I can express our trouble in a
different form by saying: “How can we know
what the shadow is a shadow of?” ‒ ‒ ‒ The
shadow would be some sort of port
rait; and therefore I
can restate our problem by asking: “What makes
a port
rait a port
rait of
Mr. N?” The answer
which might first suggest itself is: “The
similarity between the port
rait and
Mr. N”. This
answer in fact shows what we had in mind when we talked
52.
of the shadow of a
fact. It is quite clear, however, that similarity does
not constitute our idea of a port
rait; for it
is in the essence of this idea that it should make sense to talk of
a good or a bad port
rait. In other words, it
is essential that the shadow should be capable of representing
things as in fact they are not.