YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Whereas in other syllables they do not recognize them, and think
and speak falsely of them.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: Will not the best and easiest way of bringing them to a
knowledge of what they do not as yet know be--
YOUNG SOCRATES: Be what?
STRANGER: To refer them first of all to cases in which they judge
correctly about the letters in question, and then to compare these with the
cases in which they do not as yet know, and to show them that the letters
are the same, and have the same character in both combinations, until all
cases in which they are right have been placed side by side with all cases
in which they are wrong. In this way they have examples, and are made to
learn that each letter in every combination is always the same and not
another, and is always called by the same name.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Are not examples formed in this manner? We take a thing and
compare it with another distinct instance of the same thing, of which we
have a right conception, and out of the comparison there arises one true
notion, which includes both of them.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Exactly.
STRANGER: Can we wonder, then, that the soul has the same uncertainty
about the alphabet of things, and sometimes and in some cases is firmly
fixed by the truth in each particular, and then, again, in other cases is
altogether at sea; having somehow or other a correct notion of
combinations; but when the elements are transferred into the long and
difficult language (syllables) of facts, is again ignorant of them?
YOUNG SOCRATES: There is nothing wonderful in that.
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