Forms and Opposites

You say that Simmias is greater than Socrates and less than Phaedo. You predicate of Simmias both greatness and smallness.

But still you allow that Simmias does not really exceed Socrates because he is Simmias, but by reason of his size. This is just as Simmias does not exceed Socrates because he is Simmias, any more than because Socrates is Socrates, but because he has smallness when compared with the greatness of Simmias.

If Phaedo exceeds him in size, this is not because Phaedo is Phaedo, but because Phaedo has greatness relative to Simmias, who is comparatively smaller.

Therefore, Simmias is great and small because he is in a mean between them. He exceeds the smallness of the one by his greatness, and allowing the greatness of the other to exceed his smallness.

Absolute greatness will never be great and also small.

Greatness in us or in the concrete will never admit the small or admit of being exceeded. Instead, 1 of 2 things will happen:

1. The greater will fly or retire before the opposite, which is the less
2. At the approach of the less has already ceased to exist but will not, if allowing or admitting of smallness, be changed by that

even as I, having received and admitted smallness when compared with Simmias, remain just as I was, and am the same small person.

The idea of greatness cannot condescend ever to be or become small, in like manner the smallness in us cannot be or become great; nor can any other opposite which remains the same ever be or become its own opposite, but either passes away or perishes in the change.

I like your courage in reminding us. But there is a difference in the two cases.

Back then, we were speaking of physical opposites. Now we are speaking of the metaphysical opposite. This can never be at variance with itself.

We were speaking of things in which opposites are inherent and which are called after them. But now, we are talking about the opposites which are inherent in them and which give their name to them.

These metaphysical opposites will never admit of generation into or out of one another.

The opposite will never be opposed to itself. One thing is hot, another is cold. But these are not the same as fire and snow. Heat is different from fire. Cold is different from snow.

But when snow is under the influence of heat, it will not remain as snow. Instead, it will perish.

The fire too at the advance of the cold will perish. When the fire is under the influence of the cold, fire and cold will not remain as fire and cold.

In some cases, the name of the idea is not only attached to the idea in an eternal connection. Anything else which, not being the idea, exists only in the form of the idea, may also lay claim to it.

For example, the odd number is always called ‘odd’. But there are many other things which have their own name, and yet are called odd. This is because they are always odd, even if they are not the same as oddness.

This is what I mean when I ask: Is 3 a class of odd?

There are many other examples. 3 can be called ’three’ or ‘odd’. ‘Odd’ is different from ’three’.

This is also true for 5, 7, etc. Each of them without being oddness is odd. In the same way, 2, 4, 6 are even, without being evenness.

Metaphysical opposites exclude one another, but also physical things. Both do not oppose by themselves, contain opposites. They reject the idea which is opposed to that which they represent.

When it approaches them, they either perish or withdraw. For example= 3 will preserve itself as 3, but will perish when converted into an even number.

Yet 2 does not oppose 3 since both are numbers. Opposite ideas repel the advance of one another, like odd repels even.

Opposite natures also repel the approach of opposites. They compel the things they have to take their own form and the form of some opposite.

Those things which are possessed by 3 must not only be 3 in number, but must also be odd.

The number 3 impresses this oddness. Its opposite idea will never intrude. This impress was given by the odd principle.

Odd is opposed the even. Then the idea of the even number will never arrive at 3, and 3 has no part in the even.

There are similar natures that do not admit opposites. For example, 3 is not opposed to the even. But it does not any more admit of the even. It always brings the opposite into play on the other side.

2 does not receive the odd, or fire the cold.

This means that not only opposites will not receive opposites, but also that nothing which brings the opposite will admit the opposite of that which it brings, in that to which it is brought.

5 will not admit the nature of the even, any more than 10, the double of 5, will admit the nature of the odd.

The double has another opposite. It is not strictly opposed to the odd, but nevertheless rejects the odd altogether.

Nor again will parts in the ratio 3:2, nor any fraction in which there is a half, nor again in which there is a third, admit the notion of the whole, although they are not opposed to the whole.