l of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the
beauty of another; and then if beauty of form in general is his pursuit,
how foolish would he be not to recognize that the beauty in every form
is and the same! And when he perceives this he will abate his violent
love of the one, which he will despise and deem a small thing, and
will become a lover of all beautiful forms; in the next stage he will
consider that the beauty of the mind is more honourable than the beauty
of the outward form. So that if a virtuous soul have but a little
comeliness, he will be content to love and tend him, and will search out
and bring to the birth thoughts which may improve the young, until he
is compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of institutions and laws,
and to understand that the beauty of them all is of one family, and that
personal beauty is a trifle; and after laws and institutions he will
go on to the sciences, that he may see their beauty, being not like
a servant in love with the beauty of one youth or man or institution,
himself a slave mean and narrow-minded, but drawing towards and
contemplating the vast sea of beauty, he will create many fair and noble
thoughts and notions in boundless love of wisdom; until on that shore he
grows and waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of
a single science, which is the science of beauty everywhere. To this I
will proceed; please to give me your very best attention:

'He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has
learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes
toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty (and
this, Socrates, is the final cause of all our former toils)--a nature
which in the first place is everlasting, not growing and decaying, or
waxing and waning; secondly, not fair in one point of view and foul
in another, or at one time or in one relation or at one place fair, at
another time or in another relation or at another place foul, as if fair
to some and foul to others, or in the likeness of a face or hands or any
other part of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech or knowledge,
or existing in any other being, as for example, in an animal, or
in heaven, or in earth, or in any other place; but beauty absolute,
separate, simple, and everlasting, which without diminution and without
increase, or any change, is imparted to the ever-growing and perishing
beauties of all ot