defined. When we assign to them some predicate, they first begin to have a
meaning (onomaton sumploke logou ousia). This seems equivalent to saying,
that the individuals of sense become the subject of knowledge when they are
regarded as they are in nature in relation to other individuals.

Yet we feel a difficulty in following this new hypothesis. For must not
opinion be equally expressed in a proposition? The difference between true
and false opinion is not the difference between the particular and the
universal, but between the true universal and the false. Thought may be as
much at fault as sight. When we place individuals under a class, or assign
to them attributes, this is not knowledge, but a very rudimentary process
of thought; the first generalization of all, without which language would
be impossible. And has Plato kept altogether clear of a confusion, which
the analogous word logos tends to create, of a proposition and a
definition? And is not the confusion increased by the use of the analogous
term 'elements,' or 'letters'? For there is no real resemblance between
the relation of letters to a syllable, and of the terms to a proposition.

Plato, in the spirit of the Megarian philosophy, soon discovers a flaw in
the explanation. For how can we know a compound of which the simple
elements are unknown to us? Can two unknowns make a known? Can a whole be
something different from the parts? The answer of experience is that they
can; for we may know a compound, which we are unable to analyze into its
elements; and all the parts, when united, may be more than all the parts
separated: e.g. the number four, or any other number, is more than the
units which are contained in it; any chemical compound is more than and
different from the simple elements. But ancient philosophy in this, as in
many other instances, proceeding by the path of mental analysis, was
perplexed by doubts which warred against the plainest facts.