ations of the one to the others? Is it or does it
become older or younger than they? At any rate the others are more than
one, and one, being the least of all numbers, must be prior in time to
greater numbers. But on the other hand, one must come into being in a
manner accordant with its own nature. Now one has parts or others, and
has therefore a beginning, middle, and end, of which the beginning is
first and the end last. And the parts come into existence first; last of
all the whole, contemporaneously with the end, being therefore younger,
while the parts or others are older than the one. But, again, the one
comes into being in each of the parts as much as in the whole, and must
be of the same age with them. Therefore one is at once older and younger
than the parts or others, and also contemporaneous with them, for no
part can be a part which is not one. Is this true of becoming as well as
being? Thus much may be affirmed, that the same things which are older
or younger cannot become older or younger in a greater degree than they
were at first by the addition of equal times. But, on the other hand,
the one, if older than others, has come into being a longer time than
they have. And when equal time is added to a longer and shorter, the
relative difference between them is diminished. In this way that which
was older becomes younger, and that which was younger becomes older,
that is to say, younger and older than at first; and they ever become
and never have become, for then they would be. Thus the one and others
always are and are becoming and not becoming younger and also older than
one another. And one, partaking of time and also partaking of becoming
older and younger, admits of all time, present, past, and future--was,
is, shall be--was becoming, is becoming, will become. And there is
science of the one, and opinion and name and expression, as is already
implied in the fact of our inquiry.

Yet once more, if one be one and many, and neither one nor many, and
also participant of time, must there not be a time at which one as being
one partakes of being, and a time when one as not being one is deprived
of being? But these two contradictory states cannot be experienced
by the one both together: there must be a time of transition. And the
transition is a process of generation and destruction, into and from
being and not-being, the one and the others. For the generation of the
one is the destruction of the others, and th