Complete Works (89 page)

“So largeness won’t be in the one either. For if it were, something else, apart from largeness itself, would be larger than something, namely, that [c] which the largeness is in – and that too, although there is for it no small thing, which it must exceed, if in fact it is large. But this is impossible, since smallness is nowhere in anything.”—“True.”

“But largeness itself is not greater than anything other than smallness itself, nor is smallness less than anything other than largeness itself.”—“No, they aren’t.”—“So the others aren’t greater than the one, nor are they less, because they have neither largeness nor smallness. Nor do these two themselves – largeness and smallness – have, in relation to the one, their [d] power of exceeding and being exceeded; they have it, rather, in relation to each other. Nor could the one, in its turn, be greater or less than these two or the others, since it has neither largeness nor smallness.”—“It certainly appears not.”—“So if the one is neither greater nor less than the others, it must neither exceed them nor be exceeded by them?”—“Necessarily.”—“Now, it is quite necessary that something that neither exceeds nor is exceeded be equally matched, and if equally matched, equal.”—“No doubt.”

“Furthermore, the one would also itself be so in relation to itself: having [e] neither largeness nor smallness in itself, it would neither be exceeded by nor exceed itself, but, being equally matched, would be equal to itself.”—“Of course.”—“Therefore the one would be equal to itself and the others.”—“Apparently.”

“And yet, since it is in itself, it would also be around itself on the outside, and as container it would be greater than itself, but as contained it would
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be less. And thus the one would be greater and less than itself.”—“Yes, it would be.”

“Isn’t this necessary too, that there be nothing outside the one and the others?”—“No doubt.”—“But surely what is must always be somewhere.”—“Yes.”—“Then won’t that which is in something be in something greater as something less? For there is no other way that something could be in something else.”—“No, there isn’t.”—“Since there is nothing else apart from the others and the one, and since they must be in something, must they not in fact be in each other – the others in the one and the one [b] in the others – or else be nowhere?”—“Apparently.”—“So, on the one hand, because the one is in the others, the others would be greater than the one, since they contain it, and the one would be less than the others, since it is contained. On the other hand, because the others are in the one, by the same argument the one would be greater than the others and they less than it.”—“So it seems.”—“Therefore the one is both equal to, and greater and less than, itself and the others.”—“Apparently.”

“And if in fact it is greater and less and equal, it would be of measures [c] equal to, and more and fewer than, itself and the others; and since of measures, also of parts.”—“Doubtless.”—“So, since it is of equal and more and fewer measures, it would also be fewer and more than itself and the others in number, and, correspondingly, equal to itself and the others.”—“How so?”—“It would surely be of more measures than those things it is greater than, and of as many parts as measures; and likewise it would be of fewer measures and parts than those things it is less than; and correspondingly for the things it is equal to.”—“Just so.”—“Since it is, [d] then, greater and less than, and equal to, itself, would it not be of measures more and fewer than, and equal to, itself? And since of measures, also of parts?”—“Doubtless.”—“So, since it is of parts equal to itself, it would be equal to itself in multitude, but since it is of more and fewer parts, it would be more and fewer than itself in number.”—“Apparently.”—“Now won’t the one be related in the same way also to the others? Because it appears larger than they, it must also be more than they are in number; and because it appears smaller, fewer; and because it appears equal in largeness, it must also be equal to the others in multitude.”—“Necessarily.”—“Thus, [e] in turn, as it seems, the one will be equal to, and more and fewer than, itself and the others in number.”—“It will.”

“Does the one also partake of time? And, in partaking of time, is it and does it come to be both younger and older than, and neither younger nor older than, itself and the others?”—“How so?”—“If in fact one is, being surely belongs to it.”—“Yes.”—“But is
to be
simply partaking of being
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with time present, just as
was
is communion with being together with time past, and, in turn,
will be
is communion with being together with time future?”—“Yes, it is.”—“So the one partakes of time, if in fact it partakes of being.”—“Certainly.”

