पृष्ठ 283 / 1391

He who attains to the beatific vision is always going upwards; he

is unwilling to descend into political assemblies and courts of

law; for his eyes are apt to blink at the images or shadows of

images which they behold in them-he cannot enter into the ideas

of those who have never in their lives understood the relation of

the shadow to the substance. But blindness is of two kinds, and

may be caused either by passing out of darkness into light or out

of light into darkness, and a man of sense will distinguish

between them, and will not laugh equally at both of them, but the

blindness which arises from fulness of light he will deem

blessed, and pity the other; or if he laugh at the puzzled soul

looking at the sun, he will have more reason to laugh than the

inhabitants of the den at those who descend from above. There is

a further lesson taught by this parable of ours.