the earth, I at length appeared to myself so unskillful in these
speculations that nothing could be more so. But I will give you a
sufficient proof of this; for I then became, by these very speculations,
so very blind with respect to things which I knew clearly before, as it
appeared to myself and others, that I unlearned even the things which I
thought I knew before, both on many other subjects and also this, why a
man grows. For, before, I thought this was evident to every one--that it
proceeds from eating and drinking; for that, when, from the food, flesh
is added to flesh, bone to bone, and so on in the same proportion, what
is proper to them is added to the several other parts, then the bulk
which was small becomes afterward large, and thus that a little man
becomes a big one. Such was my opinion at that time. Does it appear to
you correct?"

"To me it does," said Cebes.

104. "Consider this further. I thought that I had formed a right
opinion, when, on seeing a tall man standing by a short one, I judged
that he was taller by the head, and in like manner, one horse than
another; and, still more clearly than this, ten appeared to me to be
more than eight by two being added to them, and that two cubits are
greater than one cubit by exceeding it a half."

"But now," said Cebes, "what think you of these matters?"

"By Jupiter!" said he, "I am far from thinking that I know the cause of
these, for that I can not even persuade myself of this: when a person
has added one to one, whether the one to which the addition has been
made has become two, or whether that which has been added, and that to
which the addition has been made, have become two by the addition of the
one to the other. For I wonder if, when each of these was separate from
the other, each was one, and they were not yet two; but when they have
approached nearer each other this should be the cause of their becoming
two--namely, the union by which they have been placed nearer one
another. 105. Nor yet, if any person should divide one, am I able to
persuade myself that this, their division, is the cause of its becoming
two. For this cause is the contrary to the former one of their becoming
two; for then it was because they were brought nearer to each other, and
the one was added to the other; but now it is because one is removed and
separated from the other. Nor do I yet persuade myself that I know why
one is one, nor, in a word, why any thing else is produc