ions of
those who have never yet seen absolute justice?

Anything but surprising, he replied.

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 den.

That, he said, is a very just distinction.

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.

They undoubtedly say this, he replied.

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.

Very true.

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?

Yes, he said, such an art may be presumed.

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 r