s of one similarity and embraced
them within the reality of a single kind. But we have said enough on
this head, and also of excess and defect; we have only to bear in mind
that two divisions of the art of measurement have been discovered which
are concerned with them, and not forget what they are.

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.), and
therefore we ought to train ourselves to give and accept a rational
account of them; for immaterial things, which are the noblest and
greatest, are shown only in thought and idea, and in no other way, and
all that we are now saying is said for the sake of them. Moreover, there
is always less difficulty in fixing the mind on small matters than on
great.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good.

STRANGER: Let us call to mind the bearing of all this.

YOUNG SOCRATES: What is it?

STRANGER: I wanted to get rid of any impression of tediousness which we
may have experienced in the discussion about weaving, and the reversal
of the universe, and in the discussion concerning the Sophist and the
being of not-being. I know that they were felt to be too long, and I
reproached myself with this, fearing that they might be not only tedious
but irrelevant; an