[516a]
he came
out into the light, that his eyes would be filled with its beams so that he
would not be able to see1 even one of the things that we
call real?” “Why, no, not immediately,” he said.
“Then there would be need of habituation, I take it, to enable him to
see the things higher up. And at first he would most easily discern the shadows
and, after that, the likenesses or reflections in water2 of men and other
things, and later, the things themselves, and from these he would go on to
contemplate the appearances in the heavens and heaven itself, more easily by
night, looking at the light
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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