YOUNG SOCRATES: Most true.
STRANGER: Well, then, suppose that we define weaving, or rather that part
of it which has been selected by us, to be the greatest and noblest of arts
which are concerned with woollen garments--shall we be right? Is not the
definition, although true, wanting in clearness and completeness; for do
not all those other arts require to be first cleared away?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: Then the next thing will be to separate them, in order that the
argument may proceed in a regular manner?
YOUNG SOCRATES: By all means.
STRANGER: Let us consider, in the first place, that there are two kinds of
arts entering into everything which we do.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What are they?
STRANGER: The one kind is the conditional or co-operative, the other the
principal cause.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?
STRANGER: The arts which do not manufacture the actual thing, but which
furnish the necessary tools for the manufacture, without which the several
arts could not fulfil their appointed work, are co-operative; but those
which make the things themselves are causal.
YOUNG SOCRATES: A very reasonable distinction.
STRANGER: Thus the arts which make spindles, combs, and other instruments
of the production of clothes, may be called co-operative, and those which
treat and fabricate the things themselves, causal.
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