Kitap 1
10
for then there would be something prior to the first in the series, for the common and separable term would be prior because when the common element was destroyed the first factor would be destroyed. For example, if double is the first of the multiples, the multiplicity predicated of them in common cannot exist as a separable thing, for then it will be prior to double, if it is the case that the common element is the Form, as it would be if one were to make the common element separable: for if justice is a good, and courage, there is then, they say, a Good-in-itself,
11
so the term in itself is added to the common definition. But what could this denote except that the good is eternal and separable? Yet a thing that is white for days is no more white than a thing that is white for one day, so that the good is no more good by being eternalThe words rendered the good is . . . eternal are a conjectural insertion.; nor yet therefore is the common good the same as the Form, for it is the common property of all the goods.
12
Also the proper method of proving the Absolute Good is the contrary of the method now adopted. At present it is from things not admitted to possess goodness that they prove the things admitted to be good, for instance, they prove from numbers that justice and health are good, because they are arrangements and numbers—on the assumption that goodness is a property of numbers and monads because the Absolute Good is unity.
13
But the proper method is to start from things admitted to be good, for instance health, strength, sobriety of mind, and prove that beauty is present even more in the unchanging; for all these admitted goods consist in order and rest, and therefore, if that is so, the things unchanging are good in an even greater degree, for they possess order and rest in a greater degree.—
