When Hippias accuses Sokrates of neglecting to notice Wholes or Aggregates, this is true in the sense of Concrete Wholes--the phenomenal sequences and co-existences, perceived by sense or imagined. But the Universal (as Aristotle says)[47] is one kind of Whole: a Logical Whole, having logical parts. In the minds of Sokrates and Plato, the Logical Whole separable into its logical parts and into them only, were preponderant. [Footnote 47: Aristot. Physic. i. 1. [Greek: to\ ga\r o(/lon kata\ tê\n ai)/sthêsin gnôrimô/teron, _to\ de\ katho/lou o(/lon ti e)sti; polla\ ga\r perilamba/nei ô(s me/rê to\ katho/lou_.] Compare Simplikius, Schol. Brandis ad loc. p. 324, a. 10-26.] [Side-note: Antithesis of Absolute and Relative, here brought into debate by Plato, in regard to the Idea of Beauty.] One other point deserves peculiar notice, in the dialogue under our review. The problem started is, What is the Beautiful--the Self-Beautiful, or Beauty _per se_: and it is assumed that this must be Something,[48] that from the accession of which, each particular beautiful thing becomes beautiful. But Sokrates presently comes to make a distinction between that which is really beautiful and that which appears to be beautiful. Some things (he says) appear beautiful, but are not so in reality: some are beautiful, but do not appear so. The problem, as he states it, is, to find, not what that is which makes objects appear beautiful, but what it is that makes them really beautiful. This distinction, as we find it in the language of Hippias, is one of degree only:[49] that _is_ beautiful which appears so to every one and at all times. But in the language of Sokrates, the distinction is radical: to _be_ beautiful is one thing, to _appear_ beautiful is another; whatever makes a thing appear beautiful without being so in reality, is a mere engine of deceit, and not what Sokrates is enquiring for.[50] The Self-Beautiful or real Beauty is so, whether any one perceives it to be beautiful or not: it is an Absolute, which exists _per se_, having no relation to any sentient or percipient subject.[51] At any rate, such is the manner in which Plato conceives it, when he starts here as a problem to enquire, What it is. [Footnote 48: Plato, Hipp. Maj. 286 K. [Greek: au)to\ to\ kalo\n o(/, ti e)/stin.] Also 287 D, 289 D.] [Footnote 49: Plato, Hipp. Maj. 291 D, 292 E.] [Footnote 50: Plato, Hipp. Maj. 294 A-B, 299 A.] [Footnote 51: Dr. Hutcheson, in his inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, observes (sect. i. and ii. p. 14-16):--