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The difference between the politician turned into a philosopher

and the philosopher turned into a politician, is symbolized by

the two kinds of disordered eyesight, the one which is

experienced by the captive who is transferred from darkness to

day, the other, of the heavenly messenger who voluntarily for the

good of his fellow-men descends into the den. In what way the

brighter light is to dawn on the inhabitants of the lower world,

or how the idea of good is to become the guiding principle of

politics, is left unexplained by Plato. Like the nature and

divisions of dialectic, of which Glaucon impatiently demands to

be informed, perhaps he would have said that the explanation

could not be given except to a disciple of the previous sciences.

(Symposium.)