excellent plan, if only the separation be rightly made; and you were under
the impression that you were right, because you saw that you would come to
man; and this led you to hasten the steps. But you should not chip off too
small a piece, my friend; the safer way is to cut through the middle; which
is also the more likely way of finding classes. Attention to this
principle makes all the difference in a process of enquiry.

YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean, Stranger?

STRANGER: I will endeavour to speak more plainly out of love to your good
parts, Socrates; and, although I cannot at present entirely explain myself,
I will try, as we proceed, to make my meaning a little clearer.

YOUNG SOCRATES: What was the error of which, as you say, we were guilty in
our recent division?

STRANGER: The error was just as if some one who wanted to divide the human
race, were to divide them after the fashion which prevails in this part of
the world; here they cut off the Hellenes as one species, and all the other
species of mankind, which are innumerable, and have no ties or common
language, they include under the single name of 'barbarians,' and because
they have one name they are supposed to be of one species also. Or suppose
that in dividing numbers you were to cut off ten thousand from all the
rest, and make of it one species, comprehending the rest under another
separate name, you might say that here too was a single class, because you
had given it a single name. Whereas you would make a much better and more
equal and logical classification of numbers, if you divided them into odd
and even; or of the human species, if you divided them into male and
female; and only separated off Lydians or Phrygians, or any other tribe,
and arrayed them against the rest of the world, when you could no longer