ined, and are unable to give an account
of them. For when a man knows not his own first principle, and when
the conclusion and intermediate steps are also constructed out of he
knows not what, how can he imagine that such a fabric of convention can
ever become science?

Impossible, he said.

Then dialectic, and dialectic alone, goes directly to the first
principle and is the only science which does away with hypotheses in
order to make her ground secure; the eye of the soul, which is
literally buried in an outlandish slough, is by her gentle aid lifted
upwards; and she uses as handmaids and helpers in the work of
conversion, the sciences which we have been discussing. Custom terms
them sciences, but they ought to have some other name, implying greater
clearness than opinion and less clearness than science: and this, in
our previous sketch, was called understanding. But why should we
dispute about names when we have realities of such importance to
consider?

Why indeed, he said, when any name will do which expresses the thought
of the mind with clearness?

At any rate, we are satisfied, as before, to have four divisions; two
for intellect and two for opinion, and to call the first division
science, the second understanding, the third belief, and the fourth
perception of shadows, opinion being concerned with becoming, and
intellect with being; and so to make a proportion:--

As being is to becoming, so is pure intellect to opinion.
And as intellect is to opinion, so is science to belief, and
understanding to the perception of shadows.

But let us defer the further correlation and subdivision of the
subjects of opinion and of intellect, for it will be a long enquiry,
many times longer than this has been.

As far as I understand, he said, I agree.

And do you also agree, I said, in describing the dialectician as one
who attains a conception of the essence of each thing? And he who does
not possess and is therefore unable to impart this conception, in
whatever degree he fails, may in that degree also be said to fail in
intelligence? Will you admit so much?

Yes, he said; how can I deny it?

And you would say the same of the conception of the good?

Until the person is able to abstract and define rationally the idea of
good, and unless he can run the gauntlet of all objections, and is
ready to disprove them, not by appeals to opinion, but to absolute
truth, never faltering at any step of the ar