Plato’s Cave:

*http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/~matlmc/Allegory_cave.pdf

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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 den, which has a mouth open towards the light and
reaching all along the den. 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.”
“I see”.
“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.”
“You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange
prisoners”.
“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 ?”
“True”, he said. “How could they see anything but the shadows if they
were never allowed to move their heads ?”

“And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would
only see the shadows ?”
“Yes”, he said.
“And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not
suppose that they were naming what was actually before them ?”
“Very true.”
“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 ?”
“No question”, he replied.
“To them”, I said, “the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows
of the images”.
“That is certain.”
“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 someone
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 ?”
“Far truer”.
“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 ?”

“True”, he said.
“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’.”
“Not all in a moment”, he said.
“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 ?”
“Certainly”.
“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”.
“Certainly”.
“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 ?”
“Clearly”, he said, “he would first see the sun and then reason about
him”.
“And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the
den and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would
felicitate himself on the change, and pity them ?”

“Certainly, he would”.
“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 ?”.
“Yes”, he said, “I think that he would rather suffer anything than
entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner”.
“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 ?”
“To be sure”, he said.
“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 den, 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 “.
“No question”, he said.
“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”.
“I agree”, he said, “as far as I am able to understand you”.
“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”.
“Yes, very natural”.

“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 ?”
“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 has 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, 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 virtue 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 eye-sight is forced into the service of evil, and he is
mischievous in proportion to his cleverness”.
“Very true”, he said.
“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”.
“Very likely”.
“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
and 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”.
“Very true”, he replied.
“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”.
“What do you mean ?”

“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 den, and partake of their labors and honors, whether they are worth
having or not”.
“But is not this unjust ? he said; ought we give them a worse life, when
they might have a better ?”
“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”.
“True”, he said, “I had forgotten”.
“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 den, 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”.

“Quite true”, he replied.
“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 ?”
“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”.
“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 their 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”.
“Most true”, he replied.
“And the only life which looks down upon the life of political ambition is
that of true philosophy. Do you know of any other ?”
“Indeed, I do not”, he said.
“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”.
“No question”.
“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 ?”
“They are the men, and I will choose them”, he replied.