P.  “What, then, are we to say of those who speak fearlessly and openly their own opinions on every subject? for, in spite of all this, one cannot but admire them, whether rationally or irrationally.”

S.  “We will allow them at least the honour which we do to the wild boar, who rushes fiercely through thorns and brambles upon the dogs, not to be turned aside by spears or tree-trunks, and indeed charges forward the more valiantly the more tightly he shuts his eyes.  That praise we can bestow on him, but, I fear, no higher one.  It is expedient, nevertheless, to have such a temperament as it is to have a good memory, or a loud voice, or a straight nose unlike mine; only, like other animal passions, it must be restrained and regulated by reason and the law of right, so as to employ itself only on such matters and to such a degree as they prescribe.”

“It may seem so in the argument,” said I.  “Yet no argument, even of yours, Socrates, with your pardon, shall convince me that the spirit of truth is not fair and good, ay, the noblest possession of all; throwing away which, a man throws away his shield, and becomes unworthy of the company of gods or men.”

S.  “Or of beasts either, as it seems to me and the argument.  Nevertheless, to this point has the argument, in its cunning and malice, brought us by crooked paths.  Can we find no escape?”

P.  “I know none.”

S.  “But may it not be possible that we, not having been initiated, like Alcibiades, into the Babylonian mysteries, have somewhat mistaken the meaning of that expression, ‘spirit of truth’?  For truth we defined to be ‘facts as they are.’  The spirit of truth then should mean, should it not, the spirit of facts as they are?”

P.  “It should.”

S.  “But what shall we say that this expression, in its turn, means? 
The spirit which makes facts as they are?”

A.  “Surely not.  That would be the supreme Demiurgus himself.”

S.  “Of whom you were not speaking, when you spoke of the spirit of truth?”

A.  “Certainly not.  I was speaking of a spirit in man.”

S.  “And belonging to him?”

A.  “Yes.”

S.  “And doing-what, with regard to facts as they are? for this is just the thing which puzzles me.”

A.  “Telling facts as they are.”

S.  “Without seeing them as they are?”

A.  “How you bore one! of course not.  It sees facts as they are, and therefore tells them.”

S.  “But perhaps it might see them as they are, and find it expedient, being of the same temperament as I, to hold its tongue about them?  Would it then be still the spirit of truth?”

A.  “It would, of course.”

S.  “The man then who possesses the spirit of truth will see facts as they are?”

A.  “He will.”

S.  “And conversely?”

A.  “Yes.”

S.  “But if he sees anything only as it seems to him, and is not in fact, he will not, with regard to that thing, see it by the spirit of truth?”