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Would you agree with me in thinking that the corrupting and destroying element is the evil, and the saving and improving element the good?

I see a great difficulty; but I should like to hear you state this argument of which you make so light.

True; both these and the opposite names will always attach to all of them.

And things great and small, heavy and light, as they are termed, will not be denoted by these any more than by the opposite names?

Yes, I said, I ought to be, and you too—there is no difficulty in proving it.

He looked at me in astonishment, and said: No, by heaven: And are you really prepared to maintain this?

And may not the many which are doubles be also halves?—doubles, that is, of one thing, and halves of another?

Are you not aware, I said, that the soul of man is immortal and imperishable?

And should an immortal being seriously think of this little space rather than of the whole?

No, he replied; the beautiful will in some point of view be found ugly; and the same is true of the rest.

Why, I said, what was ever great in a short time? The whole period of three score years and ten is surely but a little thing in comparison with eternity?

This being premised, I would ask the gentleman who is of opinion that there is no absolute or unchangeable idea of beauty—in whose opinion the beautiful is the manifold—he, I say, your lover of beautiful sights, who cannot bear to be told that the beautiful is one, and the just is one, or that anything is one—to him I would appeal, saying, Will you be so very kind, sir, as to tell us whether, of all these beautiful things, there is one which will not be found ugly; or of the just, which will not be found unjust; or of the holy, which will not also be unholy?

Then what remains to be discovered is the object which partakes equally of the nature of being and not-being, and cannot rightly be termed either, pure and simple; this unknown term, when discovered, we may truly call the subject of opinion, and assign each to their proper faculty,—the extremes to the faculties of the extremes and the mean to the faculty of the mean.

What, are there any greater still? If there are, they must be of an inconceivable greatness.

And yet no mention has been made of the greatest prizes and rewards which await virtue.

And in that interval there has now been discovered something which we call opinion?

Yes, he said; I have been convinced by the argument, as I believe that any one else would have been.

But were we not saying before, that if anything appeared to be of a sort which is and is not at the same time, that sort of thing would appear also to lie in the interval between pure being and absolute not-being; and that the corresponding faculty is neither knowledge nor ignorance, but will be found in the interval between them?

Yes, I said, my dear Glaucon, for great is the issue at stake, greater than appears, whether a man is to be good or bad. And what will any one be profited if under the influence of honour or money or power, aye, or under the excitement of poetry, he neglect justice and virtue?

Then you would infer that opinion is intermediate?