Db WHEWELL, on the PLATONIC THEORY OF IDEAS. 99 



many places at the same time. If you had a number of persons wrapped up in a sail or web, 

 would you say that each of them had the whole of it.'' Is not the case similar.?" Socrates 

 cannot deny that it is. "But in this case, each person has only a part of the whole; and 

 thus your Ideas are partible." To this, Socrates is represented as assenting in the briefest 

 possible phrase; and thus, here again, as I conceive, Parmenides retains his superiority over 

 Socrates in the Dialogue. 



There are many other arguments urged against the Ideal Theory of Parmenides. The 

 next is a consequence of this partibility of Ideas, thus supposed to be proved, and is ingenious 

 enough. It is this: 



" If the Idea of Greatness be distributed among things that are Great, so that each has 

 a part of it, each separate thing will be Great in virtue of a part of Greatness which is less 

 than Greatness itself. Is not this absurd ?" Socrates submissively allows that it is. 



And the same argument is applied in the case of the Idea of Equality. 



" If each of several things have a part of the Idea of Equality, it will be Equal to some- 

 thing, in virtue of something which is less than Equality." 



And in the same way with regard to the Idea of Smallness. 



" If each thing be small by having a part of the Idea of Smallness, Smallness itself 

 will be greater than the small thing, since that is a part of itself." 



These ingenious results of the partibility of Ideas remind us of the ingenuity shewn in the 

 Greek geometry, especially the Fifth Book of Euclid. They are represented as not resisted 

 by Socrates {§ 12) : "In what way, Socrates, can things participate in Ideas, if they cannot do 

 so either integrally or partibly .!*" '' By my troth," says Socrates, "it does not seem easy to 

 tell." Parmenides, who completely takes the conduct of the Dialogue, then turns to another 

 part of the subject and propounds other arguments. " What do you say to this?" he asks. 



" There is an Ideal Greatness, and there are many things, separate from it, and Great by 

 virtue of it. But now if you look at Greatness and the Great things together, since they 

 are all Great, they must be Great in virtue of some higher Idea of Greatness which includes 

 both. And thus you have a Second Idea of Greatness ; and in like manner you will have a 

 third, and so on indefinitely." 



This also, as an argument against the separate existence of Ideas, Socrates is represented 

 as unable to answer. He replies interrogatively : 



" Why, Parmenides, is not each of these Ideas a Thought, which, by its nature, cannot 

 exist in anything except in the Mind ? In that case your consequences would not follow." 



This is an answer which changes the course of the reasoning : but still, not much to 

 the advantage of the Ideal Theory. Parmenides is still ready with very perplexing argu- 

 ments. (§ 13.) 



" The Idea, then," he says, " are Thoughts. They must be Thoughts of something. 

 They are Thoughts of something, then, which exists in all the special things; some one 

 thing which the Thought perceives in all the special things; and this one Thought thus 

 involved in all, is the Idea. But then, if the special things, as you say, participate in the 

 Idea, they participate in the Thought ; and thus, all objects are made up of Thoughts, and 

 all things think ; or else, there are thoughts in things which do not think." 



13—2 



