a single reality together with knowledge, just as demand and statement are a single reality—why should he not allow the different letters likewise to constitute a single reality, and the sounds as well? I do not mean one in kind, but numerically one, just as he made speech numerically one and allowed the diverse attributes to be numerically one.

Those who said, “Speech consists of eternal, simultaneous letters and sounds, none preceding another, yet it is one,” said this only by following those others and reasoning along the same lines. This necessarily follows from their position, despite its evident falsity; and the falsity of a necessary consequence demonstrates the falsity of the premise that entails it.

Whoever holds this position must also make taste, colour, and smell a single thing.

If it is said, “This is like blackness and whiteness,” he is told, “You must also make blackness and whiteness a single thing, just as you made knowledge, power, and life a single thing.”

If he says, “We were speaking of meanings that can coexist, whereas blackness and whiteness are mutually opposed,” the reply is twofold: