Echec. By Jupiter! Phædo, they said so with good reason; for he appears to me to have explained these things with wonderful clearness, even to one endued with a small degree of intelligence.
Phæd. Certainly, Echecrates, and so it appeared to all who were present.
Echec. And so it appears to me, who was absent, and now hear it related. But what was said after this?
As well as I remember, when these things had been granted him, and it was allowed that each several idea exists of itself,[37] and that other things partaking of them receive their denomination from them, he next asked: "If, then," he said, "you admit that things are so, whether, when you say that Simmias is greater than Socrates, but less than Phædo, do you not then say that magnitude and littleness are both in Simmias?"
"I do."
[117]. "And yet," he said, "you must confess that Simmias's exceeding Socrates is not actually true in the manner in which the words express it; for Simmias does not naturally exceed Socrates in that he is Simmias, but in consequence of the magnitude which he happens to have; nor, again, does he exceed Socrates because Socrates is Socrates, but because Socrates possesses littleness in comparison with his magnitude?"
"True."
"Nor, again, is Simmias exceeded by Phædo, because Phædo is Phædo, but because Phædo possesses magnitude in comparison with Simmias's littleness?"
"It is so."
"Thus, then, Simmias has the appellation of being both little and great, being between both, by exceeding the littleness of one through his own magnitude, and to the other yielding a magnitude that exceeds his own littleness." And at the same time, smiling, he said, "I seem to speak with the precision of a short-hand writer; however, it is as I say."