upreme mind? Thirdly, the nature of the fourth class. Fourthly,
the meaning of the allusion to a sixth class, which is not further
investigated.

(I) Plato seems to proceed in his table of goods, from the more abstract
to the less abstract; from the subjective to the objective; until at the
lower end of the scale we fairly descend into the region of human action
and feeling. To him, the greater the abstraction the greater the truth,
and he is always tending to see abstractions within abstractions;
which, like the ideas in the Parmenides, are always appearing one behind
another. Hence we find a difficulty in following him into the sphere of
thought which he is seeking to attain. First in his scale of goods he
places measure, in which he finds the eternal nature: this would be more
naturally expressed in modern language as eternal law, and seems to be
akin both to the finite and to the mind or cause, which were two of the
elements in the former table. Like the supreme nature in the Timaeus,
like the ideal beauty in the Symposium or the Phaedrus, or like the
ideal good in the Republic, this is the absolute and unapproachable
being. But this being is manifested in symmetry and beauty everywhere,
in the order of nature and of mind, in the relations of men to one
another. For the word 'measure' he now substitutes the word 'symmetry,'
as if intending to express measure conceived as relation. He then
proceeds to regard the good no longer in an objective form, but as the
human reason seeking to attain truth by the aid of dialectic; such at
least we naturally infer to be his meaning, when we consider that both
here and in the Republic the sphere of nous or mind is assigned
to dialectic. (2) It is remarkable (see above) that this personal
conception of mind is confined to the human mind, and not extended to
the divine. (3) If we may be allowed to interpret one dialogue of Plato
by another, the sciences of figure and number are probably classed
with the arts and true opinions, because they proceed from hypotheses
(compare Republic). (4) The sixth class, if a sixth class is to be
added, is playfully set aside by a quotation from Orpheus: Plato means
to say that a sixth class, if there be such a class, is not worth
considering, because pleasure, having only gained the fifth place in the
scale of goods, is already out of the running.

VI. We may now endeavour to ascertain the relation of the Philebus to
the other dialogues. Here Plat