find a difficulty in following him into the sphere of thought which he is
seeking to attain. First in his scale of goods he places measure, in which
he finds the eternal nature: this would be more naturally expressed in
modern language as eternal law, and seems to be akin both to the finite and
to the mind or cause, which were two of the elements in the former table.
Like the supreme nature in the Timaeus, like the ideal beauty in the
Symposium or the Phaedrus, or like the ideal good in the Republic, this is
the absolute and unapproachable being. But this being is manifested in
symmetry and beauty everywhere, in the order of nature and of mind, in the
relations of men to one another. For the word 'measure' he now substitutes
the word 'symmetry,' as if intending to express measure conceived as
relation. He then proceeds to regard the good no longer in an objective
form, but as the human reason seeking to attain truth by the aid of
dialectic; such at least we naturally infer to be his meaning, when we
consider that both here and in the Republic the sphere of nous or mind is
assigned to dialectic. (2) It is remarkable (see above) that this personal
conception of mind is confined to the human mind, and not extended to the
divine. (3) If we may be allowed to interpret one dialogue of Plato by
another, the sciences of figure and number are probably classed with the
arts and true opinions, because they proceed from hypotheses (compare
Republic). (4) The sixth class, if a sixth class is to be added, is
playfully set aside by a quotation from Orpheus: Plato means to say that a
sixth class, if there be such a class, is not worth considering, because
pleasure, having only gained the fifth place in the scale of goods, is
already out of the running.

VI. We may now endeavour to ascertain the relation of the Philebus to the
other dialogues. Here Plato shows the same indifference to his own
doctrine of Ideas which he has already manifested in the Parmenides and the
Sophist. The principle of the one and many of which he here speaks, is