SOCRATES: If, then, a syllable is a whole, and has many parts or
letters, the letters as well as the syllable must be intelligible and
expressible, since all the parts are acknowledged to be the same as the
whole?

THEAETETUS: True.

SOCRATES: But if it be one and indivisible, then the syllables and the
letters are alike undefined and unknown, and for the same reason?

THEAETETUS: I cannot deny that.

SOCRATES: We cannot, therefore, agree in the opinion of him who says
that the syllable can be known and expressed, but not the letters.

THEAETETUS: Certainly not; if we may trust the argument.

SOCRATES: Well, but will you not be equally inclined to disagree with
him, when you remember your own experience in learning to read?

THEAETETUS: What experience?

SOCRATES: Why, that in learning you were kept trying to distinguish the
separate letters both by the eye and by the ear, in order that, when
you heard them spoken or saw them written, you might not be confused by
their position.

THEAETETUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And is the education of the harp-player complete unless he can
tell what string answers to a particular note; the notes, as every one
would allow, are the elements or letters of music?

THEAETETUS: Exactly.

SOCRATES: Then, if we argue from the letters and syllables which we know
to other simples and compounds, we shall say that the letters or simple
elements as a class are much more certainly known than the syllables,
and much more indispensable to a perfect knowledge of any subject; and
if some one says that the syllable is known and the letter unknown,
we shall consider that either intentionally or unintentionally he is
talking nonsense?

THEAETETUS: Exactly.

SOCRATES: And there might be given other proofs of this belief, if I am
not mistaken. But do not let us in looking for them lose sight of the
question before us, which is the meaning of the statement, that right
opinion with rational definition or explanation is the most perfect form
of knowledge.

THEAETETUS: We must not.

SOCRATES: Well, and what is the meaning of the term 'explanation'? I
think that we have a choice of three meanings.

THEAETETUS: What are they?

SOCRATES: In the first place, the meaning may be, manifesting one's
thought by the voice with verbs and nouns, imaging an opinion in the
stream which flows from the lips, as in a mirror or water. Does not
explanation appear to be of this nature?

THEAETETUS: Certa