grows wearisome as the work advances. The method of inquiry
has passed into a method of teaching in which by the help of
interlocutors the same thesis is looked at from various points
of view.

The nature of the process is truly characterized by Glaucon,
when he describes himself as a companion who is not good for much
in an investigation, but can see what he is shown, and may,
perhaps, give the answer to a question more fluently than another.

Neither can we be absolutely certain that, Socrates himself taught
the immortality of the soul, which is unknown to his disciple
Glaucon in the Republic; nor is there any reason to suppose
that he used myths or revelations of another world as a vehicle
of instruction, or that he would have banished poetry or have
denounced the Greek mythology. His favorite oath is retained,
and a slight mention is made of the daemonium, or internal sign,
which is alluded to by Socrates as a phenomenon peculiar to himself.
A real element of Socratic teaching, which is more prominent
in the Republic than in any of the other Dialogues of Plato,
is the use of example and illustration ('taphorhtika auto
prhospherhontez'): "Let us apply the test of common instances."
"You," says Adeimantus, ironically, in the sixth book, "are so
unaccustomed to speak in images." And this use of examples or images,
though truly Socratic in origin, is enlarged by the genius of Plato
into the form of an allegory or parable, which embodies in the concrete
what has been already described, or is about to be described,
in the abstract. Thus the figure of the cave in Book VII
is a recapitulation of the divisions of knowledge in Book VI.
The composite animal in Book IX is an allegory of the parts of the soul.