case of fortuitous equivocation)? Are different individual things called
good by virtue of being from one source, or all conducing to one end, or
rather by way of analogy, for that intellect is to the soul as sight to
the body, and so on? However, perhaps we ought to leave these questions
now, for an accurate investigation of them is more properly the business
of a different philosophy. And likewise respecting the [Greek: idea]:
for even if there is some one good predicated in common of all things
that are good, or separable and capable of existing independently,
manifestly it cannot be the object of human action or attainable by Man;
but we are in search now of something that is so.

It may readily occur to any one, that it would be better to attain a
knowledge of it with a view to such concrete goods as are attainable and
practical, because, with this as a kind of model in our hands, we shall
the better know what things are good for us individually, and when we
know them, we shall attain them.

Some plausibility, it is true, this argument possesses, but it is
contradicted by the facts of the Arts and Sciences; for all these,
though aiming at some good, and seeking that which is deficient, yet
pretermit the knowledge of it: now it is not exactly probable that all
artisans without exception should be ignorant of so great a help as this
would be, and not even look after it; neither is it easy to see wherein
a weaver or a carpenter will be profited in respect of his craft by
knowing the very-good, or how a man will be the more apt to effect cures
or to command an army for having seen the [Greek: idea] itself. For
manifestly it is not health after this general and abstract fashion
which is the subject of the physician's investigation, but the health
of Man, or rather perhaps of this or that man; for he has to heal
individuals.--Thus much on these points.