Part 12

YOUNG SOCRATES: By all means.

STRANGER: The science of pure knowledge had, as we said originally, a part which was the science of rule or command, and from this was derived another part, which was called command-for-self, on the analogy of selling-for-self; an important section of this was the management of living animals, and this again was further limited to the management of them in herds; and again in herds of pedestrian animals. The chief division of the latter was the art of managing pedestrian animals which are without horns; this again has a part which can only be comprehended under one term by joining together three names--shepherding pure-bred animals. The only further subdivision is the art of man-herding,--this has to do with bipeds, and is what we were seeking after, and have now found, being at once the royal and political.

YOUNG SOCRATES: To be sure.

STRANGER: And do you think, Socrates, that we really have done as you say?

YOUNG SOCRATES: What?

STRANGER: Do you think, I mean, that we have really fulfilled our intention?--There has been a sort of discussion, and yet the investigation seems to me not to be perfectly worked out: this is where the enquiry fails.

YOUNG SOCRATES: I do not understand.

STRANGER: I will try to make the thought, which is at this moment present in my mind, clearer to us both.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Let me hear.

STRANGER: There were many arts of shepherding, and one of them was the political, which had the charge of one particular herd?

YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.

STRANGER: And this the argument defined to be the art of rearing, not horses or other brutes, but the art of rearing man collectively?

YOUNG SOCRATES: True.

STRANGER: Note, however, a difference which distinguishes the king from all other shepherds.

YOUNG SOCRATES: To what do you refer?

STRANGER: I want to ask, whether any one of the other herdsmen has a rival who professes and claims to share with him in the management of the herd?

YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?

STRANGER: I mean to say that merchants, husbandmen, providers of food, and also training-masters and physicians, will all contend with the herdsmen of humanity, whom we call Statesmen, declaring that they themselves have the care of rearing or managing mankind, and that they rear not only the common herd, but also the rulers themselves.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Are they not right in saying so?

STRANGER: Very likely they may be, and we will consider their claim. But we are certain of this,--that no one will raise a similar claim as against the herdsman, who is allowed on all hands to be the sole and only feeder and physician of his herd; he is also their match-maker and accoucheur; no one else knows that department of science. And he is their merry-maker and musician, as far as their nature is susceptible of such influences, and no one can console and soothe his own herd better than he can, either with the natural tones of his voice or with instruments. And the same may be said of tenders of animals in general.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.

STRANGER: But if this is as you say, can our argument about the king be true and unimpeachable? Were we right in selecting him out of ten thousand other claimants to be the shepherd and rearer of the human flock?

YOUNG SOCRATES: Surely not.

STRANGER: Had we not reason just to now to apprehend, that although we may have described a sort of royal form, we have not as yet accurately worked out the true image of the Statesman? and that we cannot reveal him as he truly is in his own nature, until we have disengaged and separated him from those who hang about him and claim to share in his prerogatives?

YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.

STRANGER: And that, Socrates, is what we must do, if we do not mean to bring disgrace upon the argument at its close.

YOUNG SOCRATES: We must certainly avoid that.

STRANGER: Then let us make a new beginning, and travel by a different road.