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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: something different from the parts? The answer of experience is that they
can; for we may know a compound, which we are unable to analyze into its
elements; and all the parts, when united, may be more than all the parts
separated: e.g. the number four, or any other number, is more than the
units which are contained in it; any chemical compound is more than and
different from the simple elements. But ancient philosophy in this, as in
many other instances, proceeding by the path of mental analysis, was
perplexed by doubts which warred against the plainest facts.
Three attempts to explain the new definition of knowledge still remain to
be considered. They all of them turn on the explanation of logos. The
first account of the meaning of the word is the reflection of thought in
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