The Sophista — Plato
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ΣΟΦΙΣΤΗΣ
Translation/edition: Thomas Taylor (1804)
Language: English
Read in Plato Scroll: https://plato-scroll.com/s/soph/
This file: https://plato-scroll.com/text/soph-g.txt
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  - H.N. Fowler (Loeb, 1921): https://plato-scroll.com/text/soph-c.txt
  - Greek text: https://plato-scroll.com/text/soph-e.txt
  - Spanish: https://plato-scroll.com/text/soph-h.txt
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## The Sophista

[216a] We are come, Socrates, according to our agreement yesterday, as good manners require, and have brought with us this guest, who is an Elean by birth, but very different from the associates of Parmenides and Zeno: he is however a great philosopher.
[216a] Socrates: Perhaps, therefore, Theodorus, according to the assertion of Homer¹, you are conducting a certain God, and not a stranger. For he says, that both other Gods, and especially the hospitable deity, are conversant with men who participate of just shame, and that they inspect the insolent and the equitable conduct of men. So that perhaps he who now follows you, is one of the natures superior to man, who attends you in order to behold and confute us who dispute badly, as being himself a certain reprehending God.
[216b] Theodorus: This is not [216c] the manner of this guest, Socrates, but he is more modest than those that are studious of contention. And he appears to me, as being a man, not to be a God, but to be divine: for so I denominate all philosophers.
[216d] Socrates: And you do well in calling them so, my friend. But indeed the genus of philosophers is not much more easily distinguished, as I may say, than that of divinity. For those who are not fictitiously but truly philosophers, appear through the ignorance of others to be of an all-various nature, while they wander about cities, and behold from on high the life of inferior natures. And to some they appear to deserve no honour, but by others they are considered as worthy of all honour. And sometimes they appear to be politicians, but at other times Sophists; and sometimes, in the opinion of certain persons, they are considered to be perfectly insane. I would gladly, therefore, inquire of this our guest, if agreeable to him, what his familiars the Eleans think of these things, and how they denominate them.
[216e] Theodorus: What things do you mean, Socrates?
[217a] Socrates: The sophist, politician, and philosopher.
[217a] Theodorus: What, and of what kind, is the doubt about these, which you would wish to have dissolved?
[217a] Socrates: This: Whether they denominate all these, one or two. Or as there are three names, whether they also make a distribution into three genera, and ascribe the respective names to the respective genera.
[217b] Theodorus: But I think that he will not enviously refuse to discuss these things. Or how shall we say, guest?
[217b] Guest: In this manner, Theodorus: For I shall not enviously refuse, nor is it difficult to inform you, that they think these are three genera: but to define clearly what each of them is, is not a small nor an easy work.
[217b] Theodorus: You have perhaps, Socrates, fallen upon questions similar to those which we were asking this our guest before we came hither. But he then gave us the same answers as he just now gave you: for he said, that he had sufficiently heard, and did not forget them.
[217c] Socrates: You ought, therefore, to gratify us, O guest, with respect to our first question: But tell us thus much, whether you are accustomed to discuss by yourself in a long discourse, that which you wish to evince, or by interrogations, which I once heard Parmenides employing, and at the same time delivering all-beautiful arguments, I being then a young and he a very elderly man.
[217c] Guest: If any one answers, Socrates, without difficulty, and in a placid manner, it is more easy to discourse with such a one by interrogating; but if not, it is better to discourse by oneself.
[217d] Socrates: You are at liberty, therefore, to choose whichever of these you please: for we shall all of us obey you without reluctance. But I would advise you to choose some young man for this purpose, either Theætetus here, or any other that you may think proper.
[217d] Guest: I am ashamed, Socrates, that, [217e] conversing with you now for the first time, I have not given word for word, but, making a long discourse either by myself or to another, I have acted as if I had been framing a demonstration. For in reality no one should expect that the present question can be solved with the greatest facility: for it requires a very long discussion. On the contrary, not to gratify you, and those that are now assembled, especially since you have asked in so modest a manner; would, as it appears to me, be inhospitable and rustic; since, from what I have before said, and from what you have now urged me to do, I shall have Theætetus here as my associate in the discussion.
[218a] Theætetus: By thus acting indeed, O guest, as Socrates says, you will gratify all of us.
[218a] Guest: It appears then, Theætetus, that nothing further must be said against these things. And as it seems, after this, I must address myself to you. But if being weary through the length of the discourse you should become indignant, do not blame me, but these your companions, as the cause of this.
[218b] Theætetus: I am far from thinking that this will be the case: but if a thing of this kind should take place, then we can call upon the namesake of Socrates here, who is of the same age with me, and is my associate in gymnastic exercises, and who is not unaccustomed to accomplish many laborious things in conjunction with me.
[218c] Guest: You speak well. Deliberate, therefore, about these things by yourself, in the course of the disputation: but now consider in common with me, beginning in the first place (as it appears to me) from the sophist; and let us evince by our discourse what he is. For now both you and I have only the name in common respecting this thing: but perhaps each of us thinks differently as to the thing denominated. But it is always requisite respecting every thing, rather to consent through reasons to the thing iself, than to the name alone without reason. However, with respect to the tribe which we now take upon us to investigate, it is by no means easy to ap- prehend what a sophist is. It appears however to all men, and is an antient opinion, that whoever wishes to labour through great things well, should exercise himself in such as are small and more easy, before he attempts such as are the greatest. Now, therefore, as we are of opinion that the genus of a sophist is difficult to investigate, I would advise, Theætetus, that we should first of all consider the method of this investigation, in something more easy: unless you are able to show a more expeditious way.
[218e] Theætetus: But I am not able.
[218e] Guest: Are you willing, therefore, that, adducing a vile thing, we should establish it as a paradigm of a greater thing?
[218e] Theætetus: Yes.
[218e] Guest: But what if we propose a thing well known, and of a trifling nature, but which will contribute as well as any thing to the apprehension of greater things? as for instance a fisherman. Is he not known to every one? and is it not likewise certain, that he does not deserve much serious consideration?
[219a] Theætetus: It is so.
[219a] Guest: Yet I suspect he will furnish us with a method, and reasoning process, not unadapted to our design.
[219a] Theætetus: In this case, therefore, it will be well.
[219a] Guest: Come then, let us begin from this: and inform me, whether we should consider a fisherman, as one endued with art, or as without art, but possessing another power.
[219a] Theætetus: We must by no means consider him as without art.
[219a] Guest: But there are nearly two species of all arts.
[219a] Theætetus: How so?
[219b] Guest: Agriculture, and the care respecting every mortal body, together with that pertaining to every thing composite and plastic, which we denominate an utensil, and in conjunction with these the imitative power, all which may be justly called by one name.
[219b] Theætetus: How so? and by what name?
[219b] Guest: When any one afterwards leads into existence that which was not before; then we say that he who leads makes, and that the thing led is made.
[219b] Theætetus: Right.
[219b] Guest: But all the particulars which we just now mentioned possess a power adapted to this.
[219b] Theætetus: They do.
[219b] Guest: In a summary way, therefore, we shall denominate them effective.
[219b] Theætetus: Be it so.
[219c] Guest: But after this, the whole species of discipline and knowledge, together with the species of gain, contest and hunting, may be called a certain art of acquiring, since no one of these fabricates any thing, but procures things which are and have been, partly subjecting them to its power by words and actions, and partly conceding them to those by whom they are received.
[219c] Theætetus: They may be so called: for it is proper.
[219d] Guest: Since all arts, therefore, consist either in acquiring or in effecting, in which of these, Theætetus, shall we place the art of fishing?
[219d] Theætetus: Doubtless in the art of acquiring.
[219d] Guest: But are there not two species of the art of acquiring? the one being a commutation between those that are willing, through gifts, buying, and wages? But the other will be a mancipation, effected either by deeds or words.
[219d] Theætetus: It appears this must be the case, from what has been said.
[219d] Guest: But what? Must not mancipation also receive a twofold division?
[219e] Theætetus: After what manner?
[219e] Guest: The one being apparent, and wholly agonistic; but the other being occult, and wholly consisting in hunting.
[219e] Theætetus: Yes.
[219e] Guest: It is likewise absurd, not to give hunting a twofold division.
[220a] Theætetus: Inform me how.
[220a] Guest: One member of the division consists of the inanimate, and the other of the animated kind.
[220a] Theætetus: Undoubtedly: for there are both these.
[220a] Guest: How, indeed, is it possible there should not? And it is requisite that we should leave the hunting of inanimate things without a name, and that we should likewise dismiss the consideration of certain parts of the art of swimming, and other trifling things of this kind; and denominate the other part, which is the hunting of animated natures, the hunting of animals.
[220a] Theætetus: Be it so.
[220a] Guest: But is it not justly said, that there is a twofold species of the hunting of animals? one being the hunting of the pedestrian kind, which is distinguished by many species and names, but the other of every swimming animal, and which is denominated hunting in water?
[220a] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[220a] Guest: But of the swimming division, we see that one kind cuts the air with wings, and that the other is aquatic.
[220b] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[220b] Guest: But all the hunting of the winged tribe is called fowling.
[220b] Theætetus: It is so.
[220b] Guest: But nearly that of all the aquatic tribe, fishing.
[220b] Theætetus: Yes.
[220b] Guest: But what? Must we not divide this hunting into two greatest parts?
[220b] Theætetus: What are these parts?
[220c] Guest: According to which we either fish with nets, or by percussion.
[220c] Theætetus: How do you say? And how do you divide each?
[220c] Guest: That every thing which on all sides enclosing restrains any thing for the sake of impediment, is fitly denominated a net.
[220c] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[220c] Guest: But do you call a bow-net, dictuon², a snare, and a casting-net, any thing else than nets?
[220c] Theætetus: Nothing else.
[220c] Guest: We must say, therefore, that this hunting with nets is a part of fishing, or something of this kind.
[220d] Theætetus: We must.
[220d] Guest: But that which is accomplished with hooks and darts, by percussion, and which is different from the other kind of fishing, it will be proper that we should now call by one word, percutient-hunting, unless you, Theætetus, have any thing better to say.
[220d] Theætetus: Let us pay no attention to the name: for this is sufficient.
[220e] Guest: Of percutient-hunting, therefore, one kind is I think nocturnal, being effected by the light of fire; and on this account it happens to be called igniferous.
[220e] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[221a] Guest: But the other kind is diurnal, and is effected with tridents hooked on the extremities of rods; the whole of this being aduncous fishing.
[221a] Theætetus: It is indeed so called.
[221a] Guest: Of aduncous-percutient-fishing, therefore, that kind which is effected by darting the tridents into the water from on high, is I think called by some tridental fishing.
[221a] Theætetus: So certain persons say.
[221a] Guest: Only one species then, as I may say, remains.
[221a] Theætetus: What is that?
[221a] Guest: A percussion contrary to this, effected indeed with a hook, but not casually striking any part of the body, as in fishing with tridents, but piercing only the head and mouth of the fish, and drawing it upwards with rods and reeds. By what name, Theætetus, shall we say this ought to be called?
[221a] Theætetus: By that of aduncous fishing with rods: and we now appear to have accomplished that which we proposed to discuss.
[221b] Guest: Now, therefore, you and I have not only accorded in giving a name to fishing, but we have likewise sufficiently explained the manner in which it is conducted. For, of the whole art, one half we said consisted in acquiring; and the half of this in manual subjugation; and again the half of this in hunting. Likewise that the half of hunting consisted in the capture of animals; and that the half of the capture of animals was hunting in water. That again, of hunting in water, the downward division of the whole was fishing; that the half of fishing was percutient; that the half of percutient fishing was performed with a hook: and lastly, that the half of this consisted in drawing that which is downwards upwards; and that, thence deriving its name, it is called aduncous fishing with rods.
[221c] Theætetus: This, therefore, has been in every respect sufficiently shown.
[221c] Guest: Come then, let us endeavour according to this paradigm to discover what a sophist is.
[221c] Theætetus: By all means.
[221c] Guest: And this indeed was the first object of inquiry in the example just adduced, whether a fisherman is to be considered as a rude character, or as one endued with a certain art.
[221d] Theætetus: It was.
[221d] Guest: And now, Theætetus, shall we call a sophist a rude character, or one in every respect skilful?
[221d] Theætetus: We must by no means call him a rude character. For I understand what you say, that he who is so called ought not to be unskilful, but endued with a certain art.
[221d] Guest: But with what art ought we to consider him endued?
[221d] Theætetus: I ask you the same question.
[221d] Guest: By the Gods, then, are we ignorant that one of these men is allied to the other?
[221d] Theætetus: Which men?
[221d] Guest: The fisherman and the sophist.
[221d] Theætetus: In what respect are they allied?
[221e] Guest: Both of them appear to me to be hunters.
[221e] Theætetus: Of what is this latter character a hunter? for we have spoken of the other.
[221e] Guest: We divided the whole of hunting into the swimming and the pedestrian.
[221e] Theætetus: We did.
[221e] Guest: And we discussed, indeed, the particulars respecting the swimming part of aquatic natures; but we omitted the pedestrian division, and said that it was multiform.
[222a] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[222a] Guest: Thus far, therefore, the sophist and the fisherman equally proceed from the art of acquiring.
[222a] Theætetus: They appear so indeed.
[222a] Guest: Some however, abandoning the hunting of land animals, betake themselves to the sea, to rivers and lakes, and hunt animals in these.
[222a] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[222a] Guest: But some subjugate animals on the earth, and in rivers, as in meadows abounding with riches and youthfulness.
[222a] Theætetus: How do you say?
[222b] Guest: Of pedestrian hunting there are two greatest parts.
[222b] Theætetus: Of what kind is each of these parts?
[222b] Guest: One is the hunting of tame, and the other of savage animals.
[222c] Theætetus: Is there any hunting then of tame animals?
[222c] Guest: Either man is a tame animal, (adopt what I say as you please,) or no animal is tame; or some other animal is tame, but man is a savage animal: or you may say that man indeed is a tame animal, but you may think that there is no hunting of men. Adopt whichever of these divisions is most agreeable to you.
[222c] Theætetus: But I think, O guest, that we are a tame animal, and I say that there is a hunting of men.
[222c] Guest: We must say then that there is also a twofold hunting of tame animals.
[222c] Theætetus: How so?
[222c] Guest: By defining prædatory hunting, that which reduces into bondage, and tyrannic hunting, to be all of them violent hunting.
[222d] Theætetus: Well defined.
[222d] Guest: But that which pertains to judicial cases, popular harangues, and discourse, may summarily be called a certain art of persuasion.
[222d] Theætetus: Right.
[222d] Guest: But of this art of persuasion we say there are two kinds.
[222d] Theætetus: What are they?
[222d] Guest: One of them is private, and the other public.
[222d] Theætetus: There are these two species.
[222d] Guest: Again, with respect to the hunting of private persuasion, one kind is effected by wages, and another by gifts.
[222d] Theætetus: I do not understand you.
[222d] Guest: It seems you have never attended to the hunting of lovers.
[222d] Theætetus: In what respect?
[222d] Guest: In this, that besides other things they bestow gifts on those they have caught.
[222e] Theætetus: You speak most true.
[222e] Guest: Let this then be a species of the amatory art.
[222e] Theætetus: By all means.
[222e] Guest: But with respect to that species of the hunting of persuasion which is effected by wages, that part of it which converses with others through favour, and entirely procures enchantments through pleasure, that it may thence alone receive aliment as its reward, this I think we all of us call adulation, or a certain art administering to pleasure.
[223a] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[223a] Guest: But another part of it professes to converse for the sake of virtue, and requires money for its reward. Ought not this part, therefore, to be called by another name?
[223a] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[223a] Guest: Endeavour to tell me this name.
[223a] Theætetus: It is evident. For we appear to me to have found a sophist; and I think this name is adapted to this other part of the object of our investigation.
[223b] Guest: According to the present reasoning, as it seems, Theætetus, the profession of a sophist must be called an art, servile, subjugating, and venatic; hunting pedestrian, terrestrial, and tame animals; or, in other words, privately bringing men into captivity for pecuniary rewards, and ensnaring rich and noble young men, through an opinion of erudition.
[223b] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[223b] Guest: Further still, let us consider as follows:—For the object of our present investigation does not participate of a certain vile art, but of one various in the extreme. For, from what has been before said, we may conjecture that it does not belong to that kind of art which we just now mentioned, but to another kind.
