YOUNG SOCRATES: So be it.
STRANGER: There is another thing which I should like to know.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is it?
STRANGER: The point at which we digressed; for, if I am not mistaken, the
exact place was at the question, Where you would divide the management of
herds. To this you appeared rather too ready to answer that there were two
species of animals; man being one, and all brutes making up the other.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: I thought that in taking away a part, you imagined that the
remainder formed a class, because you were able to call them by the common
name of brutes.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That again is true.
STRANGER: Suppose now, O most courageous of dialecticians, that some wise
and understanding creature, such as a crane is reputed to be, were, in
imitation of you, to make a similar division, and set up cranes against all
other animals to their own special glorification, at the same time jumbling
together all the others, including man, under the appellation of brutes,--
here would be the sort of error which we must try to avoid.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How can we be safe?
STRANGER: If we do not divide the whole class of animals, we shall be less
likely to fall into that error.
YOUNG SOCRATES: We had better not take the whole?
STRANGER: Yes, there lay the source of error in our former division.
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