Book VI, 501–508

501a “What manner of painting do you mean?”

“Taking the city and human characters as their canvas,” I said, “they would first wipe it clean—not at all an easy thing. But you know this is precisely how they would differ from others at the outset: they would refuse to touch either a person or a city, or draw up laws, until they had received a clean canvas or made it clean themselves.”

“And rightly so,” he said.

“After that, don't you think they would sketch the outline of the constitution?”

“Of course.” 501b

“Then, as they worked it out, I think they would look repeatedly in both directions: toward what is just, beautiful, temperate, and everything of that kind by nature, and again toward what they were producing among human beings. By mingling and blending their ways of life, they would create the human likeness, taking their measure from what Homer called the godlike and god-resembling quality that arises in human beings.”

“Right,” he said.

“And I imagine they would erase one feature and paint in another 501c until they had made human characters, as far as possible, beloved of the gods.”

“At any rate,” he said, “the painting would be most beautiful.”

“Then,” I said, “are we persuading those people whom you said were marching against us in battle formation that the painter of constitutions is the kind of person we were praising to them before—the very one they resented us for entrusting with cities? Are they growing a little gentler as they hear this?”

“Much gentler,” he said, “if they have any sense.” 501d

“For how will they dispute it? Will they say philosophers are not lovers of what is and of truth?”

“That would be absurd,” he said.

“Or that their nature, as we described it, is not akin to what is best?”

“Nor that.”

“What then? That such a nature, when it receives the pursuits proper to it, will not become perfectly good and philosophical, if any nature can? Or will they claim this rather for the people we excluded?” 501e

“Surely not.”

“Will they still be fierce with us when we say that until the philosophical kind takes control of a city there will be no end to evils for city or citizens, and the constitution we are telling of in words will never find its fulfillment in deeds?”

“Perhaps less fierce,” he said.

“Would you like us to say,” I asked, “not merely that they are less fierce, but

502a that they have become altogether gentle and persuaded, so that, if nothing else, shame will make them agree?”

“By all means,” he said.

“Let them, then,” I said, “be persuaded of that. But will anyone dispute this: that among the children of kings or rulers there might be some whose natures are philosophical?”

“No one,” he said.

“And can anyone say that, once born, they must inevitably be corrupted? That it is hard for them to survive, we 502b too concede; but will anyone contend that in all time not a single one of them could ever survive?”

“How could they?”

“And yet,” I said, “one such person, if he arose and had a city willing to obey him, would suffice to accomplish all the things now thought incredible.”

“He would suffice,” he said.

“For if a ruler laid down the laws and ways of life we have described,” I said, “it is surely not impossible that the citizens would be willing to follow them.”

“Not in the least.”

“But is it so astonishing and impossible that others should come to think what we think?” 502c

“I don't think so,” he said.

“And that these arrangements would be best, if they were possible, we have, I believe, shown sufficiently already.”

“Yes, sufficiently.”

“So now, it seems, we reach this conclusion about our legislation: what we propose would be best if it came to pass, and hard, but not impossible, to bring about.”

“That is our conclusion,” he said.

“Now that we have brought that question to its end, with difficulty, we must speak of what remains: by what means, through what studies 502d and practices, the saviors of our constitution will come into being, and at what ages each is to take up each pursuit.”

“We must,” he said.

“It was no cleverness of mine,” I said, “to pass over earlier the troublesome question of the possession of women, the begetting of children, and the appointment of rulers, though I knew that the whole truth would prove both contentious and difficult. For now the necessity of going through those things has come upon us just the same. 502e The questions of women and children are finished, but that of rulers must be taken up, as it were, from the beginning. We said,

503a if you remember, that they must show themselves devoted to their city when tested by pleasures and pains, and must never be seen casting off this conviction amid labors, fears, or any other change of fortune. Whoever could not hold fast was to be rejected; but whoever came through every trial unalloyed, like gold tested in fire, was to be established as a ruler and given honors and prizes both in life and after death. Something like that is what we said, while the argument slipped past and concealed 503b itself, afraid to stir the question now before us.”

“What you say is entirely true,” he said. “I remember.”

“For I was hesitant, my friend,” I said, “to say what we have now dared to say. But now let it stand, boldly spoken: we must appoint philosophers as the most exacting guardians.”

