Think about this
one for a minute.
Compare our nature in respect to education with our condition. Imagine
men in an underground
cave with an entrance open toward the light which extends through
the whole cave. Within the
cave are people who from childhood have had chains on their legs
and their necks so they could
only look forward but not turn their heads. There is burning a fire,
above and behind them, and
between the fire and the chains is a road above, along which one
may see a little wall built along,
just as the stages of conjurers are built before the people in whose
presence they show their tricks.
. . . Imagine then by the side of this little wall men carrying
all sorts of machines rising above the
wall, and statues of men and other animals wrought in stone, wood,
and other materials, some of
bearers probably speaking, others proceeding in silenced. . . .
[Do you think] that such as these
[chained men] would have seen anything alse of themselves or one
another except the shadows
that fall from the fire on the opposite side of the cave? How can
they . . . if indeed they are forced
to always keep their heads unmoved? . . . . [S]uch persons would
believe that truth was nothing
else but the shadows of the exhibitions. Let us inquire then, as
to their liberation from captivity,
and their cure for insanity. . . . [What if one of these chained
persons was] let loose and obliged
immediately to rise up, and turn round his neck and walk, and look
upwards to the light, and
doing all this still feel pained, and be disabled by the dazzling
form seeing those things of which he
formerly saw the shadows. What would he say if anyone were to tell
him that he formerly saw
mere empty visions, but now saw more correctly, as being nearer
to the real thing, and turned
toward what was more real. Then, what if you specially pointing
out to him, and made him tell
you the nature of what he saw. Do you think that he would be embarrassed?
Do you think that he
would think now that what he saw before was truer than what he sees
now?
Even if a person could force him to look at the light itself, would
he not have pain in his eyes and
look away? And then, would not he turn to what he really could see
[without pain] and think that
these are really more clear than what had just been shown to him?
But if a person was then to
forcibly drag him out of the cave without stopping, until he was
in the light of the sun, would he
not be pained and indignant? Would not he, while in this light and
having his eyes dazzled with
the splendor, be able to see anything that he thought was true?
No, he could not, at that moment.
He would need to get some degree of practice if he would see things
above him. First, he would
most easily perceive the shadows, and then the images of men and
other animals in the water, and
after that the things themselves. And then he would more easily
see the things in heaven, and
heaven itself, by night, looking to the light of the stars and the
moon, than after daylight to the
sun and the light of the sun. How else? Finally, he might be able
to perceive and contemplate the
nature of the sun, not as respects its images in water or any other
place, but itself by itself in its
own proper place.
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