SOCRATES: And the finite or limit had not many divisions, and we readily acknowledged it to be by nature one?
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Yes, indeed; and when I speak of the third class, understand me to mean any offspring of these, being a birth into true being, effected by the measure which the limit introduces.
PROTARCHUS: I understand.
SOCRATES: Still there was, as we said, a fourth class to be investigated, and you must assist in the investigation; for does not everything which comes into being, of necessity come into being through a cause?
PROTARCHUS: Yes, certainly; for how can there be anything which has no cause?
SOCRATES: And is not the agent the same as the cause in all except name; the agent and the cause may be rightly called one?
PROTARCHUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: And the same may be said of the patient, or effect; we shall find that they too differ, as I was saying, only in name—shall we not?
PROTARCHUS: We shall.