r of need.

PROTARCHUS: Tell us what that is.

SOCRATES: One which may be easily pointed out, but is by no means easy
of application; it is the parent of all the discoveries in the arts.

PROTARCHUS: Tell us what it is.

SOCRATES: A gift of heaven, which, as I conceive, the gods tossed among
men by the hands of a new Prometheus, and therewith a blaze of light;
and the ancients, who were our betters and nearer the gods than we
are, handed down the tradition, that whatever things are said to be are
composed of one and many, and have the finite and infinite implanted in
them: seeing, then, that such is the order of the world, we too ought
in every enquiry to begin by laying down one idea of that which is the
subject of enquiry; this unity we shall find in everything. Having found
it, we may next proceed to look for two, if there be two, or, if not,
then for three or some other number, subdividing each of these units,
until at last the unity with which we began is seen not only to be one
and many and infinite, but also a definite number; the infinite must not
be suffered to approach the many until the entire number of the species
intermediate between unity and infinity has been discovered,--then, and
not till then, we may rest from division, and without further troubling
ourselves about the endless individuals may allow them to drop into
infinity. This, as I was saying, is the way of considering and learning
and teaching one another, which the gods have handed down to us. But
the wise men of our time are either too quick or too slow in conceiving
plurality in unity. Having no method, they make their one and many
anyhow, and from unity pass at once to infinity; the intermediate steps
never occur to them. And this, I repeat, is what makes the difference
between the mere art of disputation and true dialectic.

PROTARCHUS: I think that I partly understand you Socrates, but I should
like to have a clearer notion of what you are saying.

SOCRATES: I may illustrate my meaning by the letters of the alphabet,
Protarchus, which you were made to learn as a child.

PROTARCHUS: How do they afford an illustration?

SOCRATES: The sound which passes through the lips whether of an
individual or of all men is one and yet infinite.

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And yet not by knowing either that sound is one or that sound
is infinite are we perfect in the art of speech, but the knowledge of
the number and nature of sounds is w