“Let it stand,” he said.

“Consider, then, how few of them you are likely to have. The parts of the nature we described as necessary for them seldom consent to grow together in one person; for the most part they arise separately.” 503c

“What do you mean?” he said.

“You know that quick learners, people with good memories, keen minds, and sharp wits, and all the qualities that go with these, are not usually also high-spirited and large-minded in the way needed to live with order, calm, and steadiness. Such people are carried wherever their quickness takes them, and every trace of stability leaves them.”

“What you say is true,” he said.

“On the other hand, those steadfast, unchanging characters 503d whom one might trust more readily for their reliability, and who are hard to shake with fear in war, are the same when it comes to learning: they are sluggish and slow to understand, as if numbed, and fill up with sleep and yawns whenever they have to work at anything of that sort.”

“That is so,” he said.

“Yet we say they must share fully and admirably in both sets of qualities; otherwise we must give them neither the most exacting education, nor honor, nor power.”

“Right,” he said.

“Do you not think such a combination will be rare?”

“How could it not?” 503e

“They must be tested, then, in the labors, fears, and pleasures we spoke of before. And we should now add what we omitted then: they must be exercised in many studies to see whether their nature can bear the greatest studies too, or 504a whether it will lose courage, as people do in other trials.”

“It certainly makes sense to test them so,” he said. “But what do you call the greatest studies?”

“You remember, I expect,” I said, “how we distinguished three kinds in the soul and brought them together to determine what justice, temperance, courage, and wisdom each are.”

“If I did not remember,” he said, “I would not deserve to hear the rest.”

“And do you remember what was said before that?”

“What was that?” 504b

“We said that to see these things as beautifully as possible there was another, longer road, and that by traveling it we could see them clearly; but that we could offer demonstrations consistent with what had been said earlier. You said that would suffice, and so our account was given then, short of exactness, as it seemed to me. Whether it satisfied you is for you to say.”

“It seemed adequate to me,” he said, “and to the others too.” 504c

“But, my friend,” I said, “a measure of such things that falls even a little short of reality is hardly adequate; nothing incomplete is the measure of anything. Yet some people sometimes think they have enough already and need seek no further.”

“Yes,” he said, “many suffer from that through laziness.”

“And there is no affliction a guardian of a city and its laws needs less,” I said.

“Naturally,” he said.

“Such a person, then, my friend,” I said, “must travel the longer road, 504d and labor no less at learning than at physical training; otherwise, as we said just now, he will never reach the end of the greatest and most fitting study.”

“Are these not the greatest studies, then?” he said. “Is there something still greater than justice and the things we discussed?”

“Something greater,” I said. “And even in these matters we must not look at a mere sketch, as we have now, but must not leave the most finished work undone. Would it not be ridiculous to strain every effort over other things of little worth 504e so that they might be as exact and pure as possible, yet not think the greatest things worthy of the greatest exactness?”

“Very much so,” he said. “[The thought is well worth considering.] But as for this greatest study and what its subject is, do you think anyone will let you go without asking what you mean?”

“Hardly,” I said. “Ask away. You have certainly heard it often enough, but now either you do not recall, or else you intend

505a to make trouble for me by pressing the point. I suspect it is the latter. For you have often heard that the Form of the Good is the greatest study: by their relation to it just things and all the rest become useful and beneficial. You know well enough that this is what I am about to say, and, besides, that we do not know it adequately. But if we do not know it, then even if we know everything else as fully as possible, you know it will do us no good—any more than possessing anything 505b without the Good. Or do you think there is any gain in acquiring every possession unless it is good, or in understanding everything else without the Good, while understanding nothing beautiful and good?”

“By Zeus, I do not,” he said.

“Yet you also know that most people take the Good to be pleasure, while the more sophisticated take it to be wisdom.”

“Of course.”

“And those who hold the latter view, my friend, cannot show what wisdom they mean, but end by being forced to say that it is wisdom of the Good.”

“Which is utterly ridiculous,” he said. 505c

“How could it not be?” I said. “They reproach us for not knowing the Good, and then speak to us as though we knew it: they say it is wisdom of the Good, as if we understood what they meant once they uttered the name ‘Good.’”

“Entirely true,” he said.

