Pagina 761 di 1391

Glaucon and the rest entreated me by all means not to let the

question drop, but to proceed in the investigation. They wanted

to arrive at the truth, first, about the nature of justice and

injustice, and secondly, about their relative advantages. I told

them, what I really thought, that the enquiry would be of a

serious nature, and would require very good eyes. Seeing then, I

said, that we are no great wits, I think that we had better adopt

a method which I may illustrate thus; suppose that a

short-sighted person had been asked by some one to read small

letters from a distance; and it occurred to some one else that

they might be found in another place which was larger and in

which the letters were larger-if they were the same and he could

read the larger letters first, and then proceed to the

lesser-this would have been thought a rare piece of good fortune.

Very true, said Adeimantus; but how does the illustration apply

to our enquiry?