For what is it that works, looking to the Ideas? And any
thing can both be and come into being without being copied from
something else, so that, whether Socrates exists or not, a man like
Socrates might come to be. And evidently this might be so even if
Socrates were eternal. And there will be several patterns of the
same thing, and therefore several Forms; e.g. 'animal' and
'two-footed', and also 'man-himself', will be Forms of man. Again, the
Forms are patterns not only of sensible things, but of Forms
themselves also; i.e. the genus is the pattern of the various
forms-of-a-genus; therefore the same thing will be pattern and copy.
Again, it would seem impossible that substance and that whose
substance it is should exist apart; how, therefore, could the Ideas,
being the substances of things, exist apart?
In the Phaedo the case is stated in this way-that the Forms are
causes both of being and of becoming. Yet though the Forms exist,
still things do not come into being, unless there is something to
originate movement; and many other things come into being (e.g. a
house or a ring) of which they say there are no Forms. Clearly
therefore even the things of which they say there are Ideas can both
be and come into being owing to such causes as produce the things just
mentioned, and not owing to the Forms. But regarding the Ideas it is
possible, both in this way and by more abstract and accurate
arguments, to collect many objections like those we have considered.
6
Since we have discussed these points, it is well to consider again
the results regarding numbers which confront those who say that
numbers are separable substances and first causes of things.
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