“The Allegory of the Cave” – an excerpt from Book VII of The Republic
风筝制作过程by Plato translated in 1941 by Francis M. Cornford
Next, said I, here is a parable to illustrate the degrees in which our nature may be enlightened or unenlightened. Imagine the condition of men living in a sort of cavernous chamber underground, with an entrance open to the light and a long passage all down the cave. Here they have been from childhood, chained by the leg and also by the neck, so that they cannot move and can e only what is in front of them, becau the chains will not let them turn their heads. At some distance higher up is the light of a fire burning behind them; and between the prisoners and the fire is a track with a parapet built along it, like the screen at a puppet show which hides the performers while they show their puppets over the top.
I e, said he.
哑牛Now behind this parapet imagine persons carrying along various artificial objects, includin
g figures of men and animals in wood or stone or other materials, which project above the parapet. Naturally, some of the persons will be talking, others silent.
It is a strange picture, he said, and a strange sort of prisoners.
花香袭人
Like ourlves, I replied; for in the first place prisoners so confined would have en nothing of themlves or of one another, except the shadows thrown by the fire-light on the wall of the Cave facing them, would they?
Not if all their lives they had been prevented from moving their heads.
And they would have en as little of the objects carried past.
Of cour.
-- 66 --
Now, if they could talk to one another, would they not suppo that their words referred only to tho passing shadows which they saw?
乱的成语
Necessarily.
And suppo their prison had an echo from the wall facing them? When one of the people crossing behind them spoke, they could only suppo that the sound came from the shadow passing before their eyes.
No doubt.
In every way, then, such prisoners would recognize as reality nothing but the shadows of tho artificial objects.
一年级猜谜语
大额存单利率Inevitably.
Now consider what would happen if their relea from the chains and the healing of their unwisdom should come about in this way. Suppo one of them t free and forced suddenly to stand up, turn his head, and walked with eyes lifted to the light; all the movements would be painful, and he would be too dazzled to make out the objects who shadows he had been ud to eing. What do you think he would say if someon
e told him that what he had formerly en was meaningless illusion, but now, being somewhat nearer to reality and turned towards more real objects, he was getting a truer view? Suppo further that he were shown the various objects now shown him to be not so real as what he formerly saw?
Yes, not nearly so real.
And if he were forced to look at the fire-light itlf, would not his eyes ache, so that he would try to escape and turn back to the things which he could e distinctly, convinced that they really were clearer that the other objects now being shown to him?
Yes.
And suppo someone were to drag him away forcibly up the steep and rugged ascent and not let him go until he hauled him out into the sunlight, would he not suffer pain and vexation at such treatment and when he had come out into the light, find his eyes so full of its radiance that he could not e a glimp one of the things that he was now told were real?
Certainly he would not e them all at once.
He would need, then, to grow accustomed before he could e things in that upper world. At first it would be easiest to make out shadows, and then the images of men and things reflected in water, and later on the things themlves. After that, it would be easier to watch the heavenly bodies and the sky itlf by night, looking at the light of the moon and stars rather than the Sun and the Sun’s light in the daytime.
Yes, surely.
美丽的遇见作文Last of all, he would be able to look at the Sun and contemplate its nature, not as it appears when reflected in water or any alien medium, but as it is in itlf in its own domain.
-- 67 --
No doubt.
And now he wold begin to draw the conclusion that it is the Sun that produces the asons and the cour of the year and controls everything in the visible world, and moreover is in a way the cau of all that he and his companions ud to e.网上备案
Clearly he would come at last to that conclusion.
Then if he called to mind his fellow prisoners and what pasd for wisdom in his former dwelling place, he would surely think himlf happy in the change and be sorry for them. They may have had a practice of honoring and commending one another, with prizes for the man who had the keenest eye for the passing shadows and the best memory for the order in which they followed or accompanied one another, so that he could make a good guess as to which was going to come next. Would our relead prisoner be likely to covet tho prizes or to envy the men exalted to honor and power in the Cave? Would he not feel like Homer’s Achilles, that he would far sooner “be on earth as a hired rvant in the hou of a landless man” or endure anything rather than go back to his old beliefs and live in the old way?
