STATESMAN
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Plato and Jowett, Benjamin
STRANGER: Shall we say that the whole art of the fuller or of the mender has nothing to do with the care and treatment of clothes, or are we to regard all these as arts of weaving?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly not.
STRANGER: And yet surely all these arts will maintain that they are concerned with the treatment and production of clothes; they will dispute the exclusive prerogative of weaving, and though assigning a larger sphere to that, will still reserve a considerable field for themselves.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: Besides these, there are the arts which make tools and instruments of weaving, and which will claim at least to be co-operative causes in every work of the weaver.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Most true.
STRANGER: Well, then, suppose that we define weaving, or rather that part of it which has been selected by us, to be the greatest and noblest of arts which are concerned with woollen garments—shall we be right? Is not the definition, although true, wanting in clearness and completeness; for do not all those other arts require to be first cleared away?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: Then the next thing will be to separate them, in order that the argument may proceed in a regular manner?
YOUNG SOCRATES: By all means.
STRANGER: Let us consider, in the first place, that there are two kinds of arts entering into everything which we do.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What are they?
STRANGER: The one kind is the conditional or co-operative, the other the principal cause.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?
STRANGER: The arts which do not manufacture the actual thing, but which furnish the necessary tools for the manufacture, without which the several arts could not fulfil their appointed work, are co-operative; but those which make the things themselves are causal.
YOUNG SOCRATES: A very reasonable distinction.
STRANGER: Thus the arts which make spindles, combs, and other instruments of the production of clothes, may be called co-operative, and those which treat and fabricate the things themselves, causal.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: The arts of washing and mending, and the other preparatory arts which belong to the causal class, and form a division of the great art of adornment, may be all comprehended under what we call the fuller's art.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good.
STRANGER: Carding and spinning threads and all the parts of the process which are concerned with the actual manufacture of a woollen garment form a single art, which is one of those universally acknowledged,—the art of working in wool.
YOUNG SOCRATES: To be sure.
STRANGER: Of working in wool, again, there are two divisions, and both these are parts of two arts at once.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How is that?
STRANGER: Carding and one half of the use of the comb, and the other processes of wool-working which separate the composite, may be classed together as belonging both to the art of wool-working, and also to one of the two great arts which are of universal application—the art of composition and the art of division.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: To the latter belong carding and the other processes of which I was just now speaking; the art of discernment or division in wool and yarn, which is effected in one manner with the comb and in another with the hands, is variously described under all the names which I just now mentioned.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: Again, let us take some process of wool-working which is also a portion of the art of composition, and, dismissing the elements of division which we found there, make two halves, one on the principle of composition, and the other on the principle of division.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Let that be done.
STRANGER: And once more, Socrates, we must divide the part which belongs at once both to wool-working and composition, if we are ever to discover satisfactorily the aforesaid art of weaving.
YOUNG SOCRATES: We must.
STRANGER: Yes, certainly, and let us call one part of the art the art of twisting threads, the other the art of combining them.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Do I understand you, in speaking of twisting, to be referring to manufacture of the warp?
STRANGER: Yes, and of the woof too; how, if not by twisting, is the woof made?
YOUNG SOCRATES: There is no other way.
STRANGER: Then suppose that you define the warp and the woof, for I think that the definition will be of use to you.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How shall I define them?
STRANGER: As thus: A piece of carded wool which is drawn out lengthwise and breadthwise is said to be pulled out.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.