HIPPIAS (major) by Plato - Complete text

Page 24

Soc.: I wish that might be the case ; but consider this point with me : could a person do what he did not know how and was utterly powerless to do?

Hip.: By no means ; for how could he do what he was powerless to do?

Soc.: Then those who commit errors and accomplish and do bad things involuntarily, if they were powerless to do those things, would not do them?

Hip.: Evidently not.

Soc.: But yet it is by power that those are powerful who are powerful for surely it is not by powerlessness.

Hip.: Certainly not.

Soc.: And all who do, have power to do what they do?

Hip.: Yes.

Soc.: Men do many more bad things than good, from childhood up, and commit many errors involuntarily.

Hip.: That is true.

Soc.: Well, then, this power and these useful things, which are useful for accomplishing something bad — shall we say that they are beautiful, or far from it?

Hip.: Far from it, in my opinion, Socrates.

Soc.: Then, Hippias, the powerful and the useful are not, as it seems, our beautiful.

Hip.: They are, Socrates, if they are powerful and useful for good.

Soc.: Then that assertion, that the powerful and useful are beautiful without qualification, is gone ; but was this, Hippias, what our soul wished to say, that the useful and the powerful for doing something good is the beautiful?

Hip.: Yes, in my opinion.

Soc.: But surely this is beneficial ; or is it not?

Hip.: Certainly.

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Plato : HIPPIAS (major)

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