Kitap 1
1
We must consider, therefore, what the best is, and in how many senses the term is used. The answer seems to be principally contained in three views. For it is said that the best of all things is the Absolute Good, and that the Absolute Good is that which has the attributes of being the first of goods and of being by its presence the cause to the other goods of their being good;
2
and both of these attributes, it is said, belong to the FormἸδέα is here used in its Platonic sense, as a synonym for εἶδος, class-form, to denote the permanent immaterial reality that underlies any group of things classed together in virtue of possessing a common quality. An ἰδέα is perceptible only by the mind, but the word does not denote the content of a mental perception, as does the derivative idea in ordinary English. of good (I mean both being the first of goods and being by its presence the cause to the other goods of their being good), since it is of that Form that goodness is most truly predicated (inasmuch as the other goods are good by participation in and resemblance to the Form of good) and also it is the first of goods, for the destruction of that which is participated in involves the destruction of the things participating in the Form (which get their designation by participating in it),
