Shall we then define the good as the virtue characteristic of each being (as say the Stoics)? In this case, by strictly following (the course of dialectics) we would reduce the Good to being a form and a reason. But, having arrived there, what should we answer if we were asked on what grounds these things themselves are good? In imperfect things, it seems easy to distinguish the good, even though it be not pure; but in intelligible things we may not immediately succeed in discovering the Good by comparison with the inferior things. As there is no evil on high (in the intelligible world), and as excellent things exist in themselves, we find ourselves embarrassed. Perhaps we are embarrassed only because we seek the cause ("whyness") (of the good), whereas the cause ("whyness") is here identical with the nature ("whatness"), as intelligible entities are good in themselves. Nor would we have solved the problem if we were to assign some other cause (of the Good), such as the divinity, to which our reason has not yet forced us to repair. However, we cannot retire, and we must seek to arrive by some other road to something satisfactory. PYTHAGOREAN OPPOSITIONS ARE ALSO WORTHLESS AS EXPLANATIONS OF GOOD. 20. Since therefore we have given up desires as forms in the determination of the nature and quality (of the good), shall we have recourse to other rules, such as, for instance (the Pythagorean[104]) "oppositions," such as order and disorder, proportion and disproportion, health and sickness, form and formlessness, being and destruction, consistence and its lack? Who indeed would hesitate to attribute to the form of good those characteristics which constitute the first member of each of these opposition-pairs? If so, the efficient causes of these characteristics will also have to be traced to the good; for virtue, life, intelligence and wisdom are comprised within the form of good, as being things desired by the soul that is wise. GOOD NOT DEFINED BY INTELLIGENCE, AS THE SOUL HAS OTHER ASPIRATIONS.