“And those who define the Good as pleasure? Are they any less deeply lost than the others? Are they not forced to admit that some pleasures are bad?”

“Very much so.”

“So they are compelled, I think, to admit that the same things are both good and bad. Isn't that so?” 505d

“Of course.”

“Then it is clear that there are many great disputes about it?”

“How could it not be?”

“And isn't this clear too? Many people would choose things that only seem just and beautiful, even if they were not, and would still act upon them, possess them, and be thought to possess them. But where good things are concerned, no one is satisfied with merely seeming goods: people seek what really is good, and here everyone disdains mere appearance.”

“Very much so,” he said.

“This, then, is what every soul pursues and for whose sake it 505e does everything, sensing that it is something; yet the soul is perplexed and cannot adequately grasp what it is, or hold a firm conviction about it as it does about other things, and so loses whatever benefit there might be in those other things. Shall we say that the best people in our city, into whose hands we entrust everything, 506a must remain in such darkness about a thing so great and so important?”

“Certainly not,” he said.

“I think,” I said, “that just and beautiful things will have a guardian of little worth if he does not know in what way they are good; and I suspect that no one will know them adequately before he knows that.”

“Your suspicion is sound,” he said.

“Will our constitution, then, be perfectly ordered if 506b it is watched over by a guardian who knows these things?”

“It must be,” he said. “But tell me, Socrates: do you say the Good is knowledge, or pleasure, or something other than these?”

“There you are,” I said. “For some time it has been plain that other people's opinions about it would not satisfy you.”

“Nor does it seem right to me, Socrates,” he said, “that someone who has spent so long working on these matters can state the opinions of others but not his own.” 506c

“Well,” I said, “does it seem right to you for someone to speak as though he knew what he does not know?”

“Not as though he knew,” he said, “but he should be willing to say what he believes, as a belief.”

“What?” I said. “Have you not noticed how shameful opinions without knowledge all are? Even the best of them are blind. Do people who hold a true belief without understanding seem any different to you from blind people walking the right road?”

“No different,” he said.

“Would you rather behold what is shameful, blind, and crooked, when you can hear what is clear and beautiful from others?” 506d

“By Zeus, Socrates,” Glaucon said, “don't turn away when you are almost at the end. It will be enough for us if you discuss the Good as you discussed justice, temperance, and the other things.”

“And for me too, my friend,” I said, “that would be more than enough. But I fear I may not be able to do it; eager as I am, I might make a spectacle of myself and invite laughter. No, my good friends, let us leave aside for now what the Good itself 506e is; reaching even my present notion of it seems beyond the force of our present undertaking. But I am willing to speak of what appears to be its offspring and its closest likeness, if that pleases you; otherwise, let us leave it.”

“Speak,” he said. “You can pay us the account of the father another time.”

507a “I wish,” I said, “I could pay it and you could receive it, instead of receiving only the interest, as you will now. But receive this interest, the offspring of the Good itself. Take care, though, that I don't inadvertently deceive you by paying you a counterfeit account of the interest.”

“We shall take care as best we can,” he said. “Only speak.”

“Once we have come to an agreement,” I said, “and I have reminded you of what we said earlier, and what we have often said at other times too.” 507b

“What is that?” he asked.

“We say there are many beautiful things and many good things, and so with each kind; we distinguish them in speech.”

“Yes, we do.”

“And we speak also of the Beautiful itself and the Good itself. In the same way, for all the things we then posited as many, we now posit in turn one Form for each, as each is one, and call it what each thing is.”

“That is so.”

“And we say the many things can be seen but not thought, while the Forms can be thought but not seen.”

“Exactly.” 507c

“By what in ourselves, then, do we see things that can be seen?”

“By sight,” he said.

“And by hearing we hear things that can be heard, and by the other senses perceive everything perceptible?”

“Of course.”

“Have you noticed,” I said, “how lavishly the maker of the senses fashioned the power of seeing and being seen?”

“Not especially,” he said.

“Consider it this way. Do hearing and sound need some other kind of thing, in addition, for the one to hear and the other to be heard—something third that must be present, 507d without which neither hearing nor being heard can happen?”

“They need nothing,” he said.

“And I think,” I said, “that many other senses—perhaps all of them—need nothing of the sort. Can you name one that does?”

“No,” he said.

