HIPPIAS (major) by Plato - Complete text

Page 33

Soc.: Just what I say; for I am afraid to speak plainly to you, because you are vexed with me, when you think you are talking sensibly ; however, tell me further : is not each of us one and affected in such a way as to be one?

Hip.: Certainly.

Soc.: Then each of us, if one, would be an odd number ; or do you not consider one an odd number?

Hip.: I do.

Soc.: Then are we both an odd number, being two?

Hip.: That could not be, Socrates.

Soc.: But we are both an even number, are we not?

Hip.: Certainly.

Soc.: Then because we are both even, is each of us on that account even?

Hip.: No, surely not.

Soc.: Then it is not absolutely inevitable, as you said just now, that what both are, each is, and what each is, both are.

Hip.: Not things of this sort, but such as I mentioned before.

Soc.: That suffices, Hippias ; for even this is welcome, since it appears that some things are so and some are not so. For I said, if you remember the beginning of this discussion, that pleasure through sight and through hearing were beautiful, not by that by which each of them was so affected as to be beautiful, but not both, nor both but not each, but by that by which both and each were so affected, because you conceded that both and each were beautiful. For this reason I thought that if both are beautiful they must be beautiful by that essence which belongs to both, but not by that which is lacking in each ; and I still think so. But tell me, as in the beginning : If pleasure through sight and pleasure through hearing are both and each beautiful, does not that which makes them beautiful belong to both and to each?

Hip.: Certainly.

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