, on Philebus.

(5) Or, "made the happiest answer."

Soc. Do I understand you to ask me whether I know anything good for
fever?

No (he replied), that is not my question.

Soc. Then for inflammation of the eyes?

Aristip. No, nor yet that.

Soc. Well then, for hunger?

Aristip. No, nor yet for hunger.

Well, but (answered Socrates) if you ask me whether I know of any good
thing which is good for nothing, I neither know of it nor want to know.

And when Aristippus, returning to the charge, asked him "if he knew of
any thing beautiful."

He answered: Yes, many things.

Aristip. Are they all like each other?

Soc. On the contrary, they are often as unlike as possible.

How then (he asked) can that be beautiful which is unlike the beautiful?

Soc. Bless me! for the simple reason that it is possible for a man who
is a beautiful runner to be quite unlike another man who is a beautiful
boxer, (6) or for a shield, which is a beautiful weapon for the purpose
of defence, to be absolutely unlike a javelin, which is a beautiful
weapon of swift and sure discharge.

(6) See Grote, "H. G." x. 164, in reference to Epaminondas and his
gymnastic training; below, III. x. 6.

Aristip. Your answers are no better now than (7) when I asked you
whether you knew any good thing. They are both of a pattern.

(7) Or, "You answer precisely as you did when..."

Soc. And so they should be. Do you imagine that one thing is good and
another beautiful? Do not you know that relatively to the same standard
all things are at once beautiful and good? (8) In the first place,
virtue is not a good thing relatively to one standard and a beautiful
thing relatively to another standard; and in the next place, human
beings, on the same principle (9) and relatively to the same standard,
are called "beautiful and good"; and so the bodily frames of men
relatively to the same standards are seen to be "beautiful and good,"
and in general all things capable of being used by man are regarded as
at once beautiful and good relatively to the same standard--the standing
being in each case what the thing happens to be useful for. (10)

(8) Or, "good and beautiful are convertible terms: whatever is good is
beautiful, or whatever is beautiful is good."

(9) Or, "in the same breath." Cf. Plat. "Hipp. maj." 295 D; "Gorg."
474 D.

(10) Or, "and this standard is the serviceableness of the thing in
question."

Aristip. Then I presume