[Side-note: Knowledge of Good--appears postulated and divined, in many of the Platonic dialogues, under different titles.] What Plato here calls the knowledge of Good, or Reason--the just discrimination and comparative appreciation of Ends and Means--appears in the Politikus and Euthydêmus, under the title of the Regal or Political Art, of employing or directing[77] the results of all other arts, which are considered as subordinate: in the Protagoras, under the title of art of calculation or mensuration: in the Philêbus, as measure and proportion: in the Phædrus (in regard to rhetoric) as the art of turning to account, for the main purpose of persuasion, all the special processes, stratagems, decorations, &c., imparted by professional masters. In the Republic, it is personified in the few venerable Elders who constitute the Reason of the society, and whose directions all the rest (Guardians and Producers) are bound implicitly to follow: the virtue of the subordinates consisting in this implicit obedience. In the Leges, it is defined as the complete subjection in the mind, of pleasures and pains to right Reason,[78] without which, no special aptitudes are worth having. In the Xenophontic Memorabilia, it stands as a Sokratic authority under the title of Sophrosynê or Temperance:[79] and the Profitable is declared identical with the Good, as the directing and limiting principle for all human pursuits and proceedings.[80] [Footnote 77: Plato, Politikus, 292 B, 304 B, 305 A; Euthydêmus, 291 B, 292 B. Compare Xenophon, Oekonomicus, i. 8, 13.] [Footnote 78: Leges, iii. 689 A-D, 691 A.] [Footnote 79: Xenoph. Memor. i. 2. 17; iv. 3. 1.] [Footnote 80: Xenoph. Memor. iv. 6, 8; iv. 7, 7.] [Side-note: The Good--the Profitable--what is it?--How are we to know it? Plato leaves this undetermined.] But what are we to understand by the _Good_, about which there are so many disputes, according to the acknowledgment of Plato as well as of Sokrates? And what are we to understand by the Profitable? In what relation does it stand to the Pleasurable and the Painful? These are points which Plato here leaves undetermined. We shall find him again touching them, and trying different ways of determining them, in the Protagoras, the Gorgias, the Republic, and elsewhere. We have here the title and the postulate, but nothing more, of a comprehensive Teleology, or right comparative estimate of ends and means one against another, so as to decide when, how far, under what circumstances, &c., each ought to be pursued. We shall see what Plato does in other dialogues to connect this title and postulate with a more definite meaning. CHAPTER XIII. HIPPIAS MAJOR--HIPPIAS MINOR. [Side-note: Hippias Major--situation supposed--character of the dialogue. Sarcasm and mockery against Hippias.]