The tenth and last book of the Republic commences with an argument of considerable length, repeating and confirming by farther reasons the sentence of expulsion which Plato had already pronounced against the poets in his second and third books.[311] The Platonic Sokrates here not only animadverts upon poetry, but extends his disapprobation to other imitative arts, such as painting. He attacks the process of imitation generally, as false and deceptive; pleasing to ignorant people, but perverting their minds by phantasms which they mistake for realities. The work of the imitator is not merely not reality, but is removed from it by two degrees. What is real is the Form or Idea: the one conceived object denoted by each appellative name common to many particulars. There is one Form or Idea, and only one, known by the name of Bed; another by the name of Table.[312] When the carpenter constructs a bed or a table, he fixes his contemplation on this Form or Idea, and tries to copy it. What he constructs, however, is not the true, real, existent, table, which alone exists in nature, and may be presumed to be made by the Gods[313]--but a something like the real existent table: not true Ens, but only quasi-Ens:[314] dim and indistinct, as compared with the truth, and standing far off from the truth. Next to the carpenter comes the painter, who copies not the real existent table, but the copy of that table made by the carpenter. The painter fixes his contemplation upon it, not as it really exists, but simply as it appears: he copies an appearance or phantasm, not a reality. Thus the table will have a different appearance, according as you look at it from near or far--from one side or the other: yet in reality it never differs from itself. It is one of these appearances that the painter copies, not the reality itself. He can in like manner paint any thing and every thing, since he hardly touches any thing at all--and nothing whatever except in appearance. He can paint all sorts of craftsmen and their works--carpenters, shoemakers, &c. without knowledge of any one of their arts.[315] [Footnote 311: Plato, Republic, x. p. 607 B. The language here used by Plato seems to imply that his opinions adverse to poetry had been attacked and required defence.] [Footnote 312: Plato, Republic, x. p. 596 A-B. [Greek: Bou/lei ou)=n e)/nthende a)rxô/metha e)piskopou/ntes, e)k tê=s ei)ôthui/as metho/dou? ei)=dos ga/r pou/ ti e(\n e(/kaston ei)ô/thamen ti/thesthai peri\ e(/kasta ta\ polla/, oi(=s tau)to\n o)/noma e)piphe/romen . . . thô=men dê\ kai\ nu=n o(/ti bou/lei tô=n pollô=n; oi(=on, ei) the/leis pollai/ pou/ ei)si kli=nai kai\ tra/pezai . . . A)ll' i)de/ai ge/ pou peri\ tau=ta ta\ skeu/ê du/o, mi/a me\n kli/nês, mi/a de\ trape/zês.] [Footnote 313: Plato, Republic, x. p. 597 B-D. 597 B: [Greek: mi/a me\n ê( e)n tê=| phu/sei ou)=sa, ê(\n phai=men a)/n, ô(s e)gô=|mai, theo\n e)rga/sasthai.]]