“I should be sorry to think so. However, is he my father only, or is he everybody else’s father?”
“Everybody’s, of course; for can you imagine him to be a father, and not a father?”
“I should have thought so,” answered Ctesippos.
“What! that gold is not gold, and that a man is not a man?”
“Not so, friend Euthydemos; but you do not, as the saying is, mingle flax with flax; and your assertion, that your father is the father of all men, seems very extraordinary.”
“But he is, though.”
“Very good; but is he not only the father of men but of horses and every other animal?”
“Of everything!”
“And your mother, in like manner, is the mother of all things?”
“Certainly.”