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Chapter XIV.—Concerning Whole And Part
[99] Now it is apparent that the whole is nothing other than its parts; for certainly when the parts are removed there is nothing left, so as to enable us to account the whole as something else besides its parts. But if the parts themselves form the whole, the whole will be merely a name and an empty title,
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and it will have no individual existence, just as separation
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also is nothing apart from the things separated, or laying beams apart from the beams laid. Therefore no whole exists.
[100] Nor yet parts. For if parts exist, either they are parts of the whole, or of one another, or each one of itself. But they are not parts of the whole, since it is nothing else than its parts (and besides, the parts will on this assumption be parts of themselves, since each of the parts is said to be complementary to the whole); nor yet of one another, since the part is said to be included
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in that whereof it is part, and it is absurd to assert that, say, the hand is included in the foot.
[101] Neither will each be a part of itself; for, because of the inclusion, it will be both greater and less than itself. If, then, the so-called parts are parts neither of the whole nor of themselves nor of one another, they are parts of nothing. But if they are parts of nothing, parts have no existence; for co- relatives are annulled together.
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Let thus much be said, then, of a general character, by way of digression, seeing that once already we have dealt with the subject of whole and part.
Pyrrhoniae Hypotyposes. Sextus Empiricus. Robert Gregg Bury (Translator). London. 1933.
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