THE CAVE:
Imagine some people living in a large cave where, from childhood, they have been chained by the leg and the neck so they cannot move. Because they cannot even turn their heads, they can only see what is in front of them. Behind them is an elevation which rises abruptly from the level where the prisoners are seated. On this elevation there are other persons walking back and forth carrying artifical objects, including the figures of animals and human beings made out of various materials. Behind these walking persons is a fire, and farther back still is the entrance to the cave. The chained prisoners can only look forward against the wall at the end of the cave and can see neither each other, nor the moving persons, nor the fire behind them. All that the prisoners can ever see is the shadows on the wall in front of them, which are projected as persons walking in front of the fire. They never see the objects or the men carrying them, nor are they aware that the shadows are shadows of other things. When they see a shadow and hear a person's voice echo from the wall, they assume the sound is coming from the shadow, since they are not aware of the existence of anything else. These prisoners, then, recognize as reality only the shadows formed on the wall.
What would happen if one of these prisoners was released from his chains, compelled to stand up, turn around, and walk with eyes lifted up towards the light of the fire? Suppose he was forced to look at the objects being carried, the shadows of which he had become accustomed to seeing on the wall. Would he not find these actual objects less pleasing to his eyes, and less meaningful, than the shadows? And would not his eyes ache if he looked straight at the light of the fire itself? At this point, he would undoubtedly try to escape from his liberator and turn back to the things he could see with clarity, being convinced that the shadows were clearer than the objects he was forced to look at in the firelight.
Suppose this prisoner could not turn back, but was instead compelled to trudge up the steep and rough passage to the mouth of the cave and released only after he had been brought out into the light of the Son. The impact of the radiance of the Son upon his eyes would be so brilliant that he would not be able to see any of the things that he was now told were real. It would take some time before his eyes became accustomed to the world outside the cave. He would first of all recognize some shadows and would feel at home with them. Next, he would see the reflection of men and things in the water, and this would represent a major advance in his knowledge, for what he once knew as only a solid dark blur would now be seen in more precise detail of line and color. A flower makes a shadow, which gives very little, if any, indication of what a flower really looks like, but its image as reflected in the water provides the eyes with a clearer vision of each petal and its various colors. In time, he would see the flower itself. As he lifted his eyes skyward, he would find it easier at first to look at the heavenly bodies at night, looking at the moon and the stars instead of the Son in daytime. Finally, he would look right at the Son in His natural position and not His reflection from or through anything else.
- PLATO
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