“Of time advancing?”—“Yes.”—“So the one always comes to be older than itself, if in fact it goes forward in step with time.”—“Necessarily.”—“Do we recall that the older comes to be older than something that comes to be younger?”—“We do.”—“So, since the one comes to be older than itself, wouldn’t it come to be older than a self that comes to be younger?”—[b] “Necessarily.”—“Thus it indeed comes to be both younger and older than itself.”—“Yes.”

“But it
is
older, isn’t it, whenever, in coming to be, it is at the now time, between
was
and
will be
? For as it proceeds from the past to the future, it certainly won’t jump over the now.”—“No, it won’t.”—“Doesn’t it stop [c] coming to be older when it encounters the now? It doesn’t come to be, but is then already older, isn’t it? For if it were going forward, it could never be grasped by the now. A thing going forward is able to lay hold of both the now and the later – releasing the now and reaching for the later, while coming to be between the two, the later and the now.”—“True.”—“But if nothing that comes to be can sidestep the now, whenever a thing
is
at this point, it always stops its coming-to-be and then is whatever [d] it may have come to be.”—“Apparently.”—“So, too, the one: whenever, in coming to be older, it encounters the now, it stops its coming-to-be and is then older.”—“Of course.”—“So it also is older than that very thing it was coming to be older than – and wasn’t it coming to be older than itself?”—“Yes.”—“And the older is older than a younger?”—“It is.”—“So the one is then also younger than itself, whenever, in its coming-to-be older, it encounters the now.”—“Necessarily.”—“Yet the now is always present to the one throughout its being; for the one always is now, whenever [e] it is.”—“No doubt.”—“Therefore the one always both is and comes to be older and younger than itself.”—“So it seems.”

“Is it or does it come to be for more time than itself or an equal time?”—“An equal.”—“But if it comes to be or is for an equal time, it is the same age.”—“Doubtless.”—“And that which is the same age is neither older nor younger.”—“No, it isn’t.”—“So the one, since it comes to be and is for a time equal to itself, neither is nor comes to be younger or older than itself.”—“I think not.”

“And again: what of the others?”—“I can’t say.”—“This much, surely,
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you can say: things other than the one, if in fact they are different things and not
a
different thing, are more than one. A different thing would be one, but different things are more than one and would have multitude.”—“Yes, they would.”—“And, being a multitude, they would partake of a greater number than the one.”—“Doubtless.”—“Now, shall we say in connection with number that things that are more or things that are less come to be and have come to be earlier?”—“Things that are less.”—“So, the least thing first; and this is the one. Isn’t that so?”—“Yes.”—“So of all [b] the things that have number the one has come to be first. And the others, too, all have number, if in fact they are others and not an other.”—“Yes, they do.”—“But that which has come to be first, I take it, has come to be earlier, and the others later; and things that have come to be later are younger than what has come to be earlier. Thus the others would be younger than the one, and the one older than they.”—“Yes, it would.”

“What about the following? Could the one have come to be in a way contrary to its own nature, or is that impossible?”—“Impossible.”—“Yet [c] the one was shown to have parts, and if parts, a beginning, an end, and a middle.”—“Yes.”—“Well, in the case of all things – the one itself and each of the others – doesn’t a beginning come to be first, and after the beginning all the others up to the end?”—“To be sure.”—“Furthermore, we shall say that all these others are parts of some one whole, but that it itself has come to be one and whole at the same time as the end.”—“Yes, we shall.”—“An end, I take it, comes to be last, and the one naturally [d] comes to be at the same time as it. And so if in fact the one itself must not come to be contrary to nature, it would naturally come to be later than the others, since it has come to be at the same time as the end.”—“Apparently.”—“Therefore the one is younger than the others, and the others are older than it.”—“That, in turn, appears to me to be so.”