“But don't you see that sight and visible things need something in addition?”

“How so?”

“Even if sight resides in the eyes and their owner tries to use it, and color is present in the objects, unless a third kind of thing, naturally suited to this very purpose, is present, 507e you know sight will see nothing and the colors will remain unseen.”

“What thing do you mean?” he asked.

“What you call light,” I said.

“True,” he said.

“So sight and the power of being seen are yoked together by a bond of no slight worth, more precious than the bonds joining the other senses to their objects,

508a if light is indeed precious.”

“It is far from worthless,” he said.

“Which of the gods in heaven can you name as master of this light, by which our sight sees most beautifully and visible things are seen?”

“The one you would name, and everyone else,” he said. “Clearly you mean the sun.”

“Does sight stand in this relation to that god?”

“What relation?”

“Sight is not the sun, either in itself or in the organ in which it arises, 508b which we call the eye.”

“Certainly not.”

“But of all the organs of sense the eye is, I think, the most sunlike.”

“By far.”

“And the power it possesses is dispensed to it from the sun, as a kind of outflow?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“And so the sun, though not itself sight, is the cause of sight and is seen by sight itself?”

“That is so,” he said.

“Then this,” I said, “is what I mean by the offspring of the Good, begotten by the Good in its own likeness: as the Good is in the intelligible realm toward understanding and what is understood, 508c so is the sun in the visible realm toward sight and what is seen.”

“How?” he said. “Explain it further.”

“You know,” I said, “that when someone turns the eyes toward things whose colors receive not the light of day but only the glimmer of night, the eyes grow dim and seem almost blind, as though clear sight were no longer in them?”

“Very much so,” he said. 508d

“But when one turns them toward what the sun illuminates, they see clearly, and it becomes apparent that sight dwells in those same eyes.”

“Of course.”

“Understand the soul in the same way. When it fixes itself on something lit by truth and being, it understands and knows it, and seems to possess intelligence. But when it turns to what is mingled with darkness, what comes to be and passes away, it holds opinions and sees dimly, changing its opinions this way and that, and again seems to lack intelligence.”

“So it seems,” he said. 508e

“Say, then, that what gives truth to things known and the power of knowing to the knower is the Form of the Good. It is the cause of knowledge and truth; and though you must think of it as itself an object of knowledge, and though knowledge and truth are both beautiful, you will be right to hold it other and more beautiful still than they are. Knowledge

501a “What sort of painting do you mean?”

“They would take the city and people’s characters as their canvas,” I said. “First they would wipe it clean. That is far from easy. But you know how they would differ from everyone else right away: they would refuse to touch a person or a city, or write laws for them, until they had received a clean canvas or made it clean themselves.”

“And rightly so,” he said.

“After that, don’t you think they would sketch the outline of the constitution?”

“Of course.” 501b

“Then, as they worked on it, I think they would keep looking back and forth. They would look at what is just, beautiful, and moderate by nature, and everything like that. Then they would look at what they were putting into human beings. They would mix and blend ways of living to produce a human image, taking their cue from what Homer called the godlike and god-resembling quality that arises in human beings.”

“Right,” he said.

“I think they would erase one feature and paint in another, 501c until they had made human character as pleasing to the gods as it can be.”

“That would certainly make a very fine painting,” he said.

“Now,” I said, “can we persuade those people you said were advancing against us so fiercely? Can we show them that the painter of constitutions is the sort of person we were praising to them then, the one who made them angry when we entrusted the cities to him? Will they calm down a little more when they hear this?”

“Much more, if they have any sense,” he said. 501d

“How could they still dispute it? Would they deny that philosophers love what is real and true?”

“That would be absurd,” he said.

“Or would they deny that the nature we described is suited to what is best?”

“They couldn’t deny that either.”

“What then? Would they say that, with the right training, such a nature cannot become perfectly good and philosophical, if anyone can? Would they say instead that the people we ruled out can do it better?” 501e

“Certainly not.”

“So will they still be angry when we say that cities and citizens will have no end to their troubles until the philosophical kind has control of a city, and that the constitution we have described in words will never become a reality before then?”

“Perhaps less angry,” he said.

“Would you like us to say,” I replied, “not just that they are less angry, but that 502a they have become completely gentle and convinced? Then, if nothing else, they may agree out of embarrassment.”

