Very true, said Socrates.
Impossible, he said.
And if you go on and allow your mind in like The thought must be of something?
manner to embrace in one view the idea of great-Yes.
ness and of great things which are not the idea, Of something which is or which is not?
and to compare them, will not another greatness Of something which is.
arise, which will appear to be the source of all Must it not be of a single something, which the these?
thought recognizes as attaching to all, being a It would seem so.
single form or nature?
Then another idea of greatness now comes into Yes.
view over and above absolute greatness, and the And will not the something which is appre-individuals which partake of it; and then another, hended as one and the same in all, be an idea?
over and above all these, by virtue of which they From that, again, there is no escape.
will all be great, and so each idea instead of be-Then, said Parmenides, if you say that every-ing one will be infinitely multiplied.
thing else participates in the ideas, must you not But may not the ideas, asked Socrates, be say either that everything is made up of thoughts, thoughts only, and have no proper existence ex-and that all things think; or that they are cept in our minds, Parmenides? For in that case thoughts but have no thought?
each idea may still be one, and not experience The latter view, Parmenides, is no more ratio-this infinite multiplication.
nal than the previous one. In my opinion, the And can there be individual thoughts which are ideas are, as it were, patterns fixed in nature, thoughts of nothing?
and other things are like them, and resemblances 60
Parmenides
of them—what is meant by the participation of Quite true.
other things in the ideas, is really assimilation The theory, then, that other things participate to them.
in the ideas by resemblance, has to be given up, But if, said he, the individual is like the idea, and some other mode of participation devised?
must not the idea also be like the individual, in It would seem so.
so far as the individual is a resemblance of the Do you see then, Socrates, how great is the dif-idea? That which is like, cannot be conceived of ficulty of affirming the ideas to be absolute?
as other than the like of like.
Yes, indeed.
Impossible.
And, further, let me say that as yet you only And when two things are alike, must they not understand a small part of the difficulty which is partake of the same idea?
involved if you make of each thing a single idea, They must.
parting it off from other things.
And will not that of which the two partake, and What difficulty? he said.
which makes them alike, be the idea itself?
There are many, but the greatest of all is this:—If an Certainly.
opponent argues that these ideas, being such as we Then the idea cannot be like the individual, or say they ought to be, must remain unknown, no one the individual like the idea; for if they are alike, can prove to him that he is wrong, unless he who some further idea of likeness will always be com-denies their existence be a man of great ability and ing to light, and if that be like anything else, knowledge, and is willing to follow a long and labori-another; and new ideas will be always arising, if ous demonstration; he will remain unconvinced, and the idea resembles that which partakes of it?
still insist that they cannot be known.