Socrates: And now, I said, let me show in a figure
how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened: --Behold! human beings living
in a underground cave, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching
all along the cave; here they have been from their childhood, and have their
legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them,
being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind
them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners
there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along
the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over
which they show the puppets.
Glaucon: I see.
Socrates: And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying
all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone
and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking,
others silent.
Glaucon: You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.
Socrates: Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows,
or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of
the cave?
Glaucon: True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows
if they were never allowed to move their heads?
Socrates: And of the objects which are being carried in like manner
they would only see the shadows?
Glaucon: Yes, he said.
Socrates: And if they were able to converse with one another, would
they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?
Glaucon: Very true.
Socrates: And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came
from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by
spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow?
Glaucon: No question, he replied.
Socrates: To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but
the shadows of the images.
Glaucon: That is certain.
Socrates: And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if
the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any
of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round
and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will
distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former
state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that
what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer
to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer
vision, -what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor
is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them, -will
he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw
are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?
Glaucon: Far truer.
Socrates: And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will
he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take and take
in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be
in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him?
Glaucon: True, he now.
Socrates: And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a
steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he 's forced into the presence
of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches
the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything
at all of what are now called realities.
Glaucon: Not all in a moment, he said.
Socrates: He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper
world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and
other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze
upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will
see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun
by day?
Glaucon: Certainly.
Socrates: Last of he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections
of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in
another; and he will contemplate him as he is.
Glaucon: Certainly.
Socrates: He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the
season and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world,
and in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been
accustomed to behold?
Glaucon: Clearly, he said, he would first see the sun and then reason
about him.
Socrates: And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom
of the cave and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate
himself on the change, and pity them?
Glaucon: Certainly, he would.
Socrates: And if they were in the habit of conferring honors among themselves
on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which
of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and
who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think
that he would care for such honors and glories, or envy the possessors of them?
Would he not say with Homer,
Better to be the poor servant of a poor master,
and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner?
Glaucon: Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything
than entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner.
Socrates: Imagine once more, I said, such an one coming suddenly out
of the sun to be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have
his eyes full of darkness?
Glaucon: To be sure, he said.
Socrates: And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring
the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the cave, while his
sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which
would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable)
would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he
came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending;
and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them
only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.
Glaucon: No question, he said.
Socrates: This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon:
, to the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light
of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the
journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according
to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed whether rightly or
wrongly God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world
of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an
effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things
beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible
world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and
that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally, either in public
or private life must have his eye fixed.
Glaucon: I agree, he said, as far as I am able to understand you.
Socrates: Moreover, I said, you must not wonder that those who attain
to this beatific vision are unwilling to descend to human affairs; for their
souls are ever hastening into the upper world where they desire to dwell; which
desire of theirs is very natural, if our allegory may be trusted.
Glaucon: Yes, very natural.
Socrates: And is there anything surprising in one who passes from divine
contemplations to the evil state of man, misbehaving himself in a ridiculous
manner; if, while his eyes are blinking and before he has become accustomed
to the surrounding darkness, he is compelled to fight in courts of law, or in
other places, about the images or the shadows of images of justice, and is endeavoring
to meet the conceptions of those who have never yet seen absolute justice?
Glaucon: Anything but surprising, he replied.
Socrates: Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments
of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming
out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye,
quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any
one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will
first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter light, and is
unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness
to the day is dazzled by excess of light. And he will count the one happy in
his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or, if he have
a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light, there will
be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above
out of the light into the cave.
Glaucon: That, he said, is a very just distinction.
Socrates: But then, if I am right, certain professors of education must
be wrong when they say that they can put a knowledge into the soul which was
not there before, like sight into blind eyes.
Glaucon: They undoubtedly say this, he replied.
Socrates: Whereas, our argument shows that the power and capacity of
learning exists in the soul already; and that just as the eye was unable to
turn from darkness to light without the whole body, so too the instrument of
knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned from the world
of becoming into that of being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of
being, and of the brightest and best of being, or in other words, of the good.
Glaucon: Very true.
Socrates: And must there not be some art which will effect conversion
in the easiest and quickest manner; not implanting the faculty of sight, for
that exists already, but has been turned in the wrong direction, and is looking
away from the truth?
Glaucon: Yes, he said, such an art may be presumed.
Socrates: And whereas the other so-called virtues of the soul seem to
be akin to bodily qualities, for even when they are not originally innate they
can be implanted later by habit and exercise, the of wisdom more than anything
else contains a divine element which always remains, and by this conversion
is rendered useful and profitable; or, on the other hand, hurtful and useless.
Did you never observe the narrow intelligence flashing from the keen eye of
a clever rogue --how eager he is, how clearly his paltry soul sees the way to
his end; he is the reverse of blind, but his keen eyesight is forced into the
service of evil, and he is mischievous in proportion to his cleverness.
