This paragraph that follows is excerpted from Plato's Republic, VII, 527 d;
as quoted by, Theon of Smyrna ( 2nd c. AD ).
Plato is speaking to his students about metaphysical science and the soul.
as quoted by, Theon of Smyrna ( 2nd c. AD ).
Plato is speaking to his students about metaphysical science and the soul.
“ You amuse me, you who seem worried that I impose impractical studies upon you. It does not only reside with mediocre
minds, but all men have difficulty in persuading themselves that it is through these studies, as if with instruments, that one purifies
the eye of the soul, and that one causes a new fire to burn in this organ that was obscured and as though extinguished by the
shadows of the other sciences, an organ whose conservation is more important than ten thousand eyes, since it is by it alone that
we contemplate truth “.
