Beauty is certainly a soft, smooth, slippery thing, and
therefore of a nature which easily slips in and permeates our souls.
For I affirm that the good is the beautiful. You will agree to that?
Yes.
This I say from a sort of notion that what is neither good nor
evil is the friend of the beautiful and the good, and I will tell
you why I am inclined to think so: I assume that there are three
principles-the good, the bad, and that which is neither good nor
bad. You would agree-would you not?
I agree.
And neither is the good the friend of the good, nor the evil of
the good, nor the good of the evil;-these alternatives are excluded by
the previous argument; and therefore, if there be such a thing as
friendship or love at all, we must infer that what is neither good nor
evil must be the friend, either of the good, or of that which is
neither good nor evil, for nothing can be the friend of the bad.
True.
But neither can like be the friend of like, as we were just now
saying.
True.
And if so, that which is neither good nor evil can have no friend
which is neither good nor evil.
Clearly not.
Then the good alone is the friend of that only which is neither good
nor evil.
That may be assumed to be certain.
And does not this seem to put us in the right way? Just remark, that
the body which is in health requires neither medical nor any other
aid, but is well enough; and the healthy man has no love of the
physician, because he is in health.
Pages:
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35