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[282b]

Younger Socrates
Of course.

Stranger
And wool-working comprises two divisions, and each of these is a part of two arts at once.

Younger Socrates
How is that?

Stranger
Carding, and one half of the use of the weaverÕs rod,1 and the other crafts which separate things that are joined—all this collectively is a part of the art of wool-working; and in all things we found two great arts, that of composition and that of division.

Younger Socrates
Yes.

Stranger
Now carding and all the other processes just mentioned are parts of the art of division;


1 The weaverÕs rod (for the Greeks appear to have used a rod, not a comb) was used to drive the threads of the woof close together, and also to keep the threads of the warp and woof distinct (cf. Plat. Crat. 388a). All the processes here described, familiar as they were to the ancients, have been done away with, or, at least, greatly modified, in Europe and America by the modern methods of industry.

Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 12 translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.

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