Well, but has anyone a right to say positively what he does not know? 

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   Not, he said, with the assurance of positive certainty; he has no right
 to do that: but he may say what he thinks, as a matter of opinion. 

   And do you not know, I said, that all mere opinions are bad, and the best
 of them blind? You would not deny that those who have any true notion 
without intelligence are only like blind men who feel their way along the
road? 

   Very true. 

   And do you wish to behold what is blind and crooked and base, when others will 
tell you of brightness and beauty? 

   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 fail,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 many a beautiful and many a good, and so of 
other things which we describe and define; to all of them the term "many" is
 implied. 

   True, he said. 

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   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; color 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 colors 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. 

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   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 recognized 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 toward 
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 toward 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 toward 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 

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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 honor 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 not 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. I hope not, he said. 

   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 
(ovpavos, opatos). May I 

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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 of which the soul uses the figures given by the
former division as images; the inquiry can only be hypothetical, and instead 
of going upward 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 

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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. 

   I understand, he replied, and give my assent, and accept your arrangement.