“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.”