ill turn out to be only one of one, and being
absolute unity, will represent a mere name.

THEAETETUS: Certainly.

STRANGER: And would they say that the whole is other than the one that
is, or the same with it?

THEAETETUS: To be sure they would, and they actually say so.

STRANGER: If being is a whole, as Parmenides sings,--

'Every way like unto the fullness of a well-rounded sphere, Evenly
balanced from the centre on every side, And must needs be neither
greater nor less in any way, Neither on this side nor on that--'

then being has a centre and extremes, and, having these, must also
have parts.

THEAETETUS: True.

STRANGER: Yet that which has parts may have the attribute of unity in
all the parts, and in this way being all and a whole, may be one?

THEAETETUS: Certainly.

STRANGER: But that of which this is the condition cannot be absolute
unity?

THEAETETUS: Why not?

STRANGER: Because, according to right reason, that which is truly one
must be affirmed to be absolutely indivisible.

THEAETETUS: Certainly.

STRANGER: But this indivisible, if made up of many parts, will
contradict reason.

THEAETETUS: I understand.

STRANGER: Shall we say that being is one and a whole, because it has the
attribute of unity? Or shall we say that being is not a whole at all?

THEAETETUS: That is a hard alternative to offer.

STRANGER: Most true; for being, having in a certain sense the attribute
of one, is yet proved not to be the same as one, and the all is
therefore more than one.

THEAETETUS: Yes.

STRANGER: And yet if being be not a whole, through having the attribute
of unity, and there be such a thing as an absolute whole, being lacks
something of its own nature?

THEAETETUS: Certainly.

STRANGER: Upon this view, again, being, having a defect of being, will
become not-being?

THEAETETUS: True.

STRANGER: And, again, the all becomes more than one, for being and the
whole will each have their separate nature.

THEAETETUS: Yes.

STRANGER: But if the whole does not exist at all, all the previous
difficulties remain the same, and there will be the further difficulty,
that besides having no being, being can never have come into being.

THEAETETUS: Why so?

STRANGER: Because that which comes into being always comes into being as
a whole, so that he who does not give whole a place among beings, cannot
speak either of essence or generation as existing.

THEAETETUS: Yes, that certainly appears to