without being good, and neither could the Form of Beauty. So grasping the Good will be a kind of key that unlocks for us the understanding of all the Forms. It seems to stand as the highest principle in a kind of hierarchy, presiding over the Forms. The physical things around us in the visible world partake of these Forms, and thus can be thought of as images of the Forms. Then, at the very bottom of the scale of reality, there are images of these images—for instance, shadows or reflections of physical things.