[223c] Theætetus: What is that kind?
[223c] Guest: There were in a certain respect two species of the art of acquiring, the one consisting in hunting, and the other flowing from contracts.
[223c] Theætetus: There were.
[223c] Guest: We say, therefore, that there are two species of contracts, the one consisting in bestowing, and the other in buying and selling.
[223c] Theætetus: There are so.
[223c] Guest: And again, we say that the species of contracts which consists in buying and selling, must receive a twofold division.
[223d] Theætetus: How?
[223d] Guest: He who exposes his own works to sale may be called a seller of his own property; but he who sells the works of others, an exchanger.
[223d] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[223d] Guest: But what? Is not that exchange which takes place in the same city, and which is nearly the half of the whole of exchange, denominated cauponary?
[223d] Theætetus: Yes.
[223d] Guest: And is not the other half that which takes place by buying and selling in different cities, and which we call emporic?
[223d] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[223d] Guest: And do we not perceive, that of emporic exchange, one part pertains to the nutriment [223e] of the body, and the other to the discipline of the soul, exchanging erudition for money?
[224a] Theætetus: How do you say?
[224a] Guest: That part which pertains to the soul we are, perhaps, unacquainted with: for the other part we understand.
[224a] Theætetus: We do.
[224a] Guest: But we say that he who buys music in one city by learning, and sells it in another by teaching, and who acts in a similar manner with respect to painting, enchantment, and many other things pertaining to the soul, as well serious as jocose,—we say that such a one traffics no less than he who sells meats and drinks.
[224b] Theætetus: You speak most true.
[224b] Guest: Will you not, therefore, similarly denominate him who wanders about different cities in order to exchange disciplines for money?
[224b] Theætetus: Very much so.
[224b] Guest: But of this merchandize pertaining to the soul, may not one part be most justly called demonstrative; and may not the other part, though ridiculous, yet, since it is no less the selling of disciplines than the former, be called by a name which is the brother to that of selling?
[224c] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[224c] Guest: But in this traffic of disciplines, he who sells the disciplines of other arts must be called by a name different from him who sells the disciplines of virtue.
[224c] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[224c] Guest: For he who sells the disciplines of other arts may be aptly called a seller of arts; but consider by what name he should be called who sells the disciplines of virtue.
[224c] Theætetus: By what other name can he be called without error, except that which is the object of our investigation at present, a sophist?
[224d] Guest: By no other. We may, therefore, now collect as follows: that, by a second investigation, a sophist has appeared to us to be an exchanger, a buyer and seller, a merchant respecting discourses, and one who sells the disciplines of virtue.
[224d] Theætetus: Very much so.
[224d] Guest: In the third place, I think that you in like manner will call him a sophist, who being settled in a city, partly buys and partly himself fabricates disciplines, which he sells in order to procure the necessaries of life.
[224e] Theætetus: Why, indeed, should I not?
[224e] Guest: You will, therefore, call him a sophist who is conversant in acquiring, who traffics, and sells either his own inventions, or those of others, about the disciplines of virtue.
[224e] Theætetus: Necessarily so. For it is requisite to assent to reason.
[224e] Guest: Let us still further consider, whether the genus which we are at present investigating is similar to a certain thing of this kind.
[225a] Theætetus: Of what kind?
[225a] Guest: Of the art of acquiring, a certain part appeared to us to be agonistic.
[225a] Theætetus: It did.
[225a] Guest: It will not, therefore, be improper to give it a twofold division.
[225a] Theætetus: Inform me how you divide it.
[225a] Guest: One part is defensive, and the other offensive.
[225a] Theætetus: It is so.
[225a] Guest: Of the offensive part, therefore, that which takes place when bodies fight against bodies may be fitly called violence.
[225a] Theætetus: It may.
[225a] Guest: But what else, Theætetus, can that which takes place when arguments oppose arguments be called, except contention?
[225b] Theætetus: Nothing else.
[225b] Guest: But as to contentions, there must be a twofold division.
[225b] Theætetus: In what respect?
[225b] Guest: For, so far as contention takes place through employing prolix arguments against prolix arguments in public concerning things just and unjust, it is judicial.
[225b] Theætetus: It is.
[225b] Guest: But when it takes place in private, by a distribution into minute parts, through question and answer, are we accustomed to call it any thing else than contradiction?
[225c] Theætetus: Nothing else.
[225c] Guest: But of contradiction, that part which is employed about contracts, and which subsists casually, and without art, is to be placed as a separate species, since reason distinguishes it from other kinds of contradiction; but it has neither been assigned a name by any of the antients, nor does it deserve to be denominated by us at present.
[225c] Theætetus: True.
[225d] Guest: For it is divided into parts extremely small and all-various. But that which proceeds according to art, and disputes about things just and unjust, and universally about other particulars, we are accustomed to call contentious.
[225e] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[225e] Guest: But of the contentious division, one part dissipates possessions, and the other accumulates wealth.
[225e] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[225e] Guest: We should, therefore, endeavour to discover by what name each of these ought to be called.
[225e] Theætetus: It is proper to do so.
[225e] Guest: It appears then to me, that he who, through delighting in the study of contention, neglects his affairs, and is always hunting after trifling questions, cannot be called any thing else than a man of words.
[225e] Theætetus: He may, indeed, be called so.
[225e] Guest: But do you now, in your turn, endeavour to inform me how he is to be denominated who endeavours to acquire wealth from private contention.
[225e] Theætetus: Can any one with rectitude call him any thing else than that wonderful character the sophist, which we investigate, and who now again for the fourth time presents himself to our view?
[225e] Guest: As reason, therefore, again shows us, a sophist is nothing else than that pecuniary genus which is conversant with the art of contention, with contradiction, controversy, hostile opposition, and with the agonistic art, and that of acquiring.
[226a] Theætetus: He is altogether so.
[226a] Guest: Do you not perceive, therefore, that it is truly said, this wild beast is a various animal, and that, according to the proverb, he is not to be caught with the other hand?
[226a] Theætetus: It will, therefore, be proper to use both hands.
[226b] Guest: It will be proper, and we must do so to the utmost of our power. But inform me, whether we have any servile names?
[226b] Theætetus: We have many. But respecting which of the many do you ask me?
[226b] Guest: Such as when we say to wash, to distribute, to boil, and to separate.
[226b] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[226b] Guest: And besides these, to card wool, to draw down, to comb, and ten thousand other such-like words which we meet with in the arts. Or do we not?
[226c] Theætetus: Which among these do you wish to serve throughout, as an instance of what you mean to evince?
[226c] Guest: All the names that have been mentioned are in a certain respect divisive.
[226c] Theætetus: They are.
[226c] Guest: According to my reasoning, therefore, since there is one art in all these, we should call them by one name.
[226c] Theætetus: By what name?
[226c] Guest: Segregative.
[226c] Theætetus: Be it so.
[226c] Guest: Consider, again, whether we are able to perceive two species of this?
[226c] Theætetus: You seem to urge me to a rapid consideration.
[226d] Guest: And, indeed, in all these segregations, the worse was separated from the better, and the similar from the similar.
[226d] Theætetus: It appears that it was nearly so said.
[226d] Guest: Of the latter of these segregations, therefore, I cannot tell the name; but I can of that which leaves the better and rejects the worse.
[226d] Theætetus: Inform me what it is.
[226d] Guest: The whole of this separation (as I conjecture) is called by all men a certain purification.
[226d] Theætetus: It is so called.
[226d] Guest: Does not, therefore, every one see that the cathartic species is twofold?
[226e] Theætetus: Yes. If any one, perhaps, thinks about it at leisure; for I do not see it at present.
[226e] Guest: And, indeed, it is proper to comprehend in one name the many species of purgations pertaining to the body.
[227a] Theætetus: What kind of purgations do you mean? and by what name ought they to be called?
[227a] Guest: The inward purgations of the bodies of animals, by gymnastic and medicine, which purify by rightly separating; and those which operate externally, and which it is vile to mention, viz. such as baths afford; and likewise the purgations of inanimate bodies, by means of the fuller’s art, and the whole art of adorning the body, which occasions attention to things of a trifling nature,—all these appear to be allotted many and ridiculous names.
