Pagina 220 di 1391

Now here comes the point:-The philosopher too is a lover of

knowledge in every form; he has an insatiable curiosity. 'But

will curiosity make a philosopher? Are the lovers of sights and

sounds, who let out their ears to every chorus at the Dionysiac

festivals, to be called philosophers?' They are not true

philosophers, but only an imitation. 'Then how are we to describe

the true?'

You would acknowledge the existence of abstract ideas, such as

justice, beauty, good, evil, which are severally one, yet in

their various combinations appear to be many. Those who recognize

these realities are philosophers; whereas the other class hear

sounds and see colours, and understand their use in the arts, but

cannot attain to the true or waking vision of absolute justice or

beauty or truth; they have not the light of knowledge, but of

opinion, and what they see is a dream only. Perhaps he of whom we

say the last will be angry with us; can we pacify him without

revealing the disorder of his mind? Suppose we say that, if he

has knowledge we rejoice to hear it, but knowledge must be of

something which is, as ignorance is of something which is not;

and there is a third thing, which both is and is not, and is

matter of opinion only. Opinion and knowledge, then, having

distinct objects, must also be distinct faculties.