Piloting

must it not be that every act would be done according to the sciences, and no one professing to be a pilot when he was not would deceive us, nor would a doctor, nor a general, nor anyone else pretending to know something he did not know, go undetected;

For, Critias, if you choose to take away this science from the whole number of them, will medicine any the less give us health, or shoemaking give us shoes, or weaving provide clothes, or will the pilot’s art any the less prevent the loss of life at sea, or the general’s in war?

And so the precise pilot is a ruler of sailors, not a sailor?

And does not each art also yield us benefit that is peculiar to itself and not general, as for example medicine health, the pilot’s art safety at sea, and the other arts similarly?