[227a] Theætetus: Very much so.
[227b] Guest: Entirely so, indeed, Theætetus. But the order of reasoning cares neither more nor less, whether wiping with a sponge purifies in a small degree, but the drinking a medicine is more advantageous to us, by the purification it affords. For, that it may understand all arts, by endeavouring to apprehend what is allied, and what not, it equally honours the several arts, and is of opinion that some are not more ridiculous than others according to similitude. It likewise considers hunting, effected through military discipline, as in no respect more venerable than searching after vermin, but for the most part more futile. And now, indeed, which was what you asked, we have comprehended in one name all the powers which are allotted the purification either of an animated or inanimate body; but it is of no consequence to the present disputation what name may appear to be more becoming, if it be only placed separate from the purgations of the soul, and include in itself all such things as purify the body. For the order of reasoning now endeavours to separate the purification of the dianoëtic part from other purgations, if we understand what it wishes to accomplish.
[227c] Theætetus: But I do understand, and I grant that there are two species of purification; one species respecting the soul, and the other, which is separate from this, respecting the body.
[227c] Guest: You speak in the most beautiful manner. Attend to me, therefore, in what follows, and endeavour to give a twofold division to what has been said.
[227d] Theætetus: Wherever you may lead, I will endeavour to distribute in conjunction with you.
[227d] Guest: Do we not say, then, that depravity in the soul is something different from virtue?
[227d] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[227d] Guest: And we likewise said, that purification consists in rejecting what is depraved, and preserving what remains.
[227d] Theætetus: We did say so.
[227d] Guest: So far, therefore, as we shall discover an ablation of depravity in the soul, we ought to call it purgation.
[227e] Theætetus: And very much so.
[227e] Guest: Two species of depravity in the soul must be established.
[227e] Theætetus: What are they?
[228a] Guest: The one is like disease in the body, but the other resembles inherent baseness.
[228a] Theætetus: I do not understand you.
[228a] Guest: Perhaps you do not think that disease is the same with sedition.
[228a] Theætetus: Again, I am not able to answer this question.
[228a] Guest: Whether do you think sedition is any thing else than the corruption of natural alliance through a certain discord?
[228a] Theætetus: It is nothing else.
[228a] Guest: And is baseness any thing else than entire deformity, arising from the immoderation of things of one kind?
[228b] Theætetus: It is nothing else.
[228b] Guest: What then, do we not see in the soul of the depraved that opinion s differ from desires, anger from pleasures, reason from pain, and all these from each other?
[228b] Theætetus: And very much so.
[228b] Guest: But all these are necessarily allied to each other.
[228b] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[228b] Guest: We shall speak rightly, therefore, in calling depravity the sedition and disease of the soul.
[228b] Theætetus: We shall speak most rightly.
[228c] Guest: But what, when we see such things as participate of motion, and propose to themselves a certain end, wander from and miss the mark according to every impulse, do we say that they are affected in this manner through symmetry to each other, or, on the contrary, through a privation of symmetry?
[228c] Theætetus: It is evident that this happens through a privation of symmetry.
[228c] Guest: But we know that every soul is involuntarily ignorant of any thing.
[228c] Theætetus: Very much so.
[228d] Guest: But ignorance is nothing else than a delirium of the soul, which, while it is impelled to truth, wanders in its apprehension of things.
[228d] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[228d] Guest: We must consider, therefore, a soul involved in ignorance as base and deformed.
[228d] Theætetus: So it appears.
[228d] Guest: It seems, therefore, that there are these two genera of evils in the soul; one of which is called by the multitude depravity, and is most evidently a disease.
[228d] Theætetus: It is.
[228d] Guest: But the other the multitude call ignorance, but they are unwilling to acknowledge that this is a vice in the soul.
[228e] Theætetus: It must by all means be granted, though when you just now spoke I was doubtful of it, that there are two genera of vice or depravity in the soul; and that we ought to consider timidity, intemperance, injustice, and every thing else of this kind, as a disease in us; but the passion of abundant and all-various ignorance as baseness.
[228e] Guest: In the body, therefore, are there not two certain arts about these two passions?
[228e] Theætetus: What are these arts?
[229a] Guest: About baseness, gymnastic; but about disease, medicine.
[229a] Theætetus: It appears so.
[229a] Guest: About insolence, therefore, injustice, and timidity, is not chastizing justice naturally the most adapted of all arts?
[229a] Theætetus: It is likely, as I may say, according to human opinion.
[229a] Guest: But, can any one say that there is a more proper remedy for all ignorance than erudition?
[229a] Theætetus: No one can.
[229b] Guest: Must we say, therefore, that there is only one kind of erudition, or that there are more kinds than one? But take notice, that there are two greatest genera of it.
[229b] Theætetus: I do take notice.
[229b] Guest: And it appears to me that we shall very rapidly discover this.
[229b] Theætetus: In what manner?
[229b] Guest: By perceiving that ignorance has a certain twofold division. For, being twofold, it is evident that it necessarily requires a twofold mode of instruction, corresponding to the members of its division.
[229b] Theætetus: What then? Is that apparent which is the object of your present investigation?
[229c] Guest: I perceive, indeed, a great and ponderous species of ignorance, which outweighs all its other parts.
[229c] Theætetus: Of what kind is it?
[229c] Guest: When he who is ignorant of a thing appears to himself to know it. For it appears that through this all the deceptions in our dianoëtic part take place.
[229c] Theætetus: True.
[229c] Guest: And I think that to this species of ignorance alone the name of rusticity should be given.
[229d] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[229d] Guest: How, therefore, do you think that part of erudition should be called which liberates from this species of ignorance?
[229d] Theætetus: I think, indeed, O guest, that the other part is denominated demiurgic erudition, but that this is called by us discipline.
[229d] Guest: It is nearly so denominated, Theætetus, by all the Greeks. But this also must be considered by us, whether the whole of this is indivisible, or possesses a certain division which deserves to be named.
[229d] Theætetus: It is requisite to consider this.
[229d] Guest: It appears, therefore, to me, that this may be still further divided.
[229d] Theætetus: According to what?
[229e] Guest: Of the erudition which is effected by discourse, one way appears to be more rough, and another part of it more smooth.
[229e] Theætetus: Of what kind do we call each of these?
[230a] Guest: The one antient and paternal, which men formerly adopted towards their children, and many use at present, viz. as often as children do wrong, partly severely reproving, and partly mildly admonishing them. But the whole of this may be called with the utmost propriety admonition.
[230a] Theætetus: It may so.
[230a] Guest: But some are of opinion that all ignorance is involuntary, and that no one who thinks himself wise is willing to learn those things in which he considers himself as skilled; but that the admonitory species of discipline makes very small advances with great labour.
[230a] Theætetus: And they think right.
[230b] Guest: They likewise adopt another mode in order to disclose this opinion.
[230b] Theætetus: What mode?
[230c] Guest: By inquiring into those particulars about which a man thinks he says something to the purpose, when at the same time this is far from being the case. In the next place, they easily explore the opinions of those that err, and, collecting them together by a reasoning process, render them the same with each other: and after this they evince that these opinions are contrary to themselves, respecting the same things, with reference to the same, and according to the same. But those whose opinions are thus explored, on seeing this, are indignant with themselves, and become milder to others; and after this manner are liberated from mighty and rigid opinions; which liberation is of all others the most pleasant to hear, and the most firm to him who is the subject of it. For, O beloved youth, those that purify these think in the same manner as physicians with respect to bodies. For physicians are of opinion, that the body cannot enjoy salubrious food till some one removes the impediments it contains. In like manner, these mental purifiers think that the soul can derive no advantage from disciplines accommodated to its nature, till he who is confuted is ashamed of his error, and, the impediments of disciplines being expelled, viz. false opinions, he becomes pure, and alone thinks that he knows the things which he does know, and not more than he knows.
[230d] Theætetus: This is the best and the most modest of habits.
[230e] Guest: Hence, Theætetus, we must say, that confutation³ is the greatest and the chief of all purifications; and that he who is not confuted, even though he should be the great king himself, since he would be unpurified in things of the greatest consequence, will be rude and base with respect to those things in which it is fit he should be most pure and beautiful, who wishes to become truly happy.
