Page - 188 - in The Complete Plato

SOCRATES: And the greater disgrace is the greater evil? POLUS: Certainly not. SOCRATES: I understand you to say, if I am not mistaken, that the honourable is not the same as the good, or the disgraceful as the evil? POLUS: Certainly not. SOCRATES: Let me ask a question of you: When you speak of beautiful things, such as bodies, colours, figures, sounds, institutions, do you not call them beautiful in reference to some standard: bodies, for example, are beautiful in proportion as they are useful, or as the sight of them gives pleasure to the spectators; can you give any other account of personal beauty? POLUS: I cannot. SOCRATES: And you would say of figures or colours generally that they were beautiful, either by reason of the pleasure which they give, or of their use, or of both? POLUS: Yes, I should. SOCRATES: And you would call sounds and music beautiful for the same reason? POLUS: I should. SOCRATES: Laws and institutions also have no beauty in them except in so far as they are useful or pleasant or both? POLUS: I think not. SOCRATES: And may not the same be said of the beauty of knowledge? POLUS: To be sure, Socrates; and I very much approve of your measuring beauty by the standard of pleasure and utility. SOCRATES: And deformity or disgrace may be equally measured by the opposite standard of pain and evil? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then when of two beautiful things one exceeds in beauty, the measure of the excess is to be taken in one or both of these; that is to say, in pleasure or utility or both? POLUS: Very true. SOCRATES: And of two deformed things, that which exceeds in deformity or disgrace, exceeds either in pain or evil—must it not be so? 188