ypothesis necessarily imply that one is of such a nature as to have
parts?

How so?

In this way:--If being is predicated of the one, if the one is, and one
of being, if being is one; and if being and one are not the same; and
since the one, which we have assumed, is, must not the whole, if it is
one, itself be, and have for its parts, one and being?

Certainly.

And is each of these parts--one and being--to be simply called a part,
or must the word 'part' be relative to the word 'whole'?

The latter.

Then that which is one is both a whole and has a part?

Certainly.

Again, of the parts of the one, if it is--I mean being and one--does
either fail to imply the other? is the one wanting to being, or being to
the one?

Impossible.

Thus, each of the parts also has in turn both one and being, and is at
the least made up of two parts; and the same principle goes on for ever,
and every part whatever has always these two parts; for being always
involves one, and one being; so that one is always disappearing, and
becoming two.

Certainly.

And so the one, if it is, must be infinite in multiplicity?

Clearly.

Let us take another direction.

What direction?

We say that the one partakes of being and therefore it is?

Yes.

And in this way, the one, if it has being, has turned out to be many?

True.

But now, let us abstract the one which, as we say, partakes of
being, and try to imagine it apart from that of which, as we say, it
partakes--will this abstract one be one only or many?

One, I think.

Let us see:--Must not the being of one be other than one? for the one is
not being, but, considered as one, only partook of being?

Certainly.

If being and the one be two different things, it is not because the one
is one that it is other than being; nor because being is being that it
is other than the one; but they differ from one another in virtue of
otherness and difference.

Certainly.

So that the other is not the same--either with the one or with being?

Certainly not.

And therefore whether we take being and the other, or being and the one,
or the one and the other, in every such case we take two things, which
may be rightly called both.

How so.

In this way--you may speak of being?

Yes.

And also of one?

Yes.

Then now we have spoken of either of them?

Yes.

Well, and when I speak of being and one, I speak of them both?

Certainly.

And if I speak of being and the