t well."

"However," continued he, "I am now saying nothing new, but what I have
always at other times, and in a former part of this discussion, never
ceased to say. I proceed, then, to attempt to explain to you that
species of cause which I have busied myself about, and return again to
those well-known subjects, and set out from them, laying down as an
hypothesis, that there is a certain abstract beauty, and goodness, and
magnitude, and so of all other things; which if you grant me, and allow
that they do exist, I hope that I shall be able from these to explain
the cause to you, and to discover that the soul is immortal."

"But," said Cebes, "since I grant you this, you may draw your conclusion
at once."

"But consider," he said, "what follows from thence, and see if you can
agree with me. For it appears to me that if there is any thing else
beautiful besides beauty itself, it is not beautiful for any other
reason than because it partakes of that abstract beauty; and I say the
same of every thing. Do you admit such a cause?"

"I do admit it," he replied.

113. "I do not yet understand," he continued, "nor am I able to
conceive, those other wise causes; but if any one should tell me why any
thing is beautiful, either because it has a blooming florid color, or
figure, or any thing else of the kind, I dismiss all other reasons, for
I am confounded by them all; but I simply, wholly, and perhaps
foolishly, confine myself to this, that nothing else causes it to be
beautiful except either the presence or communication of that abstract
beauty, by whatever means and in whatever way communicated; for I can
not yet affirm this with certainty, but only that by means of beauty all
beautiful things become beautiful. For this appears to me the safest
answer to give both to myself and others; and adhering to this, I think
that I shall never fall, but that it is a safe answer both for me and
any one else to give--that by means of beauty beautiful things become
beautiful. Does it not also seem so to you?"

"It does."

"And that by magnitude great things become great, and greater things,
greater; and by littleness less things become less?"

"Yes."

114. "You would not, then, approve of it, if any one said that one
person is greater than another by the head, and that the less is less by
the very same thing; but you would maintain that you mean nothing else
than that every thing that is greater than another is greater by nothing