Very true.

And do you wish to behold what is blind and crooked and base, when

others will tell you of brightness and beauty?

Glaucon - SOCRATES

Still, I must implore you, Socrates, said Glaucon, not to turn away

just as you are reaching the goal; if you will only give such an explanation

of the good as you have already given of justice and temperance and

the other virtues, we shall be satisfied.

Yes, my friend, and I shall be at least equally satisfied, but I cannot

help fearing that I shall fall, and that my indiscreet zeal will bring

ridicule upon me. No, sweet sirs, let us not at present ask what is

the actual nature of the good, for to reach what is now in my thoughts

would be an effort too great for me. But of the child of the good

who is likest him, I would fain speak, if I could be sure that you

wished to hear --otherwise, not.

By all means, he said, tell us about the child, and you shall remain

in our debt for the account of the parent.

I do indeed wish, I replied, that I could pay, and you receive, the

account of the parent, and not, as now, of the offspring only; take,

however, this latter by way of interest, and at the same time have

a care that i do not render a false account, although I have no intention

of deceiving you.

Yes, we will take all the care that we can: proceed.

Yes, I said, but I must first come to an understanding with you, and

remind you of what I have mentioned in the course of this discussion,

and at many other times.

What?

The old story, that there is a many beautiful and a many good, and

so of other things which we describe and define; to all of them 'many'

is applied.

True, he said.

And there is an absolute beauty and an absolute good, and of other

things to which the term 'many' is applied there is an absolute; for

they may be brought under a single idea, which is called the essence

of each.

Very true.

The many, as we say, are seen but not known, and the ideas are known

but not seen.

Exactly.

And what is the organ with which we see the visible things?

The sight, he said.

And with the hearing, I said, we hear, and with the other senses perceive

the other objects of sense?

True.

But have you remarked that sight is by far the most costly and complex

piece of workmanship which the artificer of the senses ever contrived?

No, I never have, he said.

Then reflect; has the ear or voice need of any third or additional

nature in order that the one may be able to hear and the other to

be heard?

Nothing of the sort.

No, indeed, I replied; and the same is true of most, if not all, the

other senses --you would not say that any of them requires such an

addition?

Certainly not.

But you see that without the addition of some other nature there is

no seeing or being seen?

How do you mean?

Sight being, as I conceive, in the eyes, and he who has eyes wanting

to see; colour being also present in them, still unless there be a

third nature specially adapted to the purpose, the owner of the eyes

will see nothing and the colours will be invisible.

Of what nature are you speaking?

Of that which you term light, I replied.

True, he said.

Noble, then, is the bond which links together sight and visibility,

and great beyond other bonds by no small difference of nature; for

light is their bond, and light is no ignoble thing?

Nay, he said, the reverse of ignoble.

And which, I said, of the gods in heaven would you say was the lord

of this element? Whose is that light which makes the eye to see perfectly

and the visible to appear?

You mean the sun, as you and all mankind say.

May not the relation of sight to this deity be described as follows?

How?

Neither sight nor the eye in which sight resides is the sun?

No.

Yet of all the organs of sense the eye is the most like the sun?

By far the most like.

And the power which the eye possesses is a sort of effluence which

is dispensed from the sun?

Exactly.

Then the sun is not sight, but the author of sight who is recognised

by sight.

True, he said.

And this is he whom I call the child of the good, whom the good begat

in his own likeness, to be in the visible world, in relation to sight

and the things of sight, what the good is in the intellectual world

in relation to mind and the things of mind.

Will you be a little more explicit? he said.

Why, you know, I said, that the eyes, when a person directs them towards

objects on which the light of day is no longer shining, but the moon

and stars only, see dimly, and are nearly blind; they seem to have

no clearness of vision in them?

Very true.

But when they are directed towards objects on which the sun shines,

they see clearly and there is sight in them?

Certainly.

And the soul is like the eye: when resting upon that on which truth

and being shine, the soul perceives and understands and is radiant

with intelligence; but when turned towards the twilight of becoming

and perishing, then she has opinion only, and goes blinking about,

and is first of one opinion and then of another, and seems to have

no intelligence?

Just so.

Now, that which imparts truth to the known and the power of knowing

to the knower is what I would have you term the idea of good, and

this you will deem to be the cause of science, and of truth in so

far as the latter becomes the subject of knowledge; beautiful too,

as are both truth and knowledge, you will be right in esteeming this

other nature as more beautiful than either; and, as in the previous

instance, light and sight may be truly said to be like the sun, and

yet not to be the sun, so in this other sphere, science and truth

may be deemed to be like the good, but not the good; the good has

a place of honour yet higher.

What a wonder of beauty that must be, he said, which is the author

of science and truth, and yet surpasses them in beauty; for you surely

cannot mean to say that pleasure is the good?

God forbid, I replied; but may I ask you to consider the image in

another point of view?

In what point of view?

You would say, would you not, that the sun is only the author of visibility

in all visible things, but of generation and nourishment and growth,

though he himself is not generation?

Certainly.

In like manner the good may be said to be not only the author of knowledge

to all things known, but of their being and essence, and yet the good

is not essence, but far exceeds essence in dignity and power.

Glaucon said, with a ludicrous earnestness: By the light of heaven,

how amazing!

Yes, I said, and the exaggeration may be set down to you; for you

made me utter my fancies.

And pray continue to utter them; at any rate let us hear if there

is anything more to be said about the similitude of the sun.

Yes, I said, there is a great deal more.

Then omit nothing, however slight.

I will do my best, I said; but I should think that a great deal will

have to be omitted.

You have to imagine, then, that there are two ruling powers, and that

one of them is set over the intellectual world, the other over the

visible. I do not say heaven, lest you should fancy that I am playing

upon the name ('ourhanoz, orhatoz'). May I suppose that you have this

distinction of the visible and intelligible fixed in your mind?

I have.

Now take a line which has been cut into two unequal parts, and divide

each of them again in the same proportion, and suppose the two main

divisions to answer, one to the visible and the other to the intelligible,

and then compare the subdivisions in respect of their clearness and

want of clearness, and you will find that the first section in the

sphere of the visible consists of images. And by images I mean, in

the first place, shadows, and in the second place, reflections in

water and in solid, smooth and polished bodies and the like: Do you

understand?

Yes, I understand.

Imagine, now, the other section, of which this is only the resemblance,

to include the animals which we see, and everything that grows or

is made.

Very good.

Would you not admit that both the sections of this division have different

degrees of truth, and that the copy is to the original as the sphere

of opinion is to the sphere of knowledge?

Most undoubtedly.

Next proceed to consider the manner in which the sphere of the intellectual

is to be divided.

In what manner?

Thus: --There are two subdivisions, in the lower or which the soul

uses the figures given by the former division as images; the enquiry

can only be hypothetical, and instead of going upwards to a principle

descends to the other end; in the higher of the two, the soul passes

out of hypotheses, and goes up to a principle which is above hypotheses,

making no use of images as in the former case, but proceeding only

in and through the ideas themselves.

I do not quite understand your meaning, he said.

Then I will try again; you will understand me better when I have made

some preliminary remarks. You are aware that students of geometry,

arithmetic, and the kindred sciences assume the odd and the even and

the figures and three kinds of angles and the like in their several

branches of science; these are their hypotheses, which they and everybody

are supposed to know, and therefore they do not deign to give any

account of them either to themselves or others; but they begin with

them, and go on until they arrive at last, and in a consistent manner,

at their conclusion?

Yes, he said, I know.

And do you not know also that although they make use of the visible

forms and reason about them, they are thinking not of these, but of

the ideals which they resemble; not of the figures which they draw,

but of the absolute square and the absolute diameter, and so on --the

forms which they draw or make, and which have shadows and reflections

in water of their own, are converted by them into images, but they

are really seeking to behold the things themselves, which can only

be seen with the eye of the mind?

That is true.

And of this kind I spoke as the intelligible, although in the search

after it the soul is compelled to use hypotheses; not ascending to

a first principle, because she is unable to rise above the region

of hypothesis, but employing the objects of which the shadows below

are resemblances in their turn as images, they having in relation

to the shadows and reflections of them a greater distinctness, and

therefore a higher value.

I understand, he said, that you are speaking of the province of geometry

and the sister arts.

And when I speak of the other division of the intelligible, you will

understand me to speak of that other sort of knowledge which reason

herself attains by the power of dialectic, using the hypotheses not

as first principles, but only as hypotheses --that is to say, as steps

and points of departure into a world which is above hypotheses, in

order that she may soar beyond them to the first principle of the

whole; and clinging to this and then to that which depends on this,

by successive steps she descends again without the aid of any sensible

object, from ideas, through ideas, and in ideas she ends.

I understand you, he replied; not perfectly, for you seem to me to

be describing a task which is really tremendous; but, at any rate,

I understand you to say that knowledge and being, which the science

of dialectic contemplates, are clearer than the notions of the arts,

as they are termed, which proceed from hypotheses only: these are

also contemplated by the understanding, and not by the senses: yet,

because they start from hypotheses and do not ascend to a principle,

those who contemplate them appear to you not to exercise the higher

reason upon them, although when a first principle is added to them

they are cognizable by the higher reason. And the habit which is concerned

with geometry and the cognate sciences I suppose that you would term

understanding and not reason, as being intermediate between opinion

and reason.

You have quite conceived my meaning, I said; and now, corresponding

to these four divisions, let there be four faculties in the soul-reason

answering to the highest, understanding to the second, faith (or conviction)

to the third, and perception of shadows to the last-and let there

be a scale of them, and let us suppose that the several faculties

have clearness in the same degree that their objects have truth.