YOUNG SOCRATES: We will not forget.
STRANGER: And now that this discussion is completed, let us go on to
consider another question, which concerns not this argument only but the
conduct of such arguments in general.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is this new question?
STRANGER: Take the case of a child who is engaged in learning his letters:
when he is asked what letters make up a word, should we say that the
question is intended to improve his grammatical knowledge of that
particular word, or of all words?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Clearly, in order that he may have a better knowledge of
all words.
STRANGER: And is our enquiry about the Statesman intended only to improve
our knowledge of politics, or our power of reasoning generally?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Clearly, as in the former example, the purpose is general.
STRANGER: Still less would any rational man seek to analyse the notion of
weaving for its own sake. But people seem to forget that some things have
sensible images, which are readily known, and can be easily pointed out
when any one desires to answer an enquirer without any trouble or argument;
whereas the greatest and highest truths have no outward image of themselves
visible to man, which he who wishes to satisfy the soul of the enquirer can
adapt to the eye of sense (compare Phaedr.
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