“Certainly,” he said.

“Let us take them as convinced, then,” I said. “But will anyone dispute that children of kings or other rulers might be born with philosophical natures?”

“No one,” he said.

“And can anyone say that, if they are born that way, they absolutely must be corrupted? We too admit that it is hard for one to survive uncorrupted. 502b But who would claim that across all time, among all these people, not one could ever survive?”

“How could anyone?”

“Yet one is enough,” I said, “if he has a city that obeys him. He can carry out everything people now refuse to believe possible.”

“One would be enough,” he said.

“If a ruler establishes the laws and practices we have discussed,” I said, “it is surely not impossible for citizens to be willing to follow them.”

“Not at all.”

“And would it be such a marvel, such an impossibility, for others to hold the opinions we do?” 502c

“I don’t think so,” he said.

“And we have already made the case well enough, I think, that these laws would be best if they could be put into effect.”

“We have.”

“So we now seem to have reached this result about our laws: what we propose would be best if it happened. It is hard to bring about, but not impossible.”

“That is the result,” he said.

“Now that we have finally settled that difficult point, we must discuss the rest. How will we produce the people who will preserve our constitution? Through which studies 502d and practices, and at what ages should each person start each of them?”

“We must discuss that,” he said.

“It was no clever move on my part,” I said, “to skip over the troublesome question of women as partners, the bearing of children, and the appointment of rulers earlier. I knew that the full truth would be unpopular and difficult to achieve. But now I have to go through these things anyway. 502e We have finished with women and children, but we must take up the question of rulers again from the beginning. 503a If you remember, we said they must show that they love their city when they are tested with pleasures and pains. They must never be seen abandoning that conviction during hard work, fear, or any other change. Anyone unable to keep it should be rejected. The one who comes through every test untainted, like gold tested in fire, should be made a ruler and given honors and prizes both in life and after death. That was roughly what we said, while our discussion sidestepped and hid 503b the issue before us now because it was afraid to raise it.”

“That is exactly right,” he said. “I remember.”

“I hesitated, my friend,” I said, “to say what I have now dared to say. But let me make this bold claim: we must appoint philosophers as the most thorough guardians.”

“Let it be said,” he replied.

“Now understand why there will probably be few of them. The parts of the nature we described seldom grow together in one person. Most often they are found apart. 503c Do you see what I mean?”

“No. What do you mean?” he said.

“You know that people who learn easily, have good memories, are quick-witted and sharp, and have all the related qualities, are not usually also high-spirited and broad-minded people who are willing to live in an orderly, calm, and steady way. Instead, their sharpness carries them wherever chance takes them, and all their steadiness disappears.”

“That is true,” he said.

“On the other hand, people with steady characters who do not change easily are more dependable. They are slow to give way to fear 503d in war, but they react to learning in the same way. Their minds move slowly, and they have trouble learning, as though they were numb. They become sleepy and yawn whenever they must work hard at something of that kind.”

“That happens,” he said.

“But we insist that a person must possess both sets of qualities fully and properly. Otherwise we must give that person neither the most exacting education nor honors nor power.”

“Right,” he said.

“Don’t you think that combination will be rare?”

“How could it not be?” 503e

“So we must test them with the hardships, fears, and pleasures we discussed then. We must now add what we left out: they must be trained in many fields of study. We must watch whether their nature can bear even the greatest studies, or whether they will 504a lose courage, just as some people do in other tests.”

“Yes, it makes sense to test them that way,” he said. “But what are these greatest studies you mean?”

“You remember,” I said, “that we divided the soul into three kinds and drew conclusions about what justice, moderation, courage, and wisdom each are.”

“If I didn’t remember,” he said, “I wouldn’t deserve to hear what comes next.”

“Do you also remember what we said before that?”

“What was that?” 504b

“We said that to see these things as clearly as possible would take a longer route. They would become plain to someone who completed it. But we could give an account based on what we had already said. You said that would be enough. So that is how we discussed those subjects, without the precision I thought they needed. Whether it satisfied you is for you to say.”

“It seemed adequate to me,” he said, “and to the others too.” 504c

“But, my friend,” I said, “a measure that falls even a little short of what is real is not adequate for these matters. Nothing incomplete is a measure of anything. Yet sometimes people think they have done enough and need look no further.”

