[507e]
the presence of a
third thing1 specifically and naturally adapted to this purpose, you are
aware that vision will see nothing and the colors will remain
invisible.2”
“What3
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 Lit. “kind of thing,”γένος. Cf. 507 C-D.
2 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.’”
3 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.
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