Seite - 692 - in The Complete Plato

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 692