The Scythian or Consul (55)

LYCINUS

Goodness, Hermotimus, how sure you sound when you affirm that you can know the whole from the parts! And yet I remember hearing just the opposite, that if you know the whole you know the part as well, while if you know only the part, it does not follow now that you know the whole. Tell me this: would Phidias when he saw the lion’s claw ever have known that it belonged to a lion, if he had never seen a whole lion? If you saw a human hand, could you have said that it belonged to a man if you had not previously known or seen a man? Why do you not answer? Am I to give the only possible answer for you, that you could not have said it? It looks as though Phidias has retired unsuccessful and has modelled his lion in vain; clearly he is saying what has nothing to do with Dionysus! [*] Or what comparison is there? Both Phidias and you yourself had no other means of recognising the parts than your knowledge of the whole—I mean the whole man

and lion; and in a philosophy (the Stoic, for instance) how can you by knowing a part see the rest as well? How can you prove the rest beautiful? You see, you do not know the whole of which they are parts.