Book 1
13
Perhaps however this question must be dismissed for the present, since a detailed investigation of it belongs more properly to another branch of philosophy.i.e., First Philosophy or Metaphysics. And likewise with the Idea of the Good; for even if the goodness predicated of various in common really is a unity or something existing separately and absolute, it clearly will not be practicable or attainable by man; but the Good which we are now seeking is a good within human reach.
14
But possibly someone may think that to know the Ideal Good may be desirable as an aid to achieving those goods which are practicable and attainable: having the Ideal Good as a pattern we shall more easily know what things are good for us, and knowing them, obtain them.
15
Now it is true that this argument has a certain plausibility; but it does not seem to square with the actual procedure of the sciences. For these all aim at some good, and seek to make up their deficiencies,Or perhaps to supply what is lacking of it (the good at which they aim); cf. 7.17. but they do not trouble about a knowledge of the Ideal Good. Yet if it were so potent an aid, it is improbable that all the professors of the arts and sciences should not know it, nor even seek to discover it.
16
Moreover, it is not easy to see how knowing that same Ideal Good will help a weaver or carpenter in the practice of his own craft, or how anybody will be a better physician or general for having contemplated the absolute Idea. In fact it does not appear that the physician studies even healthi.e., the particular good which is the end of his own science. in the abstract; he studies the health of the human being—or rather of some particular human being, for it is individuals that he has to cure.
16
Let us here conclude our discussion of this subject.
