Yes, Socrates, said Parmenides; that is because you are still young;
the time will come, if I am not mistaken, when philosophy will have
a firmer grasp of you, and then you will not despise even the
meanest things; at your age, you are too much disposed to regard
opinions of men. But I should like to know whether you mean that there
are certain ideas of which all other things partake, and from which
they derive their names; that similars, for example, become similar,
because they partake of similarity; and great things become great,
because they partake of greatness; and that just and beautiful
things become just and beautiful, because they partake of justice
and beauty?

  Yes, certainly, said Socrates that is my meaning.

  Then each individual partakes either of the whole of the idea or
else of a part of the idea? Can there be any other mode of
participation?

  There cannot be, he said.

  Then do you think that the whole idea is one, and yet, being one, is
in each one of the many?

  Why not, Parmenides? said Socrates.

  Because one and the same thing will exist as a whole at the same
time in many separate individuals, and will therefore be in a state of
separation from itself.

  Nay, but the idea may be like the day which is one and the same in
many places at once, and yet continuous with itself; in this way
each idea may be one; and the same in all at the same time.

  I like your way, Socrates, of making one in many places at once. You
mean to say, that if I were to spread out a sail and cover a number of
men, there would be one whole including many-is not that your meaning?

  I think so.

  And would you say that the whole sail includes each man, or a part
of it only, and different parts different men?

  The latter.

  Then, Socrates, the ideas themselves will be divisible, and things
which participate in them will have a part of them only and not the
whole idea existing in each of them?

  That seems to follow.

  Then would you like to say, Socrates, that the one idea is really
divisible and yet remains one?

  Certainly not, he said.

  Suppose that you divide absolute greatness, and that of the many
great things, each one is great in virtue of a portion of greatness
less than absolute greatness-is that conceivable?

  No.

  Or will each equal thing, if possessing some small portion of
equality less than absolute equality, be equal to some other thing
by virtue of that portion only?

  Impossible.

  Or suppose one of us to have a portion of smallness; this is but a
part of the small, and therefore the absolutely small is greater; if
the absolutely small be greater, that to which the part of the small
is added will be smaller and not greater than before.

  How absurd!

  Then in what way, Socrates, will all things participate in the
ideas, if they are unable to participate in them either as parts or
wholes?

  Indeed, he said, you have asked a question which is not easily
answered.

  Well, said Parmenides, and what do you say of another question?

  What question?

  I imagine that the way in which you are led to assume one idea of
each kind is as follows: -You see a number of great objects, and
when you look at them there seems to you to be one and the same idea
(or nature) in them all; hence you conceive of greatness as one.

  Very true, said Socrates.

  And if you go on and allow your mind in like manner to embrace in
one view the idea of greatness and of great things which are not the
idea, and -to compare them, will not another greatness arise, which
will appear to be the source of all these?

  It would seem so.