——“How otherwise?”
Whether, then, do we call each of these beautiful for the same reasons and in the same kind, or each for something proper to itself? And you shall see the matter thus: Inasmuch as we observe a dog to be formed by nature for one end, and a horse for another, and, let us say, a nightingale for another, we may in general say, not unreasonably, that each of them is then beautiful when it is excellent according to its own nature; but since the nature of each is different, different also, it seems to me, is the manner of being beautiful in each. Is it not so?
He acknowledged that it was.
Therefore, that which maketh a dog beautiful maketh a horse ill-favored; and that which maketh a horse beautiful, a dog ill-favored; if, indeed, their natures are different?
——“So it seems.”
And that which maketh a beautiful Pancratiast,[1] the same maketh a wrestler not good, and a runner utterly laughable? And he who is beautiful for the Pentathlon is very bad for wrestling?
——“It is so,” he said.
What is it, then, that makes a man beautiful? Is it not that which, in its kind, makes also a dog or a horse beautiful?
——“It is that,” he answered.
What, then, makes a dog beautiful? The presence of the virtue of a dog. And a horse? The presence of the virtue of a horse. And what, then, a man? Is it not also the presence of the virtue of a man? And, O youth, if thou wouldst be beautiful, do thou labor to perfect this, the virtue of a human being. But what is it? Look whom you praise when you praise any without affection—is it the righteous or the unrighteous?