e truth of things? 116. For they, perhaps, make no account
at all of this, nor pay any attention to it; for they are able, through
their wisdom, to mingle all things together, and at the same time please
themselves. But you, if you are a philosopher, would act, I think, as I
now describe."

"You speak most truly," said Simmias and Cebes together.

_Echec._ By Jupiter! Phaedo, they said so with good reason; for he
appears to me to have explained these things with wonderful clearness,
even to one endued with a small degree of intelligence.

_Phaed._ Certainly, Echecrates, and so it appeared to all who were
present.

_Echec._ And so it appears to me, who was absent, and now hear it
related. But what was said after this?

As well as I remember, when these things had been granted him, and it
was allowed that each several idea exists of itself,[37] and that other
things partaking of them receive their denomination from them, he next
asked: "If, then," he said, "you admit that things are so, whether, when
you say that Simmias is greater than Socrates, but less than Phaedo, do
you not then say that magnitude and littleness are both in Simmias?"

"I do."

117. "And yet," he said, "you must confess that Simmias's exceeding
Socrates is not actually true in the manner in which the words express
it; for Simmias does not naturally exceed Socrates in that he is
Simmias, but in consequence of the magnitude which he happens to have;
nor, again, does he exceed Socrates because Socrates is Socrates, but
because Socrates possesses littleness in comparison with his magnitude?"

"True."

"Nor, again, is Simmias exceeded by Phaedo, because Phaedo is Phaedo, but
because Phaedo possesses magnitude in comparison with Simmias's
littleness?"

"It is so."

"Thus, then, Simmias has the appellation of being both little and great,
being between both, by exceeding the littleness of one through his own
magnitude, and to the other yielding a magnitude that exceeds his own
littleness." And at the same time, smiling, he said, "I seem to speak
with the precision of a short-hand writer; however, it is as I say."

He allowed it.

118. "But I say it for this reason, wishing you to be of the same
opinion as myself. For it appears to me, not only that magnitude itself
is never disposed to be at the same time great and little, but that
magnitude in us never admits the little nor is disposed to be exceeded,
but one of two things, either to flee an