Part 39

THEAETETUS: Yes, with wonderful celerity.

SOCRATES: Yes, we did not keep watch properly. Perhaps we ought to have maintained that a syllable is not the letters, but rather one single idea framed out of them, having a separate form distinct from them.

THEAETETUS: Very true; and a more likely notion than the other.

SOCRATES: Take care; let us not be cowards and betray a great and imposing theory.

THEAETETUS: No, indeed.

SOCRATES: Let us assume then, as we now say, that the syllable is a simple form arising out of the several combinations of harmonious elements--of letters or of any other elements.

THEAETETUS: Very good.

SOCRATES: And it must have no parts.

THEAETETUS: Why?

SOCRATES: Because that which has parts must be a whole of all the parts. Or would you say that a whole, although formed out of the parts, is a single notion different from all the parts?

THEAETETUS: I should.

SOCRATES: And would you say that all and the whole are the same, or different?

THEAETETUS: I am not certain; but, as you like me to answer at once, I shall hazard the reply, that they are different.

SOCRATES: I approve of your readiness, Theaetetus, but I must take time to think whether I equally approve of your answer.

THEAETETUS: Yes; the answer is the point.

SOCRATES: According to this new view, the whole is supposed to differ from all?

THEAETETUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Well, but is there any difference between all (in the plural) and the all (in the singular)? Take the case of number:--When we say one, two, three, four, five, six; or when we say twice three, or three times two, or four and two, or three and two and one, are we speaking of the same or of different numbers?

THEAETETUS: Of the same.

SOCRATES: That is of six?

THEAETETUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And in each form of expression we spoke of all the six?

THEAETETUS: True.

SOCRATES: Again, in speaking of all (in the plural) is there not one thing which we express?

THEAETETUS: Of course there is.

SOCRATES: And that is six?

THEAETETUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then in predicating the word 'all' of things measured by number, we predicate at the same time a singular and a plural?