Economics

Well, Socrates, you shall now hear how kindly a thing is this art. Helpful, pleasant, honourable, dear to gods and men in the highest degree, it is also in the highest degree easy to learn. Noble qualities surely! As you know, we call those creatures noble that are beautiful, great and helpful, and yet gentle towards men.

Ah, but I think, Ischomachus, that I quite understand your account of these matters—I mean how to teach a bailiff; for I think I follow your statement that you make him loyal to you, and careful and capable of ruling and honest.

But you said that one who is to be successful in the management of a farm must learn what to do and how and when to do it. That is the subject that we have treated, it seems to me, in a rather cursory fashion,

as if you said that anyone who is to be capable of writing from dictation and reading what is written must know the alphabet. For had I been told that, I should have been told, to be sure, that I must know the alphabet, but I don’t think that piece of information would help me to know it.

So too now; I am easily convinced that a man who is to manage a farm successfully must understand farming, but that knowledge doesn’t help me to understand how to farm.