S. “Shall we rather say, then, that you were enamoured, not of truth itself, but of the spirit of truth? For we have been all along defining truth to be ‘facts as they are,’ have we not?”
P. “We have.”
S. “But there are many facts as they are, whereof to be enamoured would be base, for they cannot return your love. As, for instance, that one and one make two, or that a horse has four legs. With respect to such facts, you would be, would you not, in the same position as a mistress towards her slave?”
P. “Certainly. It seems, then, better to assume the other alternative.”
S. “It does. But does it not follow, that when you were enamoured of this spirit, you did not possess it?”
P. “I fear so, by the argument.”
S. “And I fear, too, that we agreed that he only who possessed the spirit of truth saw facts as they are; for that was involved in our definition of the spirit of truth.”
P. “But, Socrates, I knew, at least, that one and one made two, and that a horse had four legs. I must then have seen some facts as they are.”
S. “Doubtless, fair boy; but not all.”
P. “I do not pretend to that.”