HKB
This is that image which Plato saw dimly in the distance, which, when existing among men, he called, in the language of Homer, ‘the likeness of God,’ the likeness of a nature which in all ages men have felt to be greater and better than themselves, and which in endless forms, whether derived from Scripture or nature, from the witness of history or from the human heart, regarded as a person or not as a person, with or without parts or passions, existing in space or not in space, is and will always continue to be to mankind the Idea of Good. THE REPUBLIC. PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE. Socrates, who is the narrator. Glaucon. Adeimantus. Polemarchus. Cephalus. Thrasymachus. Cleitophon. And others who are mute auditors. The scene is laid in the house of Cephalus at the Piraeus; and the whole dialogue is narrated by Socrates the day after it actually took place to Timaeus, Hermocrates, Critias, and a nameless person, who are introduced in the Timaeus.