to teach them to others.

I agree with you, Parmenides, said Socrates; and what you say is very much
to my mind.

And yet, Socrates, said Parmenides, if a man, fixing his attention on these
and the like difficulties, does away with ideas of things and will not
admit that every individual thing has its own determinate idea which is
always one and the same, he will have nothing on which his mind can rest;
and so he will utterly destroy the power of reasoning, as you seem to me to
have particularly noted.

Very true, he said.

But, then, what is to become of philosophy? Whither shall we turn, if the
ideas are unknown?

I certainly do not see my way at present.

Yes, said Parmenides; and I think that this arises, Socrates, out of your
attempting to define the beautiful, the just, the good, and the ideas
generally, without sufficient previous training. I noticed your
deficiency, when I heard you talking here with your friend Aristoteles, the
day before yesterday. The impulse that carries you towards philosophy is
assuredly noble and divine; but there is an art which is called by the
vulgar idle talking, and which is often imagined to be useless; in that you
must train and exercise yourself, now that you are young, or truth will
elude your grasp.

And what is the nature of this exercise, Parmenides, which you would