The Whole Is Greater Than The

This is Common Notion 5 from Euclid's Elements (c. 300 BC), one of five self-evident truths Euclid listed alongside his geometric axioms. Common Notions were assertions about magnitude that Euclid considered too obvious to require proof. This particular notion underpins every argument involving parts and wholes in the Elements and has resonated far beyond mathematics — Aristotle used a related idea to describe how a whole can be more than the sum of its parts.