Socrates : Ah, don’t boast, Hippias. You see how much trouble it has caused us already ; I’m afraid it may get angry and run away more than ever.[295b] And yet that is nonsense ; for you, I think, will easily find it when you go away by yourself. But for Heaven’s sake, find it in my presence, or, if you please, join me, as you are now doing, in looking for it. And if we find it, that will be splendid, but if we do not, I shall, I suppose, accept my lot, and you will go away and find it easily. And if we find it now, I shall certainly not be a nuisance to you by asking what that was which you found by yourself ; [295c] but now once more see if this is in your opinion the beautiful : I say, then, that it is — but consider, paying close attention to me, that I may not talk nonsense — for I say, then, whatever is useful shall be for us beautiful. But I said it with this reason for my thought ; beautiful eyes, we say, are not such as seem to be so, which are unable to see, but those which are able and useful for seeing. Is that right ?
Hippias : Yes.
Socrates : Then, too, in the same way we say that the whole body is beautiful, part of it for running, part for wrestling ; [295d] and again all the animals, a beautiful horse or cock or quail and all utensils and land vehicles, and on the sea freight-ships and ships of war ; and all instruments in music and in the other arts, and, if you like, customs and laws also — pretty well all these we call beautiful in the same way looking at each of them — how it is formed by nature, how it is wrought, how it has been enacted — the useful we call beautiful, and beautiful in the way in which it is useful, and for the purpose for which it is useful, and at the time when it is useful ; [295e] and that which is in all these aspects useless we say is ugly. Now is not this your opinion also, Hippias ?
Hippias : It is.
Socrates : Then are we right in saying that the useful rather than everything else is beautiful ?
Hippias : We are right, surely, Socrates.
Socrates : Now that which has power to accomplish anything is useful for that for which it has power, but that which is powerless is useless, is it not ?
Hippias : Certainly.
Socrates : Power, then, is beautiful, and want of power is disgraceful or ugly.
Hippias : Decidedly. Now other things, Socrates, [296a] testify for us that this is so, but especially political affairs ; for in political affairs and in one’s own state to be powerful is the most beautiful of all things, but to be powerless is the most disgraceful of all.
Socrates : Good ! Then, for Heaven’s sake, Hippias, is wisdom also for this reason the most beautiful of all things and ignorance the most disgraceful of all things ?
Hippias : Well, what do you suppose, Socrates ?
Socrates : Just keep quiet, my dear friend ; I am so afraid and wondering what in the world we are saying again.
[296b] Hippias : What are you afraid of again, Socrates, since now your discussion has gone ahead most beautifully ?Socrates : I wish that might be the case ; but consider this point with me : could a person do what he did not know how and was utterly powerless to do ?
Hippias : By no means ; for how could he do what he was powerless to do ?
Socrates : Then those who commit errors and accomplish and do bad things involuntarily, if they were powerless to do those things, would not do them ?
[296c] Hippias : Evidently not.Socrates : But yet it is by power that those are powerful who are powerful for surely it is not by powerlessness.
Hippias : Certainly not.
Socrates : And all who do, have power to do what they do ?
Hippias : Yes.
Socrates : Men do many more bad things than good, from childhood up, and commit many errors involuntarily.
Hippias : That is true.
Socrates : Well, then, this power and these useful things, which are useful for accomplishing something bad — shall we say that they are beautiful, or far from it ?
[296d] Hippias : Far from it, in my opinion, Socrates.Socrates : Then, Hippias, the powerful and the useful are not, as it seems, our beautiful.
Hippias : They are, Socrates, if they are powerful and useful for good.
Socrates : Then that assertion, that the powerful and useful are beautiful without qualification, is gone ; but was this, Hippias, what our soul wished to say, that the useful and the powerful for doing something good is the beautiful ?
[296e] Hippias : Yes, in my opinion.Socrates : But surely this is beneficial ; or is it not ?
Hippias : Certainly.
Socrates : So by this argument the beautiful persons and beautiful customs and all that we mentioned just now are beautiful because they are beneficial.
Hippias : Evidently.
Socrates : Then the beneficial seems to us to be the beautiful, Hippias.
Hippias : Yes, certainly, Socrates.
Socrates : But the beneficial is that which creates good.
Hippias : Yes, it is.
Socrates : But that which creates is nothing else than the cause ; am I right ?
Hippias : It is so.