[231a] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[231a] Guest: But by whom shall we say this art is employed? For I am afraid to say it is used by the sophists.
[231a] Theætetus: On what account?
[231a] Guest: Lest we should honour them more than is fit.
[231a] Theætetus: But yet what has been just now said appears to be adapted to a certain character of this kind.
[231b] Guest: So likewise a wolf resembles a dog, a most savage a most mild animal. But he who wishes to be free from deception ought to guard against similitude above all things: for it is a genus of the greatest lubricity. But, at the same time, let these things be admitted; for I think it is not proper to dispute about small terms, at a time when these ought to be carefully avoided.
[231b] Theætetus: It is not proper.
[231b] Guest: Let, therefore, a species of the separating art be cathartic: and let a part of the cathartic species be limited to the soul. But of this let a part be doctrinal; and of the doctrinal let discipline be a part. But of discipline, that confutation which takes place about a vain opinion of wisdom should be called, as it appears from our present discourse, nothing else than that sophistic art which is of a noble race.
[231c] Theætetus: It should be so called. But I am dubious, what, out of many things which present themselves, it is fit truly and strenuously to call a sophist.
[231c] Guest: You are very properly dubious. But indeed it is proper to think, that even a sophist himself will now very much doubt, by what means he may escape our arguments. For the proverb rightly says, It is not easy to avoid all things. Now, therefore, let us attack him with all our might.
[231c] Theætetus: You speak well.
[231c] Guest: But, in the first place, let us stop as it were to take breath, and reason among ourselves, at the same time mutually resting when we are weary. Let us consider, then, how many forms the sophist assumes. For we appear from our first investigation to have discovered, that he is a mercenary hunter of the youthful and rich.
[231d] Theætetus: We do so.
[231d] Guest: But from our second investigation it appears, that he is a certain merchant in the disciplines of the soul.
[231d] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[231d] Guest: And did he not, in the third place, appear to be a huckster about these same things?
[231d] Theætetus: He did. And did we not, in the fourth place, find him to be one who sells us his own inventions?
[231e] Guest: You properly remind me. But I will endeavour to remember the fifth particular. For, in the next place, we found him to be one who strives in the agonistic exercise about discourses, and who is defined from the art of contention.
[231e] Theætetus: We did so.
[231e] Guest: The sixth form is indeed ambiguous; but at the same time we must admit it, and grant that a sophist is a purifier of such opinions as are an impediment to disciplines respecting the soul.
[232a] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[232a] Guest: Do you therefore perceive, that, when any one appears to possess a scientific knowledge of many things, and is called by the name of one art, this is not a sound phantasm? It is indeed evident, that he who is thus affected with respect to any art cannot behold that particular thing to which all these disciplines look. Hence he who possesses a multitude of disciplines should be called by many names, instead of one name.
[232a] Theætetus: This appears to be in the highest degree natural.
[232b] Guest: Lest, therefore, the same thing should happen to us through indolence in this investigation, let us repeat, in the first place, one of the things which we said respecting the sophist: for one of these appears to me especially to indicate him.
[232b] Theætetus: Which of them?
[232b] Guest: We said that he was in a certain respect a contradictor.
[232b] Theætetus: We did.
[232b] Guest: And does he not also become a teacher of this to others?
[232c] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[232c] Guest: Let us now, therefore, consider, about what it is that sophists say they make others contradictors. But let our consideration from the beginning be as follows. With respect to divine things which are unapparent to the many, do sophists sufficiently impart the power of contradiction?
[232c] Theætetus: This is indeed asserted of them.
[232c] Guest: But what with respect to things apparent, such as earth and heaven, and the particulars pertaining to these?
[232c] Theætetus: What of them?
[232c] Guest: For, in private conversations, when any thing is asserted in general respecting generation and essence, we say that the sophists are skilled in contradicting, and that they are able to render others like themselves.
[232c] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[232c] Guest: But what, with respect to laws, and all political concerns, do they not also promise to make men contentious in these?
[232d] Theætetus: No one, as I may say, would discourse with them unless they promised this.
[232d] Guest: But writings containing such contradictions as ought to be urged against the professors of the several arts, may every where be procured by him who wishes to learn the art of contradiction.
[232e] Theætetus: You appear to me to allude to the writings of Protagoras respecting wrestling and the other arts.
[232e] Guest: And to the writings of many others, O blessed man. But is not the art of contradicting, summarily a certain power, sufficient to bring all things into controversy?
[232e] Theætetus: It appears, therefore, that nearly nothing is omitted.
[232e] Guest: But by the Gods, O boy, do you think this is possible? For perhaps you young men behold this more acutely, but we more dully.
[233a] Theætetus: In what respect? and why do you particularly assert this? For I do not understand your present question.
[233a] Guest: I asked, if it were possible for any one man to know all things.
[233a] Theætetus: If it were possible, our race, O guest, would be blessed.
[233a] Guest: How, therefore, can any one destitute of science be able, by contradicting, to urge any thing sound against him who is endued with science?
[233a] Theætetus: He cannot in any respect.
[233a] Guest: What then is it which will be wonderful in the sophistic power?
[233b] Theætetus: About what?
[233b] Guest: The manner by which sophists are able to produce an opinion in young men, that they are the wisest of all men in all things? For it is evident that, unless they contradicted rightly, or at least appeared to do so to young men, and, when appearing to do so, unless they were considered to be more wise through their contentions, they would be without employment, and, as you said, no one would give them money to become their disciple.
[233b] Theætetus: Doubtless no one would.
[233c] Guest: But now men are willing to do this.
[233c] Theætetus: And very much so.
[233c] Guest: For I think the sophists appear to have a scientific knowledge of those particulars about which they employ contradiction.
[233c] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[233c] Guest: But do they employ contradiction in all things? Shall we say so?
[233c] Theætetus: Yes.
[233c] Guest: They appear, therefore, to their disciples to be wise in all things.
[233c] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[233c] Guest: But yet they are not: for this seems to be impossible.
[233c] Theætetus: It does.
[233c] Guest: A sophist, therefore, appears to us to possess doxastic, and not true science, about all things.
[233c] Theætetus: Entirely so. And what has been now said, respecting sophists, seems to be most rightly said.
[233d] Guest: Let us, therefore, assume a clearer paradigm respecting them.
[233d] Theætetus: What is that?
[233d] Guest: This. But endeavour to attend to what I say, and answer me in the best manner you are able.
[233d] Theætetus: Of what kind is the paradigm?
[233d] Guest: Just as if any one should assert that he neither says any thing, nor contradicts, but that he makes and causes all things to be known by one art.
[233e] Theætetus: What is your meaning in all this?
[233e] Guest: You are obviously ignorant of the beginning of what is said: for, as it seems, you do not understand the word all.
[233e] Theætetus: I do not.
[233e] Guest: I say then that you and I are in the number of all things, and besides us, other animals and trees.
[233e] Theætetus: How do you say?
[233e] Guest: If any one should assert that he would make you and me, and all other living things.
[234a] Theætetus: Of what making do you speak? For you do not mean a husbandman, because the artificer you mention is a maker of animals.
[234a] Guest: I do say so. And besides this, he is the maker of the sea, the earth, the heavens, the Gods, and all other things. And as he rapidly makes each of these, so he sells each for a small price.
[234a] Theætetus: You speak in jest.
[234a] Guest: What then? May not he also be said to jest, who asserts that he knows all things, and professes himself able to teach another all things, for a small sum of money, and in a short time?
[234a] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[234b] Guest: But have you any species of jesting more artificial and agreeable than the imitative?
[234b] Theætetus: I have not. For you have mentioned a very ample species, which comprehends all things in one, and is nearly most various.
[234b] Guest: Do we not, therefore, know that he who professes himself able to make all things by one art, in consequence of fabricating imitations and homonyms of things, by the art of painting, is able to deceive stupid young men and boys, by showing them his pictures at a distance, and induce them to believe that he is sufficient to effect whatever he pleases?
[234b] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[234b] Guest: But what as [234c] to discourses, will it not appear to us that there is another certain art respecting these, by which seducers, as if employing certain incantations, are able to draw young men far away from the truth, by bewitching their ears with their discourses, and exhibiting to them images of every thing, instead of realities; so as to cause themselves to appear to speak the truth, and to be the wisest of all men in all things?
