any process of generalization, there may be more than one class to which
individuals may be referred, and that we must carry on the process of
division until we have arrived at the infima species.

These precepts are not forgotten, either in the Sophist or in the
Statesman. The Sophist contains four examples of division, carried on by
regular steps, until in four different lines of descent we detect the
Sophist. In the Statesman the king or statesman is discovered by a similar
process; and we have a summary, probably made for the first time, of
possessions appropriated by the labour of man, which are distributed into
seven classes. We are warned against preferring the shorter to the longer
method;--if we divide in the middle, we are most likely to light upon
species; at the same time, the important remark is made, that 'a part is
not to be confounded with a class.' Having discovered the genus under
which the king falls, we proceed to distinguish him from the collateral
species. To assist our imagination in making this separation, we require
an example. The higher ideas, of which we have a dreamy knowledge, can
only be represented by images taken from the external world. But, first of
all, the nature of example is explained by an example. The child is taught
to read by comparing the letters in words which he knows with the same
letters in unknown combinations; and this is the sort of process which we
are about to attempt. As a parallel to the king we select the worker in
wool, and compare the art of weaving with the royal science, trying to
separate either of them from the inferior classes to which they are akin.
This has the incidental advantage, that weaving and the web furnish us with
a figure of speech, which we can afterwards transfer to the State.

There are two uses of examples or images--in the first place, they suggest
thoughts--secondly, they give them a distinct form. In the infancy of
philosophy, as in childhood, the language of pictures is natural to man: