AND now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our
 nature is enlightened or unenlightened: Behold! human 
beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth 
open toward the light and reaching all along the den; 
here they have been from their childhood, and have their 
legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can 
only see before them, being  prevented by the chains 
from turning round their heads. Above and behind them 
a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire 
and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will 
see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like 
the screen which marionette-players have in front of 
them, over  which they show the puppets. 

   I see. 

   And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all 
sorts of  vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood 
and stone and  various materials, which appear over the wall? Some 
of them are talking,  others silent. 

   You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners. 

   Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or 
the  shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite 
wall of the cave? 

   True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they 
were never allowed to move their heads? 

   And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they 
would only see the shadows? 

   Yes, he said. 

   And if they were able to converse with one another, would 

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they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them? 

   Very true. 

   And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the 
other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by 
spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow? 

   No question, he replied. 

   To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the 
shadows of the images. 

   That is certain. 

   And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the 
prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when 
any of them is  liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn 
his neck round and walk and look toward the light, he will suffer 
sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see 
the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; 
and then conceive someone saying to him, that what he saw before was 
an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and 
his eye is turned toward more real existence, he has a clearer vision 
-- what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his 
instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass  and requiring him 
to name them -- will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the 
shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now 
shown to him? 

   Far truer. 

   And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not 
have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take refuge 
in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive 
to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to 
him? 

   True, he said. 

   And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep 
and rugged ascent, and held fast until he is forced into the presence 
of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When 
he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be 
able to see anything at all of what are now called realities. 

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   Not all in a moment, he said. 

   He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day? 

   Certainly. 

   Last of all he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections 
of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and 
not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is. 

   Certainly. 

   He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the 
season and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the 
visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which 
he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold? 

   Clearly, he said, he would first see the sun and then reason about 
him. 

   And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the 
den and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would 
felicitate himself on the change, and pity him? 

   Certainly, he would. 

   And if they were in the habit of conferring honors among themselves 
on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to 
remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which 
were together; and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as 
to the future, do you think that he would care for such honors and 
glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would he not say with Homer, 

   "Better to be the poor servant of a poor master," and to endure any
thing,  rather than think as they do and live after their manner? 

   Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything than 
entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner. 

   Imagine once more, I said, such a one coming suddenly out of the 
sun to be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to 
have his eyes full of darkness? 

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   To be sure, he said. 

   And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the 
shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the den, while 
his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady 
(and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight 
might be very considerable), would he not be ridiculous? Men would say 
of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it 
was better not even to think of ascending; and if anyone tried to 
loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the 
offender, and they would put him to death. 

   No question, he said. 

   This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to 
the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the 
light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you 
interpret the journey upward to be the ascent of the soul into the 
intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, 
I have expressed -- whether rightly or wrongly, God knows. But, 
whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge 
the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; 
and, when seen, is also  inferred to be the universal author of all 
things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light 
in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth 
in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who 
would act rationally either in public or private life must have his 
eye fixed. 

   I agree, he said, as far as I am able to understand you. 

   Moreover, I said, you must not wonder that those who attain to this 
beatific vision are unwilling to descend to human affairs; for their 
souls are ever hastening into the upper world where they desire to dwell; 
which desire of theirs is very natural, if our allegory may be trusted. 

   Yes, very natural. 

   And is there anything surprising in one who passes from divine 
contemplations to the evil state of man, misbehaving himself in a 
ridiculous manner; if, while his eyes are blinking and before he has
become accustomed to the surrounding darkness, he is compelled to 
fight in courts of law, or in other places, about the images or the 
shadows of images of justice, and is 
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endeavoring to meet the conceptions of those who have never yet seen 
absolute justice? 

   Anything but surprising, he replied. Anyone who has common-sense 
will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, 
and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from 
going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much 
as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees anyone 
whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; 
he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the 
brighter life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, 
or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. 
And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, 
and he will pity the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul 
which comes from below into the light, there will be more reason in 
this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above out of
 the light into the den. 

   That, he said, is a very just distinction. 

   But then, if I am right, certain professors of education must be 
wrong when they say that they can put a knowledge into the soul which
 was not there before, like sight into blind eyes. 

   They undoubtedly say this, he replied. 

   Whereas, our argument shows that the power and capacity of learning 
exists in the soul already; and that just as the eye was unable to 
turn from darkness to light without the whole body, so too the 
instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be 
turned from the world of becoming into that of being, and learn by 
degrees to endure the sight of being, and of the brightest and best of 
being, or, in other words, of the good. 

   Very true.