[234d] Theætetus: Why should there not be another certain art of this kind?
[234e] Guest: Is it not, therefore, necessary, Theætetus, that many of those who then hear these things, after through the course of time they have arrived at the perfection of manhood, and consider the things themselves nigh at hand, and are compelled through passions clearly to handle realities, will then abandon their former opinions, and be induced to consider those things as small, which once appeared to them to be great, those things difficult which they once considered easy, and thus at length entirely subvert all the phantasms produced by discourse, through the works which take place in actions?
[234e] Theætetus: It appears so to me, as far as my age is capable of judging. For I am of opinion, that as yet I rank among those who are far distant from the truth.
[234e] Guest: All we, therefore, who are present will endeavour to assist you. And now we shall endeavour, free from passion, to approach as near as possible to the truth. With respect to a sophist, then, inform me whether this is clear, that he ranks among enchanters, being an imitator of things? or must we yet doubt whether he possesses in reality the sciences of those things respecting which he appears able to contradict?
[235a] Theætetus: But how can we doubt this, O guest? For it is nearly evident from what has been said that he is one of those who participate parts of erudition.
[235a] Guest: He must be considered, therefore, as a certain enchanter and mimic.
[235b] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[235b] Guest: Come then: for we must now no longer drop our prey; as we have now nearly enclosed the sophist in a certain net of reasoning; so that he cannot hereafter escape from this.
[235b] Theætetus: From what?
[235b] Guest: That he is one of those who work miracles.
[235b] Theætetus: This also is my opinion respecting him.
[235b] Guest: It seems, therefore, that we should divide with the utmost celerity the image producing art; and that, entering into it, if the sophist evidently waits for us, we should apprehend him conformably to the royal mandate, and, delivering him up, exhibit our prey to the king: but that, if he enters into the parts of the imitative art, we should follow him, always dividing the part which receives him, till we apprehend him. For neither will he, nor any other genus, ever be able to fly from him who can pursue every particular through all things according to method.
[235c] Theætetus: You speak well. And in this manner, therefore, we must act.
[235d] Guest: According to the superior mode of division, I now appear to myself to see two species of the imitative art; but in which of these we should place the idea which is the object of our investigation, it does not yet appear to me possible to know.
[235d] Theætetus: But first of all inform me by division what these two species are.
[235e] Guest: I see that one indeed is the assimilative⁴ art. But this especially takes place, when any one according to the commensurations of a paradigm, in length, depth, and breadth, and besides this by the addtiion of convenient colours, gives birth to a resemblance.
[235e] Theætetus: What then, do not all those that imitate any thing endeavour to do this?
[236a] Guest: Not such as fashion or paint any great work. For, if they should impart the true symmetry of things beautiful, you know that the upper parts would appear smaller than is fit, and the lower parts greater, in consequence of the former being seen by us at a distance, and the latter nigh at hand.
[236a] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[236a] Guest: Do not therefore artists, bidding farewell to truth, neglect real symmetry, and accommodate to images such commensurations as are only apparently beautiful?
[236a] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[236a] Guest: Is it not, therefore, just to call the one species, since it is a likeness, an image?
[236a] Theætetus: Perfectly so.
[236a] Guest: And is it not just to call the other species assimilative?
[236b] Theætetus: Yes.
[236b] Guest: We must, therefore, call the other part of the imitative art, as we said above, assimilative.
[236b] Theætetus: We must so call it.
[236b] Guest: But what shall we call that which appears indeed similar to the beautiful, but, when inspected by him who is endued with a power sufficient for the purpose, is found not to resemble that to which it appears to be similar? Must we not call it a phantasm, since it appears to be but is not similar?
[236b] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[236b] Guest: Is not this part abundantly to be found in painting, and in the whole of the imitative art?
[236c] Theætetus: It is impossible it should not.
[236c] Guest: But may we not with the greatest rectitude call that art which produces a phantasm, and not an image, phantastic?
[236c] Theætetus: Very much so.
[236c] Guest: I have already, therefore, said that these were two species of the image-producing art, viz. the assimilative and phantastic.
[236d] Theætetus: Right.
[236d] Guest: But neither am I able now to see clearly, that of which I was then dubious, viz. in which of these species the sophist is to be placed. For this is truly a wonderful man; and it is extremely difficult to discern him; since even now, in a very excellent and elegant manner, he has fled into a species which it is almost impossible to investigate.
[236d] Theætetus: It seems so.
[236d] Guest: Do you then assent to this in consequence of understanding it? or does a certain usual impetus arising from discourse induce you to a rapid coincidence of sentiment?
[236d] Theætetus: How, and with a view to what, do you say this?
[236d] Guest: O blessed man, we are truly engaged in a speculation perfectly difficult. [236e] For that this thing should appear and seem to be, and yet is not; and that a man should assert certain things, and yet not such as are true,— all these things have always been subjects of the greatest doubt in former times, and are so at present. For it follows, that he who speaks in this manner must either speak falsely, or be of opinion that such things truly are; and thus speaking, Theætetus, it is extremely difficult for him not to contradict himself.
[237a] Theætetus: Why so?
[237b] Guest: Because such a mode of speaking dares to admit that non-being is: for otherwise it would not be false, which it is. But the great Parmenides, O boy, while we were yet boys, both from the first and to the end, rejected this mode of speaking. For, both in prose and verse, he every where speaks as follows: “Non-beings can never, nor by any means, be. But do thou, when inquiring, restrain thy conceptions from this path.” The truth of this, therefore, is testified by him, and this assertion will the most of all things become evident, if moderately discussed. Let us, therefore, if it is not disagreeable to you, consider this in the first place.
[237b] Theætetus: You may do as you please with respect to me. But do you consider what it is best to investigate, and in this path lead me.
[237b] Guest: It will be proper so to do. Tell me, then: Dare we to pronounce that which in no respect is?
[237c] Theætetus: How is it possible we should not?
[237c] Guest: Not for the sake of contention, therefore, nor jesting, but seriously, every one who hears us ought to join with us in considering the import of this word non-being. But can we think that he who is asked this question would know where to turn himself, or how to show what non-being is?
[237c] Theætetus: You ask a difficult question, and to me, as I may say, entirely impervious.
[237c] Guest: This, however, is evident, that non-being cannot be attributed to any thing which ranks among beings.
[237c] Theætetus: For how could it?
[237c] Guest: Since, therefore, it cannot be attributed to being, neither can any one rightly attribute it to any thing.
[237c] Theætetus: Certainly not.
[237c] Guest: This also is evident to us, that this word something is every where predicated of a certain being. For it is impossible to speak of it alone, as if it were naked and solitary with respect to all beings.
[237c] Theætetus: It is impossible.
[237d] Guest: Thus considering, therefore, must you not agree with me, that he who speaks of something must necessarily speak of one certain thing?
[237d] Theætetus: Yes.
[237d] Guest: For you would say, that the word something is a sign of one thing, and that certain-things is a sign of many things.
[237d] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[237d] Guest: But it is most necessary, as it appears, that he who speaks of that which is not something must entirely speak of nothing.
[237e] Theætetus: This is most necessary.
[237e] Guest: Must it not therefore follow, that neither this is to be granted, that he who speaks of something speaks of that which is not even one thing; or nothing? But neither must we say that he speaks who endeavours to enunciate non-being.
[238a] Theætetus: The doubts, therefore, in which our discourse is involved should come to an end.
[238a] Guest: You do not as yet speak of something great. For, O blessed man, the greatest and first of doubts still remains about these things: for it is a doubt which takes place about the principle of non-being.
[238a] Theætetus: Tell me how, and do not be remiss.
[238a] Guest: To that which is, something else belonging to beings may happen.
[238a] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[238a] Guest: But shall we say, that any thing belonging to beings can ever be present to that which is not?
[238b] Theætetus: How can we?
[238b] Guest: But do we not rank the whole of number among beings?
[238b] Theætetus: Undoubtedly, if we rank any thing else among beings.
[238b] Guest: We should, therefore, neither attempt to attribute the multitude of number, nor the one, to non-being.
[238b] Theætetus: Reason shows that we cannot with propriety.
[238b] Guest: How, therefore, can any one enunciate by the mouth, or altogether comprehend by the dianoëtic power, non-beings, or non-being separate from number?
