Part 22

SOCRATES: This name appears to denote mind.

HERMOGENES: How so?

SOCRATES: Let me ask you what is the cause why anything has a name; is not the principle which imposes the name the cause?

HERMOGENES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And must not this be the mind of Gods, or of men, or of both?

HERMOGENES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Is not mind that which called (kalesan) things by their names, and is not mind the beautiful (kalon)?

HERMOGENES: That is evident.

SOCRATES: And are not the works of intelligence and mind worthy of praise, and are not other works worthy of blame?

HERMOGENES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Physic does the work of a physician, and carpentering does the works of a carpenter?

HERMOGENES: Exactly.

SOCRATES: And the principle of beauty does the works of beauty?

HERMOGENES: Of course.

SOCRATES: And that principle we affirm to be mind?

HERMOGENES: Very true.

SOCRATES: Then mind is rightly called beauty because she does the works which we recognize and speak of as the beautiful?

HERMOGENES: That is evident.

SOCRATES: What more names remain to us?

HERMOGENES: There are the words which are connected with agathon and kalon, such as sumpheron and lusiteloun, ophelimon, kerdaleon, and their opposites.

SOCRATES: The meaning of sumpheron (expedient) I think that you may discover for yourself by the light of the previous examples,—for it is a sister word to episteme, meaning just the motion (pora) of the soul accompanying the world, and things which are done upon this principle are called sumphora or sumpheronta, because they are carried round with the world.

HERMOGENES: That is probable.

SOCRATES: Again, cherdaleon (gainful) is called from cherdos (gain), but you must alter the delta into nu if you want to get at the meaning; for this word also signifies good, but in another way; he who gave the name intended to express the power of admixture (kerannumenon) and universal penetration in the good; in forming the word, however, he inserted a delta instead of a nu, and so made kerdos.

HERMOGENES: Well, but what is lusiteloun (profitable)?

SOCRATES: I suppose, Hermogenes, that people do not mean by the profitable the gainful or that which pays (luei) the retailer, but they use the word in the sense of swift. You regard the profitable (lusiteloun), as that which being the swiftest thing in existence, allows of no stay in things and no pause or end of motion, but always, if there begins to be any end, lets things go again (luei), and makes motion immortal and unceasing: and in this point of view, as appears to me, the good is happily denominated lusiteloun—being that which looses (luon) the end (telos) of motion. Ophelimon (the advantageous) is derived from ophellein, meaning that which creates and increases; this latter is a common Homeric word, and has a foreign character.

HERMOGENES: And what do you say of their opposites?

SOCRATES: Of such as are mere negatives I hardly think that I need speak.

HERMOGENES: Which are they?