ALCIBIADES (I) by Plato - Complete text

Page 45

Soc.: But how can we have a perfect knowledge of the things of the soul?—For if we know them, then I suppose we shall know ourselves. Can we really be ignorant of the excellent meaning of the Delphian inscription, of which we were just now speaking?

Alc.: What have you in your thoughts, Socrates?

Soc.: I will tell you what I suspect to be the meaning and lesson of that inscription. Let me take an illustration from sight, which I imagine to be the only one suitable to my purpose.

Alc.: What do you mean?

Soc.: Consider; if some one were to say to the eye, 'See thyself,' as you might say to a man, 'Know thyself,' what is the nature and meaning of this precept? Would not his meaning be:—That the eye should look at that in which it would see itself?

Alc.: Clearly.

Soc.: And what are the objects in looking at which we see ourselves?

Alc.: Clearly, Socrates, in looking at mirrors and the like.

Soc.: Very true; and is there not something of the nature of a mirror in our own eyes?

Alc.: Certainly.

Soc.: Did you ever observe that the face of the person looking into the eye of another is reflected as in a mirror; and in the visual organ which is over against him, and which is called the pupil, there is a sort of image of the person looking?

Alc.: That is quite true.

Soc.: Then the eye, looking at another eye, and at that in the eye which is most perfect, and which is the instrument of vision, will there see itself?

Alc.: That is evident.

Soc.: But looking at anything else either in man or in the world, and not to what resembles this, it will not see itself?

Alc.: Very true.

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