[238b] Theætetus: Tell me why not.
[238b] Guest: When we say non-beings, do we not endeavour to adjoin the multitude of number?
[238c] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[238c] Guest: And when we say non-being, do we not endeavour to adjoin the one?
[238c] Theætetus: Most clearly so.
[238c] Guest: And besides this we say, that it is neither just nor right to endeavour to adapt being to non-being.
[238c] Theætetus: You speak most truly.
[238c] Guest: Do you not, therefore, perceive, that non-being can neither be rightly enunciated, nor spoken, nor yet be cogitated, itself by itself, but that it is incomprehensible by thought, ineffable, non-vocal, and irrational?
[238d] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[238d] Guest: Did I, therefore, just now speak falsely when I said, that I could produce the greatest doubt respecting it?
[238d] Theætetus: What then, can we mention any doubt greater than this?
[238d] Guest: Do you not see, O wonderful youth, from what has been said, that non-being leads him who confutes it into such perplexity, that in the very attempt to confute it he is compelled to contradict himself?
[238d] Theætetus: How do you say? Speak yet clearer.
[238d] Guest: There is no occasion to consider any thing clearer in me. For, when I adopted the position, that non-being ought to participate neither of the one, nor of many, both a little before, and now, I employed the term the one. For I enunciated non-being. Do you perceive this?
[238e] Theætetus: Yes.
[238e] Guest: And again, a little before, I said that non-being was non-vocal, ineffable, and irrational. Do you apprehend me?
[238e] Theætetus: I do. For how is it possible I should not?
[239a] Guest: When, therefore, I endeavoured to adapt being to non-being, did I not assert things contrary to what I had before advanced?
[239a] Theætetus: It appears so.
[239a] Guest: And in consequence of attributing this to it, did I not speak of it as one thing?
[239a] Theætetus: Yes.
[239a] Guest: And besides this, while I called it irrational, ineffable, and non-vocal, did we not make these assertions as pertaining to one thing?
[239a] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[239a] Guest: For we have said, that he who speaks of non-being in a proper manner, ought neither to define it as one, nor many, nor give it any appellation whatever: for it is impossible to denominate it, without at the same time calling it one thing.
[239a] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[239b] Guest: What then will some one say of me? For, both formerly and now, he will find me vanquished in this contention respecting non-being. So that, as I have already said, you must not expect me to speak properly on this subject. But come, let us now consider this affair in you.
[239b] Theætetus: How do you say?
[239b] Guest: Endeavour in a becoming and generous manner, as being a young man, and with all your might, to assert something about non-being, conformable to right reason, without adding to it either essence, or the one, or the multitude of number.
[239b] Theætetus: It certainly would be great rashness in me to engage in a contest in which you have been vanquished.
[239b] Guest: But, if it is agreeable to you, we will dismiss you and me; and till we meet with some one who is able to accomplish this, we will say that a sophist more than any other person conceals himself in an impervious place.
[239c] Theætetus: Very much so, indeed.
[239c] Guest: If, therefore, we should say that he possessed a certain phantastic art from this use of words, he would easily attack us, and turn the discourse to the very contrary of what is asserted. For, while we call him a maker of images, he will immediately ask us what we assert an image to be. Consider therefore, Theætetus, what answer we should give to this question of the sophist.
[239d] Theætetus: It is evident we should say that images are such things as are seen in water and mirrors, and besides this, such things as are painted and carved, and every thing else of this kind.
[239e] Guest: It seems, Theætetus, that you have never seen a sophist.
[239e] Theætetus: Why so?
[239e] Guest: He would appear to you to wink, or to be entirely deprived of eyes.
[240a] Theætetus: How so?
[240a] Guest: He would laugh at you for answering him by appearances in mirrors, and by pictures and carvings, when you speak to him as being yourself endued with sight; and he will pretend that he knows nothing about mirrors, or water, or even sight itself, but that he alone interrogates you about this one thing.
[240a] Theætetus: What is that?
[240a] Guest: That which in all the particulars you have mentioned you think fit to call by one name, pronouncing the word image in all of them, as being one thing. Speak, therefore, and give assistance, and do not yield to the man.
[240a] Theætetus: But what, O guest, can we say an image is, except that which, being itself something different, approaches to a true similitude to another thing?
[240b] Guest: When you say an image is something different, do you mean that it is truly different, or do you assert this of something else?
[240b] Theætetus: It is by no means truly different, but only appears to be so, or is similar.
[240b] Guest: Do you, therefore, call real being that which is true?
[240b] Theætetus: I do.
[240b] Guest: But is not that which is not true contrary to the true?
[240b] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[240b] Guest: When, therefore, you say that which is similar is at the same time not true, you assert that it is not. It has however a being.
[240b] Theætetus: How so?
[240b] Guest: You say that it truly is not.
[240b] Theætetus: It certainly is not; but it is truly an image.
[240c] Guest: That, therefore, which we called an image of being, is not truly being, and that which is not truly being, truly is.
[240c] Theætetus: Non-being appears to possess a certain connection of this kind with being, and that in a very wonderful manner.
[240c] Guest: How is it possible it should not appear wonderful? You now, therefore, perceive that the many-headed sophist, through this alternation, compels us unwillingly to confess that non-being in a certain respect is.
[240c] Theætetus: I see it, and very much so.
[240d] Guest: How, then, shall we define this art, so that we may be consistent with ourselves?
[240d] Theætetus: What is it you are afraid of, that you speak in this manner?
[240d] Guest: When we said that he was a deceiver about a phantasm, and that his art was a certain deception, whether shall we say that our soul then opined falsely, through his art; or what shall we say?
[240d] Theætetus: This very thing. For what else can we say?
[240d] Guest: But is false opinion that which opines things contrary to things which are?
[240d] Theætetus: It is.
[240e] Guest: You say, therefore, that false opinion opines things which are not.
[240e] Theætetus: It is necessary.
[240e] Guest: Whether does it opine that non-beings are not, or that things which have no subsistence whatever, in a certain respect are?
[240e] Theætetus: If any one is ever deceived, and in the smallest degree, it is necessary he should opine that non-beings in a certain respect are.
[241a] Guest: And will he not also opine, that things which entirely are, in no respect are?
[241a] Theætetus: Yes.
[241a] Guest: And this also falsely?
[241a] Theætetus: And this too.
[241a] Guest: And false speech, in my opinion, will think after the same manner, asserting that beings are not, and that non-beings are.
[241a] Theætetus: For how can it otherwise become false?
[241a] Guest: Nearly, no otherwise. But the sophist will not say so. For by what possible device can any one of a sound mind admit the things which have been previously granted, since they are non-vocal, ineffable, irrational, and incomprehensible by the dianoëtic power? Do we understand what the sophist says, Theætetus?
[241b] Theætetus: How is it possible we should not? For he says that our former assertions are contrary to the present, since we have falsely dared to assert that non-being subsists in opinion and discourse. He likewise adds, that we have often been compelled to adapt being to non-being, though we have just now acknowledged, that this is in a certain respect the most impossible of all things.
[241b] Guest: You rightly recollect. But we should now consult what we ought to do respecting the sophist. For, if we should attempt to investigate him, by placing him in the art of deceivers and enchanters, you see that many doubts will arise.
[241c] Theætetus: Many, indeed.
[241c] Guest: We have, therefore, only discussed a small part of them, since they are, as I may say, innumerable.
[241c] Theætetus: But if this is the case, it appears to be impossible to apprehend a sophist.
[241c] Guest: What then, shall we thus effeminately desist from our undertaking?
[241c] Theætetus: I say we ought not, if there is the least possibility of apprehending this man.
[241c] Guest: You will, therefore, pardon, and, as you just now said, be satisfied, if we make but a small proficiency in so arduous an affair.
[241c] Theætetus: How is it possible I should not?
[241d] Guest: I, therefore, in a still greater degree request this of you.
[241d] Theætetus: What?
[241d] Guest: That you do not think I am become, as it were, a certain parricide.
[241d] Theætetus: Why do you request this?
[241d] Guest: Because it will be necessary for us to examine with our opponents the discourse of our father Parmenides, and to compel non-being in a certain respect to be, and again being, in a certain respect not to be.
[241d] Theætetus: It appears that a thing of this kind must be contended for in our discourse.