“Yes,” he said. “A great many people fall into that habit through laziness.”

“And a guardian of a city and its laws is the last person who should have it,” I said.

“Of course,” he replied.

“So that person must take the longer route, my friend,” I said, “and work no less hard at study 504d than at physical training. Otherwise, as we just said, that person will never reach the goal of the greatest and most fitting study.”

“Are these not the greatest subjects, then?” he said. “Is there something greater than justice and the other things we discussed?”

“There is something greater,” I said. “And even with those subjects, we must not look at a mere outline, as we have so far. We must not stop short of the finished picture. Wouldn’t it be ridiculous to make every effort over things of little value 504e to get them as exact and pure as possible, but then fail to demand the greatest precision for the greatest things?”

“Yes, certainly. That is worth thinking about,” he said. “But do you really think anyone will let you go without asking what you mean by the greatest study, and what it studies?”

“Not likely,” I said. “Go ahead and ask. You have heard me speak of it often enough. Either you don’t understand now, or you mean 505a to make trouble for me by interrupting. I suspect the latter. You have often heard that the Form of the Good is the greatest subject of study. It is by using the Good that just things and all the rest become useful and beneficial. You can probably tell that this is what I am about to say, and that we do not know it well enough. Without knowing it, even the fullest knowledge of everything else will do us no good. It would be like owning something 505b without its being good. Do you think it would help us to own everything if none of it were good? Or to understand everything else but the Good, and understand nothing beautiful and good?”

“No, by Zeus, I don’t,” he said.

“And you know that most people think the Good is pleasure, while the more sophisticated think it is understanding.”

“Of course.”

“But, my friend, those who take that view cannot tell us what kind of understanding they mean. In the end they are forced to say, ‘understanding of the Good.’”

“Yes, that is quite ridiculous,” he said. 505c

“How could it not be?” I said. “They blame us for not knowing the Good, but then talk to us as though we knew it. They call it understanding of the Good, as if we understood what they meant once they said the word ‘Good.’”

“Exactly,” he said.

“And what about those who define the Good as pleasure? Are they any less confused than the others? Aren’t they forced to agree that some pleasures are bad?”

“They certainly are.”

“Then I think they are agreeing that the same things are both good and bad. Isn’t that so?” 505d

“Of course.”

“So it is clear that there are many serious disputes about the Good.”

“How could there not be?”

“Consider this too. Many people would choose things that merely seem just and beautiful, even if they are not. They would act that way, own such things, and appear to be such people. But when it comes to good things, no one is satisfied with what merely seems good. They want what really is good. Everyone rejects mere appearance in this case.”

“Certainly,” he said.

“Every soul pursues this and does everything 505e for its sake. Each senses that there is such a thing, but cannot work out what it is or hold a firm belief about it as it can about other things. Because of this, it misses whatever benefit it might get from those other things. Is this so great and important a matter something we should leave in the dark 506a even for the best people in our city, the ones to whom we entrust everything?”

“Certainly not,” he said.

“For my part,” I said, “I think that just and beautiful things will have little protection if their guardian does not understand how they are good. I suspect no one can know them adequately before knowing that.”

“That sounds right,” he said.

“So our constitution will be perfectly ordered if it is watched over 506b by a guardian who knows these things.”

“It must be,” he said. “But you, Socrates, what do you say the Good is? Knowledge, pleasure, or something other than those?”

“There you are,” I said. “It has been obvious for a while that other people’s views about it would not satisfy you.”

“It does not seem fair to me, Socrates,” he said, “for someone who has spent so much time on these questions to be able to report other people’s opinions but not his own.” 506c

“What?” I said. “Do you think it is fair for someone to speak as though he knows about something he does not know?”

“Not as though he knows,” he said. “But he should be willing to say what he thinks, as something he thinks.”

“What? Haven’t you noticed how ugly opinions without knowledge are? Even the best of them are blind. Are people who have a true opinion without understanding any different from blind people walking down the right road?”

“No different,” he said.

“So do you want to look at ugly, blind, crooked things, 506d when you could hear clear and beautiful things from others?”

“For Zeus’s sake, Socrates,” Glaucon said, “don’t stop as though you were at the finish line! We will be satisfied if you discuss the Good as you discussed justice, moderation, and the rest.”

