PASSAGES FOR COMPARISON 



waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed 

 to him of a single science, which is the science 

 of beauty everywhere. . . . 



He who has been instructed thus far in the 

 things of love, and who has learned to see the 

 beautiful in due order and succession, when he 

 comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a 

 nature of wondrous beauty (and this, Socrates, 

 is the final cause of all our former toils) — a 

 nature which in the first place is everlasting, 

 not growing and decaying, or waxing and 

 waning; secondly, not fair in one point of view 

 and foul in another, or at one time or in one 

 relation or at one place fair, at another time 

 or in another relation or at another place foul, 

 as if fair to some and foul to others, or in the 

 likeness of a face or hands or any other part 

 of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech 

 or knowledge, or existing in any other being, 

 as, for example, in an animal, or in heaven, or 

 in earth, or in any other place; but beauty 

 absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, 

 which without diminution and without increase, 

 or any change, is imparted to the ever-growing 

 and perishing beauties of all other things. 



[73] 



