STRANGER: All things which we make or acquire are either creative or
preventive; of the preventive class are antidotes, divine and human, and
also defences; and defences are either military weapons or protections;
and protections are veils, and also shields against heat and cold, and
shields against heat and cold are shelters and coverings; and coverings
are blankets and garments; and garments are some of them in one piece,
and others of them are made in several parts; and of these latter some
are stitched, others are fastened and not stitched; and of the not
stitched, some are made of the sinews of plants, and some of hair; and
of these, again, some are cemented with water and earth, and others are
fastened together by themselves. And these last defences and coverings
which are fastened together by themselves are called clothes, and
the art which superintends them we may call, from the nature of the
operation, the art of clothing, just as before the art of the Statesman
was derived from the State; and may we not say that the art of weaving,
at least that largest portion of it which was concerned with the making
of clothes, differs only in name from this art of clothing, in the same
way that, in the previous case, the royal science differed from the
political?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Most true.
STRANGER: In the next place, let us make the reflection, that the art
of weaving clothes, which an incompetent person might fancy to have been
sufficiently described, has been separated off from several others which
are of the same family, but not from the co-operative arts.
YOUNG SOCRATES: And which are the kindred arts?
STRANGER: I see that I have not taken you with me. So I think that we
had better go backwards, starting from the end. We just now parted off
from the weaving of clothes, the making of blankets, which differ from
each other in that one is put under and the other is put around: and
these are what I termed kindred arts.
YOUNG SOCRATES: I understand.
STRANGER: And we have subtracted the manufacture of all articles made
of flax and cords, and all that we just now metaphorically termed the
sinews of plants, and we have also separated off the process of felting
and the putting together of materials by stitching and sewing, of which
the most important part is the cobbler's art.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Precisely.