And I should like you to observe further, that though I
maintain a class to be a part, there is no similar necessity for a part to
be a class. But to return to your division, you spoke of men and other
animals as two classes--the second of which you comprehended under the
general name of beasts. This is the sort of division which an intelligent
crane would make: he would put cranes into a class by themselves for their
special glory, and jumble together all others, including man, in the class
of beasts. An error of this kind can only be avoided by a more regular
subdivision. Just now we divided the whole class of animals into
gregarious and non-gregarious, omitting the previous division into tame and
wild. We forgot this in our hurry to arrive at man, and found by
experience, as the proverb says, that 'the more haste the worse speed.'
And now let us begin again at the art of managing herds. You have probably
heard of the fish-preserves in the Nile and in the ponds of the Great King,
and of the nurseries of geese and cranes in Thessaly. These suggest a new
division into the rearing or management of land-herds and of water-herds:--
I need not say with which the king is concerned. And land-herds may be
divided into walking and flying; and every idiot knows that the political
animal is a pedestrian.
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