Glaucon: Very true, he said.
Socrates: But what if there had been a circumcision of such natures
in the days of their youth; and they had been severed from those sensual pleasures,
such as eating and drinking, which, like leaden weights, were attached to them
at their birth, and which drag them down and turn the vision of their souls
upon the things that are below --if, I say, they had been released from these
impediments and turned in the opposite direction, the very same faculty in them
would have seen the truth as keenly as they see what their eyes are turned to
now.
Glaucon: Very likely.
Socrates: Yes, I said; and there is another thing which is likely. or
rather a necessary inference from what has preceded, that neither the uneducated
and uninformed of the truth, nor yet those who never make an end of their education,
will be able ministers of State; not the former, because they have no single
aim of duty which is the rule of all their actions, private as well as public;
nor the latter, because they will not act at all except upon compulsion, fancying
that they are already dwelling apart in the islands of the blest.
Glaucon: Very true, he replied.
Socrates: Then, I said, the business of us who are the founders of the
State will be to compel the best minds to attain that knowledge which we have
already shown to be the greatest of all-they must continue to ascend until they
arrive at the good; but when they have ascended and seen enough we must not
allow them to do as they do now.
Glaucon: What do you mean?
Socrates: I mean that they remain in the upper world: but this must
not be allowed; they must be made to descend again among the prisoners in the
cave, and partake of their labors and honors, whether they are worth having
or not.
Glaucon: But is not this unjust? he said; ought we to give them a worse
life, when they might have a better?
Socrates: You have again forgotten, my friend, I said, the intention
of the legislator, who did not aim at making any one class in the State happy
above the rest; the happiness was to be in the whole State, and he held the
citizens together by persuasion and necessity, making them benefactors of the
State, and therefore benefactors of one another; to this end he created them,
not to please themselves, but to be his instruments in binding up the State.
Glaucon: True, he said, I had forgotten.
Socrates: Observe, Glaucon: , that there will be no injustice in compelling
our philosophers to have a care and providence of others; we shall explain to
them that in other States, men of their class are not obliged to share in the
toils of politics: and this is reasonable, for they grow up at their own sweet
will, and the government would rather not have them. Being self-taught, they
cannot be expected to show any gratitude for a culture which they have never
received. But we have brought you into the world to be rulers of the hive, kings
of yourselves and of the other citizens, and have educated you far better and
more perfectly than they have been educated, and you are better able to share
in the double duty. Wherefore each of you, when his turn comes, must go down
to the general underground abode, and get the habit of seeing in the dark. When
you have acquired the habit, you will see ten thousand times better than the
inhabitants of the cave, and you will know what the several images are, and
what they represent, because you have seen the beautiful and just and good in
their truth. And thus our State which is also yours will be a reality, and not
a dream only, and will be administered in a spirit unlike that of other States,
in which men fight with one another about shadows only and are distracted in
the struggle for power, which in their eyes is a great good. Whereas the truth
is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always
the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager,
the worst.
Glaucon: Quite true, he replied.
Socrates: And will our pupils, when they hear this, refuse to take their
turn at the toils of State, when they are allowed to spend the greater part
of their time with one another in the heavenly light?
Glaucon: Impossible, he answered; for they are just men, and the commands
which we impose upon them are just; there can be no doubt that every one of
them will take office as a stern necessity, and not after the fashion of our
present rulers of State.
Socrates: Yes, my friend, I said; and there lies the point. You must
contrive for your future rulers another and a better life than that of a ruler,
and then you may have a well-ordered State; for only in the State which offers
this, will they rule who are truly rich, not in silver and gold, but in virtue
and wisdom, which are the true blessings of life. Whereas if they go to the
administration of public affairs, poor and hungering after the' own private
advantage, thinking that hence they are to snatch the chief good, order there
can never be; for they will be fighting about office, and the civil and domestic
broils which thus arise will be the ruin of the rulers themselves and of the
whole State.
Glaucon: Most true, he replied.
Socrates: And the only life which looks down upon the life of political
ambition is that of true philosophy. Do you know of any other?
Glaucon: Indeed, I do not, he said.
Socrates: And those who govern ought not to be lovers of the task? For,
if they are, there will be rival lovers, and they will fight.
Glaucon: No question.
Socrates: Who then are those whom we shall compel to be guardians? Surely
they will be the men who are wisest about affairs of State, and by whom the
State is best administered, and who at the same time have other honors and another
and a better life than that of politics?
Glaucon: They are the men, and I will choose them, he replied.
Socrates: And now shall we consider in what way such guardians will
be produced, and how they are to be brought from darkness to light, -- as some
are said to have ascended from the world below to the gods?
Glaucon: By all means, he replied.
Socrates: The process, I said, is not the turning over of an oyster-shell,
but the turning round of a soul passing from a day which is little better than
night to the true day of being, that is, the ascent from below, which we affirm
to be true philosophy?
Glaucon: Quite so.