(For
animals cannot be the same which have different kinds of mouths or
of ears.) And when all the combinations are exhausted, there will be
as many sorts of animals as there are combinations of the necessary
organs. The same, then, is true of the forms of government which
have been described; states, as I have repeatedly said, are
composed, not of one, but of many elements. One element is the
food-producing class, who are called husbandmen; a second, the class
of mechanics who practice the arts without which a city cannot
exist; of these arts some are absolutely necessary, others
contribute to luxury or to the grace of life. The third class is
that of traders, and by traders I mean those who are engaged in buying
and selling, whether in commerce or in retail trade. A fourth class is
that of the serfs or laborers. The warriors make up the fifth class,
and they are as necessary as any of the others, if the country is
not to be the slave of every invader. For how can a state which has
any title to the name be of a slavish nature? The state is independent
and self-sufficing, but a slave is the reverse of independent. Hence
we see that this subject, though ingeniously, has not been
satisfactorily treated in the Republic. Socrates says that a state
is made up of four sorts of people who are absolutely necessary; these
are a weaver, a husbandman, a shoemaker, and a builder; afterwards,
finding that they are not enough, he adds a smith, and again a
herdsman, to look after the necessary animals; then a merchant, and
then a retail trader.
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