Socrates : Oh how good that is ! But come, since you tell me to do so, now let me try to play that man’s part, so far as possible, and ask you questions. For if you were to deliver for him this discourse that you mention, the one about beautiful pursuits, when he had heard it, after you had stopped speaking, the very first thing he would ask about would be the beautiful ; (287c) for he has that sort of habit, and he would say, “Stranger from Elis, is it not by justice that the just are just ?” So answer, Hippias, as though he were asking the question.
Hippias : I shall answer that it is by justice.
Socrates : “Then this — I mean justice — is something ?”
Hippias : Certainly.
Socrates : “Then, too, by wisdom the wise are wise and by the good all things are good, are they not ?”
Hippias : Of course.
Socrates : “And justice, wisdom, and so forth are something ; for the just, wise, and so forth would not be such by them, if they were not something.”
Hippias : To be sure, they are something.
Socrates : “Then are not all beautiful things beautiful by the beautiful ?”
(287d) Hippias : Yes, by the beautiful.
Socrates : “By the beautiful, which is something ?”
Hippias : Yes, for what alternative is there ?