give thee light
to see facts as they are."

P. "Oh Socrates! and how is this blessedness to be attained?"

S. "Even as the myths relate, the nymphs obtained the embraces of
the gods; by pleasing him and obeying him in all things, lifting up
daily pure hands and a thankful heart, if by any means he may
condescend to purge thine eyes, that thou mayest see clearly, and
without those motes, and specks, and distortions of thine own organs
of vision, which flit before the eyeballs of those who have been
drunk over-night, and which are called by sophists subjective truth;
watching everywhere anxiously and reverently for those glimpses of
his beauty, which he will vouchsafe to thee more and more as thou
provest thyself worthy of them, and will reward thy love by making
thee more and more partaker of his own spirit of truth; whereby,
seeing facts as they are, thou wilt see him who has made them
according to his own ideas, that they may be a mirror of his
unspeakable splendour. Is not this a fairer hope for thee, oh
Phaethon, than that which Protagoras held out to thee-that neither
seeing Zeus, nor seeing facts as they are, nor affirming any truth
whatsoever, nor depending for thy knowledge on any one but thine own
ignorant self, thou mightest nevertheless be so fortunate as to
escape punishment: not knowing, as it seems to me, that such a
state of ignorance and blindfold rashness, even if Tartarus were a
dream of the poets or the priests, is in itself the most fearful of
punishments?"

P. "It is, indeed, my dear Socrates. Yet what are we to say of
those who, sincerely loving and longing after knowledge, yet arrive
at false conclusions, which are proved to be false by contradicting
each other?"

S. "We are to say, Phaethon, that they have not loved knowledge
enough to desire utterly to see facts as they are, but only to see
them as they would wish them to be; and loving themselves rather
than Zeus, have wished to remodel in some things or other his
universe, according to their own subjective opinions. By this, or
by some other act of self-will, or self-conceit, or self-dependence,
they have compelled Zeus, not, as I think, without pity and kindness
to them, to withdraw from them in some degree the sight of his own
beauty. We must, therefore, I fear, liken them to Acharis, the
painter of Lemnos, who, intending to represent Phoebus, painted from
a mirror a copy of his own defects and deformities; or perhaps to
that