Republic

”It seems that what we are seeking is by nature among those things that lead to intellection, but no one uses it rightly, though it is altogether drawing toward reality.” “How do you mean?” he said. “I will try,” I said, “to make clear what seems to me. For about the things which I distinguish in my own mind as being leading where we say and not, become a fellow-observer and agree or disagree, so that we may see this too more clearly, if it is as I divine.” “Show,” he said. “I show then,” I said, “if you see, that some things in our sensations do not summon the intellection to inspection, as being sufficiently judged by the sensation, while others altogether command it to inspect, as sensation produces nothing sound.” “You clearly mean,” he said, “things appearing from afar and those drawn in perspective.” “Not at all,” I said, “you have not hit what I mean.” “What kind indeed,” he said, “do you mean?” “Those that do not summon,” I said, “are as many as do not change into a contrary sensation at the same time; but those that do change I set down as summoning, whenever the sensation indicates this no more than its contrary, whether striking from near or from afar. You will know what I mean more clearly in this way. These, we say, would be three fingers: the smallest, the second, and the middle.” “Quite so,” he said. “Think of them, then, as being seen from near when I speak. But consider this for me about them.” “What sort of thing?” “Each of them appears equally a finger, and in this respect at least it makes no difference, whether it is seen in the middle or at the end, whether white or black, whether thick or thin, and everything of that sort. For in all these, the soul of the many is not compelled to ask the intellection what a finger is; for nowhere did the sight indicate to it at the same time that the finger is the contrary of a finger.” “No indeed,” he said. “Therefore,” I said, “reasonably such a thing would not be summoning or awakening to intellection.” “Reasonably.” “But what about their greatness and smallness? Does the sight see them sufficiently, and does it make no difference to it whether one of them lies in the middle or at the end? And likewise, touch with thickness and thinness, or softness and hardness? And do not the other sensations indicate such things deficiently?”

”Or does each of them do this: first, the sensation assigned to the hard is compelled to be assigned also to the soft, and reports to the soul that it perceives the same thing as both hard and soft?” “Yes,” he said. “Therefore,” I said, “it is necessary in such cases for the soul in turn to be at a loss as to what this sensation means by the hard, if it says the same thing is also soft, and that of the light and the heavy, what the light and heavy are, if it indicates the heavy as light and the light as heavy.” ”Indeed,” he said, “these interpretations are strange to the soul and need inspection.” “Reasonably then,” I said, “in such cases the soul first tries, summoning calculation and intellection, to inspect whether each of the things reported is one or two.” “How could it not?” “Therefore, if it appears to be two, each appears as other and one?” “Yes.” “If then each is one, and both are two, it will cognize the two as separated; for it would not cognize them as two if they were unseparated, but as one.” “Right.” “But the sight also saw great and small, we say, yet not separated but as something confounded. Is it not so?” “Yes.” “And for the sake of the clearness of this, the intellection in turn was compelled to see great and small, not confounded but distinguished, the contrary of that other.” “True.” “Is it not from somewhere here that it first occurs to us to ask: what then is the great in turn, and the small?” “Altogether so.” “And thus indeed we called the one intelligible, and the other visible.” ”Most rightly,” he said. “This, then, is what I was trying to say just now, that some things are summoning of thought, and some are not, defining as summoning those which fall into sensation at the same time as their contraries, and as many as do not, as not awakening intellection.” “I understand then now,” he said, “and it seems so to me.” “What then? To which of the two do number and the one seem to belong?” “I do not comprehend,” he said. “But calculate from what has been said,” I said. “For if the one itself is sufficiently seen by itself or grasped by some other sensation, it would not be a drawer toward reality, just as we said about the finger.”