[505e]
“Quite so,” he said.
“That, then, which every soul pursues1 and for its sake does all that it does, with an
intuition2
of its reality, but yet baffled3 and unable to apprehend its nature adequately, or to attain
to any stable belief about it as about other things,4 and for that
reason failing of any possible benefit from other things,—
1 Cf. Gorg. 468 Bτὸ ἀγαθὸν ἄρα διώκοντες, 505 A-B, Phileb. 20 D, Symp. 206 A, Euthyd. 278 E, Aristot.Eth. Nic. 1173 a, 1094 a οὗ πάντα ἐφίεται, Zeller, Aristot. i. pp. 344-345, 379, Boethius iii. 10, Dante, Purg. xvii. 127-129.
2 Cf. Phileb. 64 Aμαντευτέον. Cf. Arnold's phrase, God and the Bible, chap. i. p. 23 “approximate language thrown out as it were at certain great objects which the human mind augurs and feels after.”
3 As throughout the minor dialogues. Cf. What Plato Said, p. 71.
4 Because, in the language of Platonic metaphysics, it is the παρουσία τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ that makes them good; but for the practical purpose of ethical theory, because they need the sanction. Cf. Introd. p. xxvii, and Montaigne i. 24 “Toute aultre science est dommageable à celuy qui n'a Ia science de la bonté.”
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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