[15] Plat. Hipp. Maj. 290.
Third answer of Hippias — questions upon it — proof given that it fails of universal application.
Hip. — I acknowledge that it is so. But I have another answer ready which will silence your friend. I presume you wish me to indicate as The Beautiful, something which will never appear ugly to any one, at any time, or at any place.[16] Sokr. — That is exactly what I desire. Hip. — Well, I affirm, then, that to every man, always, and everywhere, the following is most beautiful. A man being healthy, rich, honoured by the Greeks, having come to old age and buried his own parents well, to be himself buried by his own sons well and magnificently. Sokr. — Your answer sounds imposing; but my friend will laugh it to scorn, and will remind me again, that his question pointed to the Beautiful itself[17] — something which, being present as attribute in any subject, will make that subject (whether stone, wood, man, God, action, study, &c.) beautiful. Now that which you have asserted to be beautiful to every one everywhere, was not beautiful to Achilles, who accepted by preference the lot of dying before his father — nor is it so to the heroes, or to the sons of Gods, who do not survive or bury their fathers. To some, therefore, what you specify is beautiful — to others it is not beautiful but ugly: that is, it is both beautiful and ugly, like the maiden, the lyre, the pot, on which we have already remarked. Hip. — I did not speak about the Gods or Heroes. Your friend is intolerable, for touching on such profanities.[18] Sokr. — However, you cannot deny that what you have indicated is beautiful only for the sons of men, and not for the sons of Gods. My friend will thus make good his reproach against your answer. He will tell me, that all the answers, which we have as yet given, are too absurd. And he may perhaps at the same time himself suggest another, as he sometimes does in pity for my embarrassment.
[16] Plato, Hipp. Maj. 291 C-D.
[17] Plato, Hipp. Maj. 292 D.
[18] Plato, Hipp. Maj. 293 B.
Farther answers, suggested by Sokrates himself — 1. The Suitable or Becoming — objections thereunto — it is rejected.
Sokrates then mentions, as coming from hints of the absent friend, three or four different explanations of the Self-Beautiful: each of which, when first introduced, he approves, and Hippias approves also: but each of which he proceeds successively to test and condemn. It is to be remarked that all of them are general explanations: not consisting in conspicuous particular instances, like those which had come from Hippias. His explanations are the following: —
1. The suitable or becoming (which had before been glanced at). It is the suitable or becoming which constitutes the Beautiful.[19]
[19] Plato, Hipp. Maj. 293 E.