[241d] Guest: For how is it possible this should not appear, and, as it is said, even to a blind man? [241e] For, while these things are neither confuted, nor as- sented to, no one can speak either about false assertions, or about opinion, whether respecting resemblances, or images, or imitations, or phantasms, or of the arts conversant with these, without being ridiculous in consequence of being compelled to contradict himself.
[242a] Theætetus: Most true.
[242a] Guest: Hence, we must dare to oppose the paternal discourse; or we must entirely dismiss it, if a certain sluggishness restrains us from opposing it.
[242a] Theætetus: But nothing will in any respect hinder us from opposing it.
[242a] Guest: I still, therefore, request a third, and a trifling thing of you.
[242a] Theætetus: Only say what it is.
[242b] Guest: I just now said that I was always wearied in the confutation of things of this kind, and that I am so at present.
[242b] Theætetus: You did say so.
[242b] Guest: I am afraid lest I should appear to you to be insane, in consequence of what I have said, and from immediately transferring myself upwards and downwards. For we shall enter on the confutation of the paternal discourse, for your sake, if we happen to confute it.
[242b] Theætetus: As you will not, therefore, by any means be considered by me as acting in a disorderly manner by entering on this confutation, and demonstration, on this account engage boldly in this affair.
[242c] Guest: Come then, whence shall we begin this very dangerous discourse? For it appears, O boy, to be most necessary for us to proceed in the following path.
[242c] Theætetus: What is that path?
[242c] Guest: That we should first of all consider those things which now appear to be clear, lest we immediately desist from our undertaking, deterred by its difficulty; and that we should proceed in an easy manner, by mutually assenting to each other, as if we were engaged in a subject which may be easily discussed.
[242c] Theætetus: Speak more clearly.
[242c] Guest: Parmenides appears to me to have spoken with ease, and whoever else has attempted to determine the number and quality of beings.
[242c] Theætetus: How so?
[242c] Guest: It seems to me that each of them has related a fable to us, as being boys. [242d] One of them, by asserting that the things which have a subsistence are three⁵; but that some of them sometimes oppose each other in a hostile manner; and at other times becoming friends, unite in marriage, bring forth, and administer aliment to their offspring. But another of these says that beings are only two, viz. the moist and the dry, or the hot and the cold; and these he associates with each other. But the Eleatic sect among us, which derives its origin from Zenophanes, and from others still prior to him, by denominating all things one, discusses its doctrines in fables. But the Iades⁶, and certain Sicilian muses posterior to these, have thought it more safe to connect these with each other, and to say that being is both many and one, but is held together by strife and friendship⁷. [242e] For that which is discordant always unites with something else, as the more vehement muses assert. But the more effeminate muses always loosen the many from the one; and assert that the universe is alternately one, and in friendship with itself, through Venus; and many, and hostile to itself, through a certain strife. But with respect to all these assertions, whether they are true or false, to oppose such illustrious and antient men is difficult and rash. This, however, may be asserted without envy.
[243a] Theætetus: What?
[243a] Guest: That they very much despised us who rank among the multitude. For each of them finishes his own work, without being at all concerned whether we can follow them in what they assert.
[243b] Theætetus: How do you say?
[243b] Guest: When any one of them asserts that the many is, or was, or is generated, or that this is the case with two or one, and that the hot is mingled with the cold, externally adducing for this purpose separations and concretions,—by the Gods, Theætetus, do you understand what they mean by each of these assertions? Indeed, when I was younger, I was confident that I accurately understood that of which we are now dubious, when any one spoke of non-being; but now you see in what difficulties we are involved through doubting about it.
[243b] Theætetus: I do see.
[243c] Guest: Perhaps, therefore, receiving in no less a degree the same passion in our soul respecting being, we say that it is easy to understand it when it is enunciated by any one, but that this cannot be asserted of non-being, though we are similarly affected with respect to both.
[243c] Theætetus: Perhaps so.
[243c] Guest: And this very same thing has been said by us respecting the other particulars which we mentioned before.
[243d] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[243d] Guest: We will consider, therefore, after this respecting many things, if it is agreeable to you; but let us now first speculate about that which is the greatest and principal thing.
[243d] Theætetus: Of what are you speaking? Or do you say that we ought in the first place to investigate being, and consider what they assert who are thought to evince something about it?
[243e] Guest: You clearly apprehend me, Theætetus. For I say that we ought to proceed in the same manner as if those I just now mentioned were present, and to interrogate them as follows: Ye who assert that the hot and the cold, or any two such things, are all things, what is it you affirm to subsist in both these, when you say that both are, and that each is? What are we to understand by this term of yours to be? Is it a third thing different from those two, and are we to establish three things as constituting the all, and no longer two things, according to your hypothesis? For, while you call either of the two being, you cannot say that both similarly are. For each would nearly be one thing, and not two.
[243e] Theætetus: You speak the truth.
[243e] Guest: Are you, therefore, willing to call both of them being?
[243e] Theætetus: Perhaps so.
[244a] Guest: But, O friends, we shall say, thus also you will most clearly call two things one.
[244a] Theætetus: You speak with the utmost rectitude.
[244b] Guest: Since, therefore, we are thus involved in doubt, will you sufficiently unfold to us what you wish to signify when you pronounce being? For it is evident that you have had a knowledge of these things for some time past: but we, indeed, at first thought we knew them, but now we are dubious. Instruct us, therefore, first of all in this, that we may not think we learn the things asserted by you, when the very contrary to this takes place. By speaking in this manner, and making this request, both to these, and to such others as assert that the all is more than one thing, shall we, O boy, err?
[244b] Theætetus: By no means.
[244b] Guest: But what with respect to those who assert that the all is one, ought we not to inquire of them, to the utmost of our power, what they call being?
[244b] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[244b] Guest: To this question, therefore, they may answer: Do you say there is one thing alone? We do say so. Or will they not speak in this manner?
[244b] Theætetus: They will.
[244b] Guest: What then, do you call being any thing?
[244c] Theætetus: Yes.
[244c] Guest: Do you call it the one⁸, employing two names respecting the same thing? Or how do you say?
[244c] Theætetus: What answer will they give to these things, O guest?
[244c] Guest: It is evident, Theætetus, that he who lays down this hypothesis will not be able with perfect ease to answer the present question, or any other whatever.
[244d] Theætetus: How so?
[244d] Guest: To acknowledge that there are two names, while establishing nothing but one thing, is ridiculous.
[244d] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[244d] Guest: And this also is ridiculous, to assent in every respect to him who asserts that there is a name to a thing of which no account can be given.
[244d] Theætetus: In what manner?
[244d] Guest: He who establishes a name different from a thing, speaks of two certain things.
[244d] Theætetus: He does.
[244d] Guest: And besides this, if he asserts that a name is the same with a thing, he is either compelled to say that it is the name of nothing; or, if he says it is the name of something, it must happen that a name is alone the name of a name, but of nothing else.
[244d] Theætetus: It must so. guest. And the one must be the one being alone of one, and this must be the one being of a name. [244e] theæ. It is necessary. guest. But what, do they say that which is a whole is different from one being, or the same with it? theæ. Undoubtedly, they will and do say so. guest. If, therefore, a whole is, as Parmenides⁹ says, “that which is every where similar to the bulk of a perfect sphere, entirely possessing equal powers from the middle; for nothing is greater or more stable than this:”—if this be the case, it is necessary that being should have a middle and an extremity. And having these, it must unavoidably have parts. Or how shall we say?
[245a] Theætetus: Just so.
[245a] Guest: But, indeed, nothing hinders but that, when it is divided, it should have the passion of the one, in all its parts, and that thus the one should be every being, and a whole.
[245a] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[245a] Guest: But is it not impossible that that which suffers these things should be the one?
[245a] Theætetus: Why?
[245a] Guest: Because, according to right reason, that which is truly one should be said to be entirely without parts.
[245a] Theætetus: It must indeed necessarily be so.
[245b] Guest: But such a thing as we have just now mentioned, in consequence of consisting of many parts, would not harmonize with the one.
[245b] Theætetus: I understand you.
[245b] Guest: But whether will the whole having the passion of the one, be thus one, and a whole, or must we by no means say that the one is a whole?
[245b] Theætetus: You propose a difficult choