lect the example of weaving, or, more precisely, weaving of
wool. In the first place, all possessions are either productive or
preventive; of the preventive sort are spells and antidotes, divine and
human, and also defences, and defences are either arms or screens, and
screens are veils and also shields against heat and cold, and shields
against heat and cold are shelters and coverings, and coverings are
blankets or garments, and garments are in one piece or have many parts;
and of these latter, some are stitched and others are fastened, and of
these again some are made of fibres of plants and some of hair, and of
these some are cemented with water and earth, and some are fastened with
their own material; the latter are called clothes, and are made by the
art of clothing, from which the art of weaving differs only in name, as
the political differs from the royal science. Thus we have drawn several
distinctions, but as yet have not distinguished the weaving of garments
from the kindred and co-operative arts. For the first process to which
the material is subjected is the opposite of weaving--I mean carding.
And the art of carding, and the whole art of the fuller and the mender,
are concerned with the treatment and production of clothes, as well as
the art of weaving. Again, there are the arts which make the weaver's
tools. And if we say that the weaver's art is the greatest and noblest
of those which have to do with woollen garments,--this, although true,
is not sufficiently distinct; because these other arts require to be
first cleared away. Let us proceed, then, by regular steps:--There are
causal or principal, and co-operative or subordinate arts. To the causal
class belong the arts of washing and mending, of carding and spinning
the threads, and the other arts of working in wool; these are chiefly
of two kinds, falling under the two great categories of composition and
division. Carding is of the latter sort. But our concern is chiefly with
that part of the art of wool-working which composes, and of which one
kind twists and the other interlaces the threads, whether the firmer
texture of the warp or the looser texture of the woof. These are adapted
to each other, and the orderly composition of them forms a woollen
garment. And the art which presides over these operations is the art of
weaving.

But why did we go through this circuitous process, instead of saying
at once that weaving is the art of entwining the warp and