“I would be very satisfied too, my friend,” I said. “But I am afraid I cannot do it. If I try too hard, I will only make a fool of myself and get laughed at. My friends, let us leave aside for now what the Good itself 506e actually is. Reaching even what I now think about it seems beyond our present effort. But I am willing to talk about what appears to be the Good’s offspring, and most like it, if you wish. Otherwise, I will leave it alone.”

“Tell us,” he said. “You can pay us the account of the father another time.”

507a “I wish I could pay that account, and that you could receive it,” I said, “instead of receiving only interest, as you will now. So take this interest, this offspring of the Good itself. But be careful: I might unintentionally cheat you and pay you with a false account of the interest.”

“We’ll be as careful as we can,” he said. “Just tell us.”

“First I must get your agreement,” I said, “and remind you of what we said earlier, both here and many other times.” 507b

“What was that?” he asked.

“We say that there are many beautiful things and many good things, and many things of each other kind. We define them that way in speech.”

“Yes.”

“And we also speak of the beautiful itself and the Good itself. For each group of many things we spoke of then, we set down one Form for each kind, treating it as one, and call it what each thing is.”

“We do.”

“And we say that the many things can be seen but not understood by thought, while the Forms can be understood by thought but not seen.”

“Absolutely.” 507c

“Which part of ourselves do we use to see things that can be seen?”

“Sight,” he said.

“And we hear sounds with hearing, and perceive every other sensible thing with the other senses?”

“Of course.”

“Have you noticed,” I said, “how much more carefully the maker of the senses made our power to see and to be seen?”

“Not really,” he said.

“Then think of it this way. Do hearing and sound need another kind of thing so that one can hear and the other be heard? If this third thing 507d is absent, can hearing not hear and sound not be heard?”

“They need nothing else,” he said.

“And I think many other senses, if not all, need no such extra thing either. Can you name one that does?”

“No,” he said.

“But don’t you see that sight and visible things do need something else?”

“How so?”

“Suppose there is sight in the eyes and their owner tries to use it, and there is color in the objects. Unless a third kind of thing, naturally suited to this particular task, 507e is present, you know sight will see nothing and the colors will remain invisible.”

“What thing do you mean?” he asked.

“What you call light,” I said.

“You are right,” he said.

“So the sense of sight and the power of things to be seen are joined by a bond much more valuable than the bonds of the other senses, if light really has value.”

508a “It certainly has a great deal of value,” he said.

“Then which of the gods in heaven do you say rules over it? Whose light lets our sight see as well as possible, and lets visible things be seen?”

“The same one you and everyone else would say,” he replied. “You obviously mean the sun.”

“Now is sight naturally related to this god in the following way?”

“How?”

“Sight itself is not the sun, nor is the organ in which it occurs, which we call the eye. 508b Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“But I think the eye is the most sunlike of all the organs of sense.”

“By far.”

“And the power it has comes from the sun, as though it were supplied by a stream from it?”

“Yes.”

“And the sun, though not itself sight, causes sight and is seen by sight?”

“That is so,” he said.

“This, then,” I said, “is what I mean by the offspring of the Good. The Good brought the sun into being as something corresponding to itself. 508c In the visible world, the sun has the same relation to sight and visible things as the Good has to understanding and the things understood in the world of thought.”

“How?” he said. “Explain some more.”

“You know what happens to eyes,” I said, “when someone turns them not toward things lit by daylight but toward things lit by the glimmer of night. They grow dim and seem almost blind, as though clear vision were gone.”

“Certainly,” he said. 508d

“But when the same eyes turn to things lit by the sun, they see clearly. Sight plainly resides in those very eyes.”

“Of course.”

“Think of the soul in the same way. When it fixes its attention on what truth and reality light up, it understands and knows, and clearly has intelligence. But when it turns toward what is mixed with darkness, what comes into being and passes away, it forms opinions and sees dimly. Its opinions keep shifting back and forth, and it seems to have no intelligence.”

“It does,” he said. 508e

“So say that the Form of the Good gives the objects of knowledge their truth and gives the knower the power to know. Think of it as the cause of knowledge and truth, while itself being something known. Knowledge and truth are both beautiful, but you will be right to think the Good is something different and even more beautiful than either. Knowledge