408 PLA TO
ΛΥΙιαΙ is that?
The gentle force of attainder or confiscation or death, which, as you are aware, these new Sophists and educators, Avho are the public, apply when their words are powerless.
Indeed they do ; and in right good earnest.
Now what opinion of any other Sophist, or of any private person, can be expected to overcome in such an unequal contest ?
THE ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE
From the RepubUc, Book Vn. 514-519.
Socrates. Glaucon.
Socrates. And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened : Behold human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reach- ing all along the den ; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way ; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.
I see.
And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall, carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues ^ and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various ma-
^ Thus the prisoners see only shadows cast by images of real things, — not even shadows cast by real things themselves.
