Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/377

322 are accustomed to the surrounding darkness, he is compelled, it may be, to fight in courts of justice, or elsewhere, the battle, not about justice, but about the shadows of justice, or the images which make the shadows; he is compelled to wrangle about the way in which these shadows are apprehended by" those who never had a view of justice herself. If any one has any sense, he will recollect that there are two kinds of confused vision arising from two opposite sources; that which happens when men go out of light into darkness, and that which happens when they go out of darkness into light; and the case is exactly the same with the mind. And when such a one sees a mind confused and unable to discern anything clearly, he will not laugh without consideration; he will consider whether in that case the mind is darkened by coming out of a clearer light into unaccustomed darkness, or, going from ignorance to clearer knowledge, is struck with confusion by the brightened splendour. And in the latter case he would think that mind happy in its constitution and condition, and pity the other; and if he were disposed to laugh at it, his laughter would be far less in a temper of ridicule than his laughter at him who comes from above below, from the light into the dark."

14. In the following quotation from the 10th Book of the Republic, the ideas are explained and illustrated by Plato himself. Here he represents