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 other, or of the one and the
other-in any such case do I not speak of both?

  Yes.

  And must not that which is correctly called both, be also two?

  Undoubtedly.

  And of two things how can either by any possibility not be one?

  It cannot.

  Then, if the individuals of the pair are together two, they must
be severally one?

  Clearly.

  And if each of them is one, then by the addition of any one to any
pair, the whole becomes three?

  Yes.

  And three are odd, and two are even?

  Of course.

  And if there are two there must also be twice, and if there are
three there must be thrice; that is, if twice one makes two, and