“What is it, O Megaphon?” I asked.
“You do not seem to me wholly just, O Socrates,” he answered. “And I
have been thinking that if I should ask and you should answer, or if
you should ask in a different way, the matter might not appear the
same, but otherwise.”
“Then will you ask?” I inquired.
“I will ask but this, O Socrates,” he said: “for in most things I think
you speak truth. But are we, then, to hear naught of what our citizens
do except that which is good, and are we never to know the evil they
commit? Is not darkness the friend of evil, and light its enemy? And
will it be well with the demos if it have no friend to cry out its
wrongs?”
“I will answer briefly,” I said; “for He of the Far-darts is already
high in the heavens. If there were no guilty men, and no foolish,
doubtless the newspapers would not tell the demos of their deeds.
Nor do I think that guilt and folly and every manner of intemperance
should be let thrive in darkness, and not be brought forth for men to
scorn and punish. But I will tell you in what manner I think. Suppose,
O Megaphon, that it were allowed to you to look into some dark and
unknown chamber, through only one narrow chink, and that through this
chink your guide should let enter strong rays to light up but one
little corner, and that an ill-ordered one with crawling vermin. Would
you not become convinced, from seeing that only, and not the rest,
that all the chamber was awry and foul? And if you looked into many
chambers, and saw all in the same condition, would you not become
convinced that all chambers were awry and foul, and that to strive for
cleanliness and order were in vain?”
“I think I should,” he said, “if I saw as you describe.”
“That,” I said, “is what I think about the use of light in these
matters. I think ’twould be far better to use a candle and explore
more thoroughly; and best of all to open the chamber to the light of
the sun, which is the light of truth. Then we should see the entire
chamber, and I think we should say: ‘This is a goodly chamber, but hath
a foul spot,’ and fall to and set it in order, and sacrifice to Zeus
for his goodness to mortal men.”
“But the wrongs of the demos,” he said; “must it not have champions to
right them?”
“Truth is the champion that will best right wrongs, both for the many
and the few,” I replied. “But truth ill told for selfish and evil
purposes will set men one against another, and we shall have no peace.
Do you think I speak words of reason?”
“Yes, by Zeus and Athena!” said Megaphon and Chærephon.
“Then,” I said, “let us pray to Athena, Giver of Wisdom, beseeching
that she will make men love that which is true, and hate that which
is false. For thus they will learn justice, and our State will be one
people, and not two.”
“Let us indeed,” they said.
Chærephon and I then took our leave.