STRANGER: Would that we had, Socrates, but I have to satisfy myself as well as you; and in my judgment the figure of the king is not yet perfected; like statuaries who, in their too great haste, having overdone the several parts of their work, lose time in cutting them down, so too we, partly out of haste, partly out of a magnanimous desire to expose our former error, and also because we imagined that a king required grand illustrations, have taken up a marvellous lump of fable, and have been obliged to use more than was necessary. This made us discourse at large, and, nevertheless, the story never came to an end. And our discussion might be compared to a picture of some living being which had been fairly drawn in outline, but had not yet attained the life and clearness which is given by the blending of colours. Now to intelligent persons a living being had better be delineated by language and discourse than by any painting or work of art: to the duller sort by works of art. YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true; but what is the imperfection which still remains? I wish that you would tell me. STRANGER: The higher ideas, my dear friend, can hardly be set forth except through the medium of examples; every man seems to know all things in a dreamy sort of way, and then again to wake up and to know nothing. YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean? STRANGER: I fear that I have been unfortunate in raising a question about our experience of knowledge. YOUNG SOCRATES: Why so? STRANGER: Why, because my 'example' requires the assistance of another example. YOUNG SOCRATES: Proceed; you need not fear that I shall tire. STRANGER: I will proceed, finding, as I do, such a ready listener in you: when children are beginning to know their letters-- YOUNG SOCRATES: What are you going to say? STRANGER: That they distinguish the several letters well enough in very short and easy syllables, and are able to tell them correctly. YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly. STRANGER: Whereas in other syllables they do not recognize them, and think and speak falsely of them. YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true. STRANGER: Will not the best and easiest way of bringing them to a knowledge of what they do not as yet know be-- YOUNG SOCRATES: Be what? STRANGER: To refer them first of all to cases in which they judge correctly about the letters in question, and then to compare these with the cases in which they do not as yet know, and to show them that the letters are the same, and have the same character in both combinations, until all cases in which they are right have been placed side by side with all cases in which they are wrong. In this way they have examples, and are made to learn that each letter in every combination is always the same and not another, and is always called by the same name. YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.