Just as the truth gilds the minutest detail on touch, so it also gilds the totality of all things as they come into touch with it: truth ennobles a single individual - quite separate from the rest of society - on his cosmic way, once he comes into direct touch with truth, and in the same manner it is also able to ennoble a whole society at once when it comes, as a whole, into touch with truth.

“The one however - as the case here shows - precedes the other: first the single hair of the boy - separate from the rest - fell into the fountain and came forth from it golden, and only then the main hair followed; likewise, first an individual goes ahead all alone on the way of pure knowledge, and then all the others follow together, as is illustrated by the whole event.