nd the maker of either of them makes a bed or he makes a table for our
use, in accordance with the idea--that is our way of speaking in this
and similar instances--but no artificer makes the ideas themselves: how
could he?

Impossible.

And there is another artist,--I should like to know what you would say
of him.

Who is he?

One who is the maker of all the works of all other workmen.

What an extraordinary man!

Wait a little, and there will be more reason for your saying so. For
this is he who is able to make not only vessels of every kind, but
plants and animals, himself and all other things--the earth and heaven,
and the things which are in heaven or under the earth; he makes the gods
also.

He must be a wizard and no mistake.

Oh! you are incredulous, are you? Do you mean that there is no such
maker or creator, or that in one sense there might be a maker of all
these things but in another not? Do you see that there is a way in which
you could make them all yourself?

What way?

An easy way enough; or rather, there are many ways in which the feat
might be quickly and easily accomplished, none quicker than that of
turning a mirror round and round--you would soon enough make the sun and
the heavens, and the earth and yourself, and other animals and plants,
and all the other things of which we were just now speaking, in the
mirror.

Yes, he said; but they would be appearances only.

Very good, I said, you are coming to the point now. And the painter too
is, as I conceive, just such another--a creator of appearances, is he
not?

Of course.

But then I suppose you will say that what he creates is untrue. And yet
there is a sense in which the painter also creates a bed?

Yes, he said, but not a real bed.

And what of the maker of the bed? were you not saying that he too makes,
not the idea which, according to our view, is the essence of the bed,
but only a particular bed?

Yes, I did.

Then if he does not make that which exists he cannot make true
existence, but only some semblance of existence; and if any one were to
say that the work of the maker of the bed, or of any other workman, has
real existence, he could hardly be supposed to be speaking the truth.

At any rate, he replied, philosophers would say that he was not speaking
the truth.

No wonder, then, that his work too is an indistinct expression of truth.

No wonder.

Suppose now that by the light of the examples just offered we en