23
Soc. Note the cause of the combination of those two and assume that as the fourth in addition to the previous three.
23
Pro. And then will you not need a fifth, which has the power of separation?
23
Soc. Perhaps; but not at present, I think. However, if we do need a fifth, you will pardon me for going after it.
23
Pro. Of course.
23
Soc. First, then, let us take three of the four and, as we see that two of these are split up and scattered each one into many, let us try, by collecting each of them again into one, to learn how each of them was both one and many.
23
Pro. If you could tell me more clearly about them, I might be able to follow you.
24
Soc. I mean, then, that the two which I select are the same which I mentioned before, the infinite and the finite. I will try to show that the infinite is, in a certain sense, many; the finite can wait.
24
Pro. Yes.
24
Soc. Consider then. What I ask you to consider is difficult and debatable; but consider it all the same. In the first place, take hotter and colder and see whether you can conceive any limit of them, or whether the more and less which dwell in their very nature do not, so long as they continue to dwell therein, preclude the possibility of any end; for if there were any end of them, the more and less would themselves be ended.
24
Pro. Very true.
24
Soc. But always, we affirm, in the hotter and colder there is the more and less.
24
Pro. Certainly.
24
Soc. Always, then, the argument shows that these two have no end; and being endless, they are of course infinite.
24
Pro. Most emphatically, Socrates.
