Book 3
8.3
Are you asking me, he said, whether I know of anything good for a fever?No, not that.For ophthalmia?No, nor that.For hunger?No, not for hunger either.Well, but if you are asking me whether I know of anything good in relation to nothing, I neither know nor want to know.
8.4
Again Aristippus asked him whether he knew of anything beautiful: Yes, many things, he replied.All like one another?On the contrary, some are as unlike as they can be.How then can that which is unlike the beautiful be beautiful?The reason, of course, is that a beautiful wrestler is unlike a beautiful runner, a shield beautiful for defence is utterly unlike a javelin beautiful for swift and powerful hurling.
8.5
That is the same answer as you gave to my question whether you knew of anything good.You think, do you, that good is one thing and beautiful another? Don’t you know that all things are both beautiful and good in relation to the same things? In the first place, Virtue is not a good thing in relation to some things and a beautiful thing in relation to others. Men, again, are called beautiful and good in the same respect and in relation to the same things: it is in relation to the same things that men’s bodies look beautiful and good and that all other things men use are thought beautiful and good, namely, in relation to those things for which they are useful.
8.6
Is a dung basket beautiful then?Of course, and a golden shield is ugly, if the one is well made for its special work and the other badly.Do you mean that the same things are both beautiful and ugly?Of course — and both good and bad.
8.7
For what is good for hunger is often bad for fever, and what is good for fever bad for hunger; what is beautiful for running is often ugly for wrestling, and what is beautiful for wrestling ugly for running. For all things are good and beautiful in relation to those purposes for which they are well adapted, bad and ugly in relation to those for which they are ill adapted.
