The search for the meaning and scientific content of the word "beautiful" could not but early attract the attention of the subtle and elegant Greek dialecticians. Indeed, we find Socrates engaged in discussing this question in one of the discourses that have been preserved for us by Xenophon; and we find him disposed to stop for the moment at the conclusion that the beautiful is _that which is convenient and which answers to the end desired,_ or at the other conclusion that it is _that which one loves_[16] Plato too examines this sort of problem and proposes various sorts of solutions or attempts at solutions of it. He sometimes speaks of a beauty that dwells not only in bodies, but also in laws, in actions, in the sciences; sometimes he seems to conjoin and almost to identify it with the true, the good and the divine; now he returns to the view of Socrates and confuses it with the useful; now he distinguishes between a beautiful in itself (καλά καθ' αυτά) and a relatively beautiful (πρός τι καλά); or he makes true beauty consist in pure pleasure (ήδονη καθαρά), free from all shadow of pain; or he places it in measure and proportion (μετριότης καί ξνμμετρία); or talks of colours and sounds as possessing a beauty in themselves.[17] It was impossible to find an independent dominion for the beautiful, if the artistic or mimetic activity were deserted. This explains his wandering among so many different conceptions, among which it is just possible to say that the identification of the Beautiful with the Good prevails. Nothing better describes this uncertainty than the dialogue of the _Hippias maior_ (which, if it be not Plato's, is Platonic). He here wishes to find out not what things are beautiful things, but what the beautiful is; that is to say, what it is that makes beautiful, not only a beautiful virgin, but also a beautiful mare, a beautiful lyre, a beautiful pot with two graceful ears of clay. Hippias and Socrates himself propose in turn the most various solutions; but the latter ends by confuting them all. "That which makes things beautiful is the gold that is added to them by way of ornament." No: gold only embellishes where it is _fitting_ (πρέπων): for instance, a pot should have a wooden rather than a golden handle. "That is beautiful which cannot seem ugly to any one." But it is not a question of _seeming_: the question is to define what the beautiful is, whether it seems so or not. It is the _fitting_ which makes things seem to be beautiful. But in that case, the fitting (which makes them _appear,_ not _be)_ is one thing, and the beautiful another. "The beautiful is what leads to the end, that is to say, the _useful_ (χρήσιμον)." But if that were so, then evil would also be beautiful, because the useful leads also to the evil. "The beautiful is the _helpful,_ that which leads to the good (ωφέλιμον)." But in this case, the good would not be beautiful nor the beautiful good; for