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.

Then another idea of greatness now comes into view over and above absolute
greatness, and the individuals which partake of it; and then another, over
and above all these, by virtue of which they will all be great, and so each
idea instead of being one will be infinitely multiplied.

But may not the ideas, asked Socrates, be thoughts only, and have no proper
existence except in our minds, Parmenides? For in that case each idea may
still be one, and not experience this infinite multiplication.

And can there be individual thoughts which are thoughts of nothing?

Impossible, he said.

The thought must be of something?

Yes.

Of something which is or which is not?