STRANGER: In the next place, let us make the reflection, that the art of
weaving clothes, which an incompetent person might fancy to have been
sufficiently described, has been separated off from several others which
are of the same family, but not from the co-operative arts.
YOUNG SOCRATES: And which are the kindred arts?
STRANGER: I see that I have not taken you with me. So I think that we had
better go backwards, starting from the end. We just now parted off from
the weaving of clothes, the making of blankets, which differ from each
other in that one is put under and the other is put around: and these are
what I termed kindred arts.
YOUNG SOCRATES: I understand.
STRANGER: And we have subtracted the manufacture of all articles made of
flax and cords, and all that we just now metaphorically termed the sinews
of plants, and we have also separated off the process of felting and the
putting together of materials by stitching and sewing, of which the most
important part is the cobbler's art.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Precisely.
STRANGER: Then we separated off the currier's art, which prepared
coverings in entire pieces, and the art of sheltering, and subtracted the
various arts of making water-tight which are employed in building, and in
general in carpentering, and in other crafts, and all such arts as furnish
impediments to thieving and acts of violence, and are concerned with making
the lids of boxes and the fixing of doors, being divisions of the art of
joining; and we also cut off the manufacture of arms, which is a section of
the great and manifold art of making defences; and we originally began by
parting off the whole of the magic art which is concerned with antidotes,
and have left, as would appear, the very art of which we were in search,
the art of protection against winter cold, which fabricates woollen
defences, and has the name of weaving.
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