PLATO 



he be not to recognize that the beauty in every 

 form is one and the same! And when he per- 

 ceives this, he will abate his violent love of 

 the one, which he will despise and deem a 

 small thing, and will become a lover of all 

 beautiful forms. In the next stage he will 

 consider that the beauty of the mind is more 

 honorable than the beauty of the outward form. 

 So that if a virtuous soul have but a little 

 comeliness, he will be content to love and tend 

 him, and will search out and bring to the birth 

 thoughts which may improve the young, until 

 he is compelled to contemplate and see the 

 beauty of institutions and laws, and to under- 

 stand that the beauty of them all is of one 

 family, and that personal beauty is a trifle. 

 And after laws and institutions he will go on 

 to the sciences, that he may see their beauty, 

 being not, like a servant, in love with the 

 beauty of one youth or man or institution, 

 himself a slave, mean and narrow-minded, 

 but drawing towards and contemplating the 

 vast sea of beauty, he will create many fair and 

 noble thoughts and notions in boundless love 

 of wisdom; until on that shore he grows and 

 [72] 



