[Footnote 189: Plato, Republic, vi. p. 505 E. [Greek: O(\ dê\ diô/kei me\n a(/pasa psuchê\ kai\ tou/tou e(/neka pa/nta pra/ttei, a)pomanteuome/nê ti\ ei)=nai, a)porou=sa de\ kai\ ou)k e)/chousa labei=n i(kanô=s ti/ pot' e)sti/n, ou)de\ pi/stei chrê/sasthai moni/mô|, oi(/a| kai\ peri\ ta)/lla, dia\ tou=to de\ a)potugcha/nei kai\ tô=n a)/llôn ei)/ ti o)/phelos ê)=n], &c.] [Footnote 190: Plato, Republic, vi. p. 505 C.] [Footnote 191: Plato, Republic, vi. p. 506 A. [Greek: di/kaia/ te kai\ kala\ a)gnoou/mena o(/pê| pote\ a)gatha/ e)stin, ou) pollou= tino\s a)/xion phu/laka kektê=sthai a)\n e(autô=n to\n tou=to a)gnoou=nta.]] [Side-note: Adeimantus asks what Sokrates says. Sokrates says that he can not answer: but he compares it by a metaphor to the Sun.] But tell me, Sokrates (asks Adeimantus), what do _you_ conceive the Good to be--Intelligence or Pleasure, or any other thing different from these? I do not profess to know (replies Sokrates), and cannot tell you. We must decline the problem, What Good itself is? as more arduous than our present impetus will enable us to reach.[192] Nevertheless I will partially supply the deficiency by describing to you the offspring of Good, very like its parent. You will recollect that we have distinguished the Many from the One: the many just particulars, beautiful particulars, from the One Universal Idea or Form, Just _per se_, Beautiful _per se_. The many particulars are seen but not conceived: the one Idea is conceived, but not seen.[193] We see the many particulars through the auxiliary agency of light, which emanates from the Sun, the God of the visible world. Our organ and sense of vision are not the Sun itself, but they are akin to the Sun in a greater degree than any of our other senses. They imbibe their peculiar faculty from the influence of the Sun.[194] The Sun furnishes to objects the power of being seen, and to our eyes the power of seeing: we can see no colour unless we turn to objects enlightened by its rays. Moreover it is the Sun which also brings about the generation, the growth, and the nourishment, of these objects, though it is itself out of the limits of generation: it generates and keeps them in existence, besides rendering them visible.[195] Now the Sun is the offspring and representative of the Idea of Good: what the Sun is in the sensible and visible world, the Idea of Good is in the intelligible or conceivable world.[196] As the Sun not only brings into being the objects of sense, but imparts to them the power of being seen so the Idea of Good brings into being the objects of conception or cognition, imparts to them the power of being known, and to the mind the power of knowing them.[197] It is from the Idea of Good that all knowledge, all truth, and all real essence spring. Yet the Idea of Good is itself extra-essential; out of or beyond the limits of essence, and superior in beauty and dignity both to knowledge and