“But again: must not a beginning or any other part of the one or of anything else, if in fact it is a part and not parts, be one, since it is
a
part?”—“Necessarily.”—“Accordingly, the one would come to be at the [e] same time as the first part that comes to be, and at the same time as the second; and it is absent from none of the others that come to be – no matter what is added to what – until, upon arriving at the last part, it comes to be one whole, having been absent at the coming-to-be of neither the middle nor the first nor the last nor any other part.”—“True.”—“Therefore the one is the same age as all the others. And so, unless the one itself is naturally contrary to nature, it would have come to be neither earlier nor
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later than the others, but at the same time. And according to this argument the one would be neither older nor younger than the others, nor the others older or younger than it. But according to our previous argument, it was both older and younger than they, and likewise they were both older and younger than it.”—“Of course.”

“That’s how it is and has come to be. But what about its coming-to-be both older and younger, and neither older nor younger, than the others and they than it? Is the case with coming-to-be just as it is with being, or [b] is it different?”—“I can’t say.”—“But I can say this much, at least: if something is indeed older than another thing, it could not come to be still older by an amount greater than the original difference in age. Nor, in turn, could the younger come to be still younger. For equals added to unequals, in time or anything else at all, always make them differ by an amount equal to that by which they differed at first.”—“No doubt.”—“So [c] what is older or younger could never come to be older or younger than what is older or younger, if in fact they always differ in age by an equal amount. On the contrary, something is and has come to be older, and something younger, but they do not come to be so.”—“True.”—“So also the one, since it is older or younger, never comes to be older or younger than the others that are older or younger than it.”—“Yes, you’re quite right.”

“But consider whether it comes to be older and younger in this way.”—“In what way?”—“In the way that the one was shown to be older than the others and they older than it.”—“What of that?”—“When the one is [d] older than the others, it has surely come to be for more time than they.”—“Yes.”—“Go back and consider: if we add an equal time to more and less time, will the more differ from the less by an equal or a smaller fraction?”
¹⁶
—“A smaller.”—“So the one’s difference in age in relation to the others will not be in the future just what it was at first. On the contrary, by getting an increment of time equal to the others, it will differ from them in age always less than it did before. Isn’t that so?”—“Yes.”—“Wouldn’t that [e] which differs from anything in age less than before come to be younger than before in relation to those things it was previously older than?”—“Younger.”—“And if the one comes to be younger, don’t those others, in turn, come to be older than before in relation to it?”—“Certainly.”—“So what is younger comes to be older in relation to what has come to be earlier and is older, but it never is older. On the contrary, it always comes to be older than that thing. For the older advances toward the younger, while the younger advances toward the older. And, in the same way, the
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older, in its turn, comes to be younger than the younger. For both, by going toward their opposites, come to be each other’s opposite, the younger coming to be older than the older, and the older younger than the younger. But they could not come to
be
so. For if they came to be, they would no longer
come
to be, but would be so. But as it is they come to be older and younger than each other. The one comes to be younger than the others, because it was shown to be older and to have come to be earlier, whereas the others come to be older than the one, because they have come to be later. [b]

“And by the same argument the others, too, come to be younger in relation to the one, since in fact they were shown to be older than it and to have come to be earlier.”—“Yes, it does appear so.”

“Well then, insofar as nothing comes to be older or younger than a different thing, owing to their always differing from each other by an equal number, the one would not come to be older or younger than the others, and they would not come to be older or younger than it. But insofar as things that came to be earlier must differ from things that come to be later by a fraction that is always different, and vice versa, in this way they [c] must come to be older and younger than each other – both the others than the one and the one than the others.”—“Of course.”—“To sum up all this, the one itself both is and comes to be older and younger than itself and the others, and it neither is nor comes to be older or younger than itself or the others.”—“Exactly.”

“And since the one partakes of time and of coming to be older and [d] younger, must it not also partake of time past, future, and present – if in fact it partakes of time?”—“Necessarily.”—“Therefore, the one was and is and will be, and was coming to be and comes to be and will come to be.”—“To be sure.”—“And something could belong to it and be of it, in the past, present, and future.”—“Certainly.”—“And indeed there would be knowledge and opinion and perception of it, if in fact even now we are engaging in all those activities concerning it.”—“You’re right.”—“And a name and an account belong to it, and it is named and spoken of. And [e] all such things as pertain to the others also pertain to the one.”—“That’s exactly so.”