Timaeus — Plato

Republic VI. Socrates, Adeimantus, Glaucon.

We can only attain to the things of mind through the things of sense.

']"he 'child' of the good.

p. 208

Sight, the eye, and the sun.

Reptibiic VI. Socrates, Glaucon.

Sight the most complex of the senses, and, unlike the other senses, requires the addition of a third nature before it can be used. This third nature is light.

The many, as we say, are seen but not known, and the ideas are known but not seen. Exactly. And what is the organ with which we see the visible things? The sight, he said. And with the hearing, I said, we hear, and with the other senses perceive the other objects of sense? True. But have you remarked that sight is by far the most costly and complex piece of workmanship which the artificer of the senses ever contrived? No, I never have, he said.

Then reflect: has the ear or voice need of any third or additional nature in order that the one may be able to hear and the other to be heard? Nothing of the sort. No, indeed, I rephed ; and the same is true of most, if not all, the other senses — you would not say that any of them requires such an addition? Certainly not. But you see that without the addition of some other nature there is no seeing or being seen? How do you mean?

Sight being, as I conceive, in the eyes, and he who has eyes wanting to see ; colour being also present in them, still unless there be a third nature specially adapted to the purpose, the owner of the eyes will see nothing and the colours will be invisible. Of what nature are you speaking? Of that which you term light, I replied. True, he said.

Noble, then, is the bond which hnks together sight and 5*^^ visibility, and great beyond other bonds by no small difference of nature ; for light is their bond, and light is no ignoble thing? Nay, he said, the reverse of ignoble. And which, I said, of the gods in heaven would you say was the lord of this element? Whose is that light which makes the eye to see perfectly and the visible to appear?

The 'lord of light ' is the child of the good. 209 You mean the sun, as you and all mankind say. Republic vi. May not the relation of sight to this deity be described as Socrates, r^ll . .^ Glaucon. follows? How? Neither sight nor the eye in which sight resides is the sun? No. Yet of all the organs of sense the eye is the most like the The eye like P the sun, but not the same By far the most like. vvith it.

And the power which the eye possesses is a sort of effluence which is dispensed from the sun? Exactly. Then the sun is not sight, but the author of sight who is recognised by sight? True, he said.

And this is he whom I call the child of the good, whom the good begat in his own likeness, to be in the visible world, in relation to sight and the things of sight, what the good is in the intellectual world in relation to mind and the things of mind : Will you be a little more explicit? he said.

Why, you know, I said, that the eyes, when a person directs them towards objects on which the light of day is no longer shining, but the moon and stars only, see dimly, and are nearly blind ; they seem to have no clearness of vision in them? Very true.

But when they are directed towards objects on which the visible objects sun shines, they see clearly and there is sight in them ? ^J^^ ^ whenTh" Certainly. sun shines And the soul is like the eye: when resting upon that on "n,°hi.soriy which truth and being shine, the soul perceives and under- known when , , . ,. .,.,,. , , J illuminated by Stands, and is radiant with mtelligence ; but when turned the idea of towards the twilight of becoming and perishing, then she e°°^ has opinion only, and goes blinking about, and is first of one opinion and then of another, and seems to have no intelligence?

Just so. Now, that which imparts truth to the known and the power of knowing to the knower is what I would have you term the VOL. III. — 29