all; and at first they will be able to perceive only shadows and
reflections in the water; then they will recognize the moon and the
stars, and will at length behold the sun in his own proper place as he
is. Last of all they will conclude:—This is he who gives us the year
and the seasons, and is the author of all that we see. How will they
rejoice in passing from darkness to light! How worthless to them will
seem the honours and glories of the den! But now imagine further, that
they descend into their old habitations;—in that underground dwelling
they will not see as well as their fellows, and will not be able to
compete with them in the measurement of the shadows on the wall; there
will be many jokes about the man who went on a visit to the sun and
lost his eyes, and if they find anybody trying to set free and
enlighten one of their number, they will put him to death, if they can
catch him. Now the cave or den is the world of sight, the fire is the
sun, the way upwards is the way to knowledge, and in the world of
knowledge the idea of good is last seen and with difficulty, but when
seen is inferred to be the author of good and right—parent of the lord
of light in this world, and of truth and understanding in the other. He
who attains to the beatific vision is always going upwards; he is
unwilling to descend into political assemblies and courts of law; for
his eyes are apt to blink at the images or shadows of images which they
behold in them—he cannot enter into the ideas of those who have never
in their lives understood the relation of the shadow to the substance.
But blindness is of two kinds, and may be caused either by passing out
of darkness into light or out of light into darkness, and a man of
sense will distinguish between them, and will not laugh equally at both
of them, but the blindness which arises from fulness of light he will
deem blessed, and pity the other; or if he laugh at the puzzled soul
looking at the sun, he will have more reason to laugh than the
inhabitants of the den at those who descend from above. There is a
further lesson taught by this parable of ours. Some persons fancy that
instruction is like giving eyes to the blind, but we say that the
faculty of sight was always there, and that the soul only requires to
be turned round towards the light. And this is conversion; other
virtues are almost like bodily habits, and may be acquired in the same
manner, but intelligence has a diviner life, and is indestructible,
turning either to good or evil according to the direction given. Did
you never observe how the mind of a clever rogue peers out of his eyes,
and the more clearly he sees, the more evil he does? Now if you take
such an one, and cut away from him those leaden weights of pleasure and
desire which bind his soul to earth, his intelligence will be turned
round, and he will behold the truth as clearly as he now discerns his
meaner ends. And have we not decided that our rulers must neither be so