STRANGER: You have certainly divided them in a most straightforward and
manly style; but you have fallen into an error which hereafter I think that
we had better avoid.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is the error?
STRANGER: I think that we had better not cut off a single small portion
which is not a species, from many larger portions; the part should be a
species. To separate off at once the subject of investigation, is a most
excellent plan, if only the separation be rightly made; and you were under
the impression that you were right, because you saw that you would come to
man; and this led you to hasten the steps. But you should not chip off too
small a piece, my friend; the safer way is to cut through the middle; which
is also the more likely way of finding classes. Attention to this
principle makes all the difference in a process of enquiry.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean, Stranger?
STRANGER: I will endeavour to speak more plainly out of love to your good
parts, Socrates; and, although I cannot at present entirely explain myself,
I will try, as we proceed, to make my meaning a little clearer.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What was the error of which, as you say, we were guilty in
our recent division?
STRANGER: The error was just as if some one who wanted to divide the human
race, were to divide them after the fashion which prevails in this part of
the world; here they cut off the Hellenes as one species, and all the other
species of mankind, which are innumerable, and have no ties or common
language, they include under the single name of 'barbarians,' and because
they have one name they are supposed to be of one species also.
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