[1] Even if there is some one good which is predicated of goods in common, or some separate good ‘itself by itself’, clearly it could not be realised [prakton] or attained [ktêton] by man; but we are now seeking something attainable. [2] Perhaps, however, someone might think it worth while to have knowledge of it with a view to the goods that are attainable and realisable; for, having this as a sort of pattern [paradeigma], we shall also know better the goods that are good for us, and if we know them shall attain them. [3] This argument has some plausibility, but seems to clash with the procedure of the sciences [epistêmai]; for all of these, though they aim at some good and seek to supply the deficiency of it, leave on one side the knowledge of the good. Yet that all the practitioners of the crafts [technitai] should be ignorant of, and should not even seek, so great an aid is not probable. It is hard, too, to see how a weaver or a carpenter will be benefited in regard to his own craft by knowing this ‘good itself’, or how someone who has viewed the Form itself will be more of a doctor or more of a general. [4] For a doctor seems not even to study health in this way, but the health of man, or perhaps rather the health of this man; for it is individuals that he is healing.