SOCRATES

Anaxagoras had said that the true primary Cause was not physical but intellectual. Socrates goes beyond him (v. Plato’s Phaedo) and holds that if such a Cause can choose a thing in preference to another it is for some reason, and this reason cannot but be good, for the supreme intellect would reason ill if it chose for any other reason. To be perfect intelligence the  must choose the good. But, choosing the good, it cannot itself but be good.

(Such a cause must act for a certain end — else it were no perfeet intelligence, no Cause at all — and, acting for a certain end must act for the best end possible, else it were not a Perfect Intelligence or a Perfect Cause.) But, acting by its reason for good, the Primary Cause, identifies itself with good. Perfect Intelligence thus supposes all‑goodness.