20
Stranger
Str. That this method of argument pays no more heed to the noble than to the ignoble, and no less honor to the small than to the great, but always goes on its own way to the most perfect truth.
Younger Socrates
Y. Soc. So it seems.
Stranger
Str. Then shall I now, without waiting for you to ask me, guide you of my own accord along that shorter way referred to a moment ago that leads to the definition of the king?
Younger Socrates
Y. Soc. By all means.
Stranger
Str. I say, then, that we ought at that time to have divided walking animals immediately into biped and quadruped, then seeing that the human race falls into the same division with the feathered creatures and no others, we must again divide the biped class into featherless and feathered, and when that division is made and the art of herding human beings is made plain, we ought to take the statesmanlike and kingly man and place him as a sort of charioteer therein, handing over to him the reins of the state, because that is his own proper science.
25
Younger Socrates
Y. Soc. You have cleared up the argument finely, and as if it were a debt you were paying, you threw in the digression as interest and for good measure.
Stranger
Str. Now let us go back to the beginning and join together the definition of the name of the statesman’s art link by link to the end.
Younger Socrates
Y. Soc. By all means.
