276
Str. Why, it was this: No matter how strong our belief that there was an art of feeding the biped herd, we ought not to have called it kingship and statecraft on the spot, as if it were all quite settled.
276
Y. Soc. What ought we to have done, then?
276
Str. In the first place, as we said, we ought to have remodelled the name, making it denote care, rather than feeding, and then we ought to have divided the art, for it may still admit of not unimportant divisions.
276
Y. Soc. What are they?
276
Str. There is one by which we might have divided the divine shepherd from the human caretaker.
276
Y. Soc. Quite right.
276
Str. And again it was essential that the art of caretaking thus isolated and assigned to man be divided into two parts.
276
Y. Soc. On what line of division?
276
Str. On that of compulsory and voluntary.
276
Y. Soc. Why is that?
276
Str. Because this was about the point at which we made our mistake before; we were more simple-minded than we should have been, and we put the king and the tyrant together, whereas they and their respective modes of ruling are quite unlike.
276
Y. Soc. True.
276
Str. But now shall we, as I said, correct ourselves and divide the care of humanity into two parts, by the criterion of the compulsory and the voluntary?
276
Y. Soc. By all means.
276
Str. And if we call the art of those who use compulsion tyrannical or something of the sort and the voluntary care of voluntary bipeds political, may we not declare that he who possesses this latter art of caretaking is really the true king and statesman?
277
Y. Soc. Well, Stranger, it looks as though our account of the statesman were complete now.
