the seventh letter   

together, suddenly a light, as it were, is kindled in one soul by a
flame that leaps to it from another, and thereafter sustains itself.
Yet this much I know-that if the things were written or put into
words, it would be done best by me, and that, if they were written
badly, I should be the person most pained. Again, if they had appeared
to me to admit adequately of writing and exposition, what task in life
could I have performed nobler than this, to write what is of great
service to mankind and to bring the nature of things into the light
for all to see? But I do not think it a good thing for men that
there should be a disquisition, as it is called, on this
topic-except for some few, who are able with a little teaching to find
it out for themselves. As for the rest, it would fill some of them
quite illogically with a mistaken feeling of contempt, and others with
lofty and vain-glorious expectations, as though they had learnt
something high and mighty.
On this point I intend to speak a little more at length; for
perhaps, when I have done so, things will be clearer with regard to my
present subject. There is an argument which holds good against the man
ventures to put anything whatever into writing on questions of this
nature; it has often before been stated by me, and it seems suitable
to the present occasion.
For everything that exists there are three instruments by which
the knowledge of it is necessarily imparted; fourth, there is the
knowledge itself, and, as fifth, we must count the thing itself
which is known and truly exists. The first is the name, the, second
the definition, the third. the image, and the fourth the knowledge. If
you wish to learn what I mean, take these in the case of one instance,
and so understand them in the case of all. A circle is a thing
spoken of, and its name is that very word which we have just
uttered. The second thing belonging to it is its definition, made up
names and verbal forms. For that which has the name "round,"
"annular," or, "circle," might be defined as that which has the
distance from its circumference to its centre everywhere equal. Third,
comes that which is drawn and rubbed out again, or turned on a lathe
and broken up-none of which things can happen to the circle
itself-to which the other things, mentioned have reference; for it
is something of a different order from them. Fourth, comes
knowledge, intelligence and right opinion about these things. Under
this one head we must group everything which has its existence, not in
words nor in bodily shapes, but in souls-from which it is dear that it
is something different from the nature of the circle itself and from
the three things mentioned before. Of these things intelligence
comes closest in kinship and likeness to the fifth, and the others are
farther distant.
The same applies to straight as well as to circular form, to
colours, to the good, the, beautiful, the just, to all bodies
whether manufactured or coming into being in the course of nature,
to fire, water, and all such things, to every living being, to
character in souls, and to all things done and suffered. For in the
case of all these, no one, if he has not some how or other got hold of
the four things first mentioned, can ever be completely a partaker
of knowledge of the fifth. Further, on account of the weakness of
language, these (i.e., the four) attempt to show what each thing is
like, not less than what each thing is. For this reason no man of
intelligence will venture to express his philosophical views in
language, especially not in language that is unchangeable, which is
true of that which is set down in written characters.
Again you must learn the point which comes next. Every circle, of
those which are by the act of man drawn or even turned on a lathe,
is full of that which is opposite to the fifth thing. For everywhere
it has contact with the straight. But the circle itself, we say, has
nothing in either smaller or greater, of that which is its opposite.
We say also that the name is not a thing of permanence for any of
them, and that nothing prevents the things now called round from being