And as intellect is to opinion, so is science to belief, and
understanding to the perception of shadows.
But let us defer the further correlation and subdivision of the
subjects of opinion and of intellect, for it will be a long enquiry,
many times longer than this has been.
As far as I understand, he said, I agree.
And do you also agree, I said, in describing the dialectician
as one who attains a conception of the essence of each thing?
And he who does not possess and is therefore unable to impart
this conception, in whatever degree he fails, may in that degree
also be said to fail in intelligence? Will you admit so much?
Yes, he said; how can I deny it?
And you would say the same of the conception of the good?
Until the person is able to abstract and define rationally the idea
of good, and unless he can run the gauntlet of all objections,
and is ready to disprove them, not by appeals to opinion,
but to absolute truth, never faltering at any step of the argument--
unless he can do all this, you would say that he knows neither
the idea of good nor any other good; he apprehends only a shadow,
if anything at all, which is given by opinion and not by science;--
dreaming and slumbering in this life, before he is well awake here,
he arrives at the world below, and has his final quietus.
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