Of these things intelligence
comes closest in kinship and likeness to the fifth, and the others are
farther distant.
The same applies to straight as well as to circular form, to
colours, to the good, the, beautiful, the just, to all bodies
whether manufactured or coming into being in the course of nature,
to fire, water, and all such things, to every living being, to
character in souls, and to all things done and suffered. For in the
case of all these, no one, if he has not some how or other got hold of
the four things first mentioned, can ever be completely a partaker
of knowledge of the fifth. Further, on account of the weakness of
language, these (i.e., the four) attempt to show what each thing is
like, not less than what each thing is. For this reason no man of
intelligence will venture to express his philosophical views in
language, especially not in language that is unchangeable, which is
true of that which is set down in written characters.
Again you must learn the point which comes next. Every circle, of
those which are by the act of man drawn or even turned on a lathe,
is full of that which is opposite to the fifth thing. For everywhere
it has contact with the straight. But the circle itself, we say, has
nothing in either smaller or greater, of that which is its opposite.
We say also that the name is not a thing of permanence for any of
them, and that nothing prevents the things now called round from being
called straight, and the straight things round; for those who make
changes and call things by opposite names, nothing will be less
permanent (than a name).
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