[Side-note: Analogous difficulties in the Platonic Parmenidês.] Stilpon was not the first who had difficulty in explaining to himself how one and the same predicate could be applied to many different subjects. The difficulty had already been set forth in the Platonic Parmenidês.[133] How can the Form (Man, White, Good, &c.) be present at one and the same time in many distinct individuals? It cannot be present as a whole in each: nor can it be divided, and thus present partly in one, partly in another. How therefore can it be present at all in any of them? In other words, how can the One be Many, and how can the Many be One? Of this difficulty (as of many others) Plato presents no solution, either in the Parmenidês or anywhere else.[134] Aristotle alludes to several contemporaries or predecessors who felt it. Stilpon reproduces it in his own way. It is a very real difficulty, requiring to be dealt with by those who lay down a theory of predication; and calling upon them to explain the functions of general propositions, and the meaning of general terms. [Footnote 133: Plato, Parmenidês, p. 131. Compare also Philêbus, p. 15, and Stallbaum's Proleg. to the Parmenidês, pp. 46-47. The long commentary of Proklus (v. 100-110. pp. 670-682 of the edition of Stallbaum) amply attests the [Greek: duskoli/an] of the problem. The argument of Parmenidês (in the dialogue called Parmenidês) is applied to the Platonic [Greek: ei)/dê] and to [Greek: ta\ mete/chonta]. But the argument is just as much applicable to attributes, genera, species: to all general predicates.] [Footnote 134: Aristot. Physic. i. 2, 185, b. 26-36. Lykophron and some others anterior to Aristotle proposed to elude the difficulty, by ceasing to use the substantive verb as copula in predication: instead of saying [Greek: Sôkra/tês e)sti\ leuko/s], they said either [Greek: Sôkra/tês leuko/s], simply, or [Greek: Sôkra/tês leleu/kôtai]. This is a remarkable evidence of the difficulty arising, even in these early days of logic, about the logical function of the copula.] [Side-note: Menedêmus disallowed all negative predication.]