And yet the figure of the king is still defective. We have taken up a
lump of fable, and have used more than we needed. Like statuaries, we
have made some of the features out of proportion, and shall lose time in
reducing them. Or our mythus may be compared to a picture, which is well
drawn in outline, but is not yet enlivened by colour. And to intelligent
persons language is, or ought to be, a better instrument of description
than any picture. 'But what, Stranger, is the deficiency of which you
speak?' No higher truth can be made clear without an example; every
man seems to know all things in a dream, and to know nothing when he is
awake. And the nature of example can only be illustrated by an example.
Children are taught to read by being made to compare cases in which they
do not know a certain letter with cases in which they know it, until
they learn to recognize it in all its combinations. Example comes into
use when we identify something unknown with that which is known, and
form a common notion of both of them. Like the child who is learning his
letters, the soul recognizes some of the first elements of things;
and then again is at fault and unable to recognize them when they are
translated into the difficult language of facts. Let us, then, take
an example, which will illustrate the nature of example, and will also
assist us in characterizing the political science, and in separating the
true king from his rivals.
I will select 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,