Having lost not my Innocence until Tuesday last, when I did make initial notice of my presence (legs buckling beneath) by voicing my first words in the hallowed halls of His Elsinore, in the dim light of the A.M., as jocund sun did begin to peer through the dewy mists of dawn, harbinger to that most Halcyon of days; I began to wonder if some initiation might be my fate, not unlike what befalls apprentice mariners upon venturing newly to one of the world's nether regions by crossing such an eminent marker of Civilization as the date line. Be that as it may, I come not to bore you with my musings but to pay obeisance to his Great and Mighty Pinkness, who verily did slay the fearsome shade HITT with but a twist of his subdominant Pinky, before my very eyes. Yea! I do cry out to the Heavens that His Power IS VERY Great indeed and His Wrath Mighty for those who would make victims of the weak and the poor who cannot help themselves. Yet with all reverent respect to His Greatness and the vastness of His Reach, I do beg his forgiveness for suggesting yet a minor correction to a Grand and Holy pronouncement He made in blessing us: For only the sole purpose of helping Him to improve His Perfection: The exquisite writ referred by Him authored by the high and mighty philosopher Plato is in fact "The Allegory of...", not (I pray be merciful) "The Simile of...".
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Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.
No question, he said.
This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed--whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, Here Plato describes his notion of God in a way that was influence profoundly Christian theologians. and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he would act rationally either in public or private life must have his eye fixed.
I agree, he said, as far as I am able to understand you.
Moreover, I said, you must not wonder that those who attain to this beatific vision are unwilling to descend to human affairs; for their souls are ever hastening into the upper world where they desire to dwell; which desire of theirs is very natural, if our allegory may be trusted.
Yes, very natural.
And is there anything surprising in one who passes from divine contemplations to the evil state of man, misbehaving himself in a ridiculous manner; if, while his eyes are blinking and before he has become accustomed to the surrounding darkness, he is compelled to fight in courts of law, or in other places, about the images or the shadows of images of justice, and is endeavoring to meet the conception of those who have never yet seen absolute justice?
Anything but surprising, he replied.
Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above out of the light into the den.
That, he said, is a very just distinction. |
