Plato Plato - THE COMPLETE WORKS OF PLATO

Hippias: It is.

Socrates: Then are we right in saying that the useful rather than everything else is beautiful?

Hippias: We are right, surely, Socrates.

Socrates: Now that which has power to accomplish anything is useful for that for which it has power, but that which is powerless is useless, is it not?

Hippias: Certainly.

Socrates: Power, then, is beautiful, and want of power is disgraceful or ugly.

Hippias: Decidedly. Now other things, Socrates, [296a] testify for us that this is so, but especially political affairs; for in political affairs and in one’s own state to be powerful is the most beautiful of all things, but to be powerless is the most disgraceful of all.

Socrates: Good! Then, for Heaven’s sake, Hippias, is wisdom also for this reason the most beautiful of all things and ignorance the most disgraceful of all things?

Hippias: Well, what do you suppose, Socrates?

Socrates: Just keep quiet, my dear friend; I am so afraid and wondering what in the world we are saying again.

[296b] Hippias: What are you afraid of again, Socrates, since now your discussion has gone ahead most beautifully?

Socrates: I wish that might be the case; but consider this point with me: could a person do what he did not know how and was utterly powerless to do?

Hippias: By no means; for how could he do what he was powerless to do?

Socrates: Then those who commit errors and accomplish and do bad things involuntarily, if they were powerless to do those things, would not do them?

[296c] Hippias: Evidently not.

Socrates: But yet it is by power that those are powerful who are powerful for surely it is not by powerlessness.

Hippias: Certainly not.

Socrates: And all who do, have power to do what they do?

Hippias: Yes.

Socrates: Men do many more bad things than good, from childhood up, and commit many errors involuntarily.

Hippias: That is true.

Socrates: Well, then, this power and these useful things, which are useful for accomplishing something bad—shall we say that they are beautiful, or far from it?

[296d] Hippias: Far from it, in my opinion, Socrates.

Socrates: Then, Hippias, the powerful and the useful are not, as it seems, our beautiful.

Hippias: They are, Socrates, if they are powerful and useful for good.

Socrates: Then that assertion, that the powerful and useful are beautiful without qualification, is gone; but was this, Hippias, what our soul wished to say, that the useful and the powerful for doing something good is the beautiful?

[296e] Hippias: Yes, in my opinion.

Socrates: But surely this is beneficial; or is it not?

Hippias: Certainly.

Socrates: So by this argument the beautiful persons and beautiful customs and all that we mentioned just now are beautiful because they are beneficial.

Hippias: Evidently.

Socrates: Then the beneficial seems to us to be the beautiful, Hippias.

Hippias: Yes, certainly, Socrates.

Socrates: But the beneficial is that which creates good.

Hippias: Yes, it is.

Socrates: But that which creates is nothing else than the cause; am I right?

Hippias: It is so.

Socrates: Then the beautiful is the cause of the good.

[297a] Hippias: Yes, it is.

Socrates: But surely, Hippias, the cause and that of which the cause is the cause are different; for the cause could not well be the cause of the cause. But look at it in this way was not the cause seen to be creating?

Hippias: Yes, certainly.

Socrates: By that which creates, then, only that is created which comes into being, but not that which creates. Is not that true?

Hippias: That is true.

Socrates: The cause, then, is not the cause of the cause, but of that which comes into being through it.

[297b] Hippias: Certainly.

Socrates: If, then, the beautiful is the cause of good, the good would come into being through the beautiful; and this is why we are eager for wisdom and all the other beautiful things, because their offspring, the good, is worthy of eagerness, and, from what we are finding, it looks as if the beautiful were a sort of father of the good.

Hippias: Certainly for what you say is well said, Socrates.

Socrates: Then is this well said, too, that the father is not the son, and the son not father?

[297c] Hippias: To be sure it is well said.

Socrates: And neither is the cause that which comes into being, nor is that which comes into being the cause.

Hippias: True.

Socrates: By Zeus, my good friend, then neither is the beautiful good, nor the good beautiful; or does it seem to you possible, after what has been said?

Hippias: No, by Zeus, it does not appear so to me.

Socrates: Does it please us, and should we be willing to say that the beautiful is not good, and the good not beautiful?

Hippias: No, by Zeus, it does not please me at all.

Socrates: Right, by Zeus, Hippias! [297d] And it pleases me least of all the things we have said.

Hippias: Yes, that is likely.

Socrates: Then there is a good chance that the statement that the beneficial and the useful and the powerful to create something good are beautiful, is not, as it appeared to be, the most beautiful of of statements, but, if that be possible, is even more ridiculous than those first ones in which we thought the maiden was the beautiful, and each of the various other things we spoke of before.

Hippias: That is likely.

Socrates: And Hippias, I no longer know where to turn; I am at a loss; but have you anything to say?

[297e] Hippias: Not at the moment, but, as I said just now, I am sure I shall find it after meditation.

Socrates: But it seems to me that I am so eager to know that I cannot wait for you while you delay; for I believe I have just now found a way out. Just see; how would it help us towards our goal if we were to say that that is beautiful which makes us feel joy; I do not mean all pleasures, but that which makes us feel joy through hearing and sight? [298a] For surely beautiful human beings, Hippias, and all decorations and paintings and works of sculpture which are beautiful, delight us when we see them; and beautiful sounds and music in general and speeches and stories do the same thing, so that if we were to reply to that impudent fellow, “My excellent man, the beautiful is that which is pleasing through hearing and sight,” don’t you think that we should put a stop to his impudence?

Hippias: To me, at any rate, Socrates, it seems [298b] that the nature of the beautiful is now well stated.

Socrates: But what then? Shall we say, Hippias, that beautiful customs and laws are beautiful because they are pleasing through hearing and sight, or that they have some other form of beauty?

Hippias: Perhaps, Socrates, these things might slip past the man unnoticed.

Socrates: No, by dog, Hippias—not past the man before whom I should be most ashamed of talking nonsense [298c] and pretending that I was talking sense when I was not.

Hippias: What man is that?

Socrates: Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus, who would no more permit me to say these things carelessly without investigation than to say that I know what I do not know.

Hippias: But certainly I also, now that you have mentioned it, think that this about the laws is something different.

Socrates: Not too fast, Hippias; for very likely we have fallen into the same perplexity about the beautiful in which we were a while ago, although we think we have found another way out.

Hippias: What do you mean by that, Socrates?

Socrates: I will tell you what presents itself to me, if perhaps there may be some sense in it. [298d] For perhaps these matters of laws and customs might be shown to be not outside of the perception which we have through hearing and sight; but let us stick to the statement that that which is pleasing through the senses is beautiful, without interjecting the matter of the laws. But if this man of whom I speak, or anyone else whosoever, should ask us: “Hippias and Socrates, did you make the distinction that in the category of the pleasing that which is pleasing in the way you mention is beautiful, whereas you say that that which is pleasing according to the other senses [298e]—those concerned with food and drink and sexual love and all such things—is not beautiful? Or do you say that such things are not even pleasing and that there is no pleasure at all in them, nor in anything else except sight and hearing?” What shall we say, Hippias?