[507a]
I said, “that I were able to make and you to
receive the payment and not merely as now the interest. But at any rate
receive this interest1 and the
offspring of the good. Have a care, however, lest I deceive you
unintentionally with a false reckoning of the interest.”
“We will do our best,” he said, “to be on our
guard. Only speak on.” “Yes,” I said,
“after first coming to an understanding with you and reminding you
of what has been said here before and often on other occasions.2”
[507b]
“What?” said he.
“We predicate ‘to be’3 of many beautiful things and many
good things, saying of them severally that they are, and so define them in
our speech.” “We do.” “And again, we
speak of a self-beautiful and of a good that is only and merely good, and
so, in the case of all the things that we then posited as many, we turn
about and posit each as a single idea or aspect, assuming it to be a unity
and call it that which each really is.4 “It is
so.” “And the one class of things we say can be seen but
not thought,
[507c]
while the ideas can be
thought but not seen.” “By all means.”
“With which of the parts of ourselves, with which of our
faculties, then, do we see visible things?” “With
sight,” he said. “And do we not,” I said,
“hear audibles with hearing, and perceive all sensibles with the
other senses?” “Surely.” “Have you
ever observed,” said I, “how much the greatest
expenditure the creator5 of the senses has lavished
on the faculty of seeing and being seen?6
“Why, no, I have not,” he said. “Well, look at
it thus. Do hearing and voice stand in need of another medium7 so that
the one may hear and the other be heard,
[507d]
in the absence of which third element the one will not hear and the other
not be heard?” “They need nothing,” he said.
“Neither, I fancy,” said I,” do many others,
not to say that none require anything of the sort. Or do you know of
any?” “Not I,” he said. “But do you
not observe that vision and the visible do have this further
need?” “How?” “Though vision may be
in the eyes and its possessor may try to use it, and though color be
present, yet without
[507e]
the presence of a
third thing8 specifically and naturally adapted to this purpose, you are
aware that vision will see nothing and the colors will remain
invisible.9”
“What10
is this thing of which you speak?” he said. “The
thing,” I said, “that you call light.”
“You say truly,” he replied. “The bond, then,
that yokes together
1 This playful interlude relieves the monotony of the argument and is a transition to the symbolism.τόκος means both interest and offspring. Cf. 555 E, Polit. 267 A, Aristoph.Clouds 34, Thesm. 845, Pindar, Ol. x. 12. the equivocation, which in other languages became a metaphor, has played a great part in the history of opinion about usury. Cf. the article “Usury” in Hastings's Encyclopaedia of Relig. and Ethics.
2 Cf. 475 E f. Plato as often begins by a restatement of the theory of ideas, i.e. practically of the distinction between the concept and the objects of sense. Cf. Rep. 596 A ff., Phaedo 108 b ff.
3 The modern reader will never understand Plato from translation that talk about “Being.” Cf. What Plato Said, p. 605.
4 ὃ ἔστιν is technical for the reality of the ideas. Cf. Phaedo 75 B, D, 78 D, Parmen. 129 B, Symp. 211 C, Rep. 490 B, 532 A, 597 A.
5 Creator,δημιουργός, God, the gods, and nature, are all virtual synonyms in such passages.
6 Cf. Phaedr. 259 D, Tim. 45 B.
7 This is literature, not science. Plato knew that sound required a medium, Tim. 67 B. But the statement here is true enough to illustrate the thought.
8 Lit. “kind of thing,”γένος. Cf. 507 C-D.
9 Cf. Troland, The Mystery of Mind, p. 82: “In order that there should be vision, it is not sufficient that a physical object should exist before the eyes. there must also be a source of so-called ‘light.’”
10 Plato would not have tried to explain this loose colloquial genitive, and we need not.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.