A Sail in Plato

‘That,’ said he, ‘is very neat; you make one to be in many places at once, just as if you should spread a SAIL over many persons and then should say the SAIL was one, and all of it was over many. is that what you mean?’

‘Perhaps it is.’ 

‘Would the whole SAIL be over each person, or a particular part over each?’

‘A part of the SAIL over each.’

‘Then,’ said he, ‘the ideas themselves are divisible into parts, and the objects which partake of them, such as our SAIL, would partake of a part, and in each of them there would be not the whole, but only a part of each idea.’

‘So it appears.’