[54b]
the equilateral triangle is constructed as a third.1 The reason why is a longer story; but should anyone refute us and discover that it is not so, we begrudge him not the prize. Accordingly, let these two triangles be selected as those wherefrom are contrived the bodies of fire and of the other elements,— one being the isosceles, and the other that which always has the square on its greater side three times the square on the lesser side.2Moreover, a point about which our previous statement was obscure must now be defined more clearly. It appeared as if the four Kinds,
1 i.e., the half of an equilateral triangle; e.g. if the triangle ABC is bisected by the line AD, we have two such triangles in ADB and ADC.
2 i.e., in the triangle ADB (see last note) AB = 2Bsquared, and (AB)squared = (BD)squared + (AD)squared; therefore 4(BD)squared = (BD)squared + (AD)squared, and so 3(BD)squared = (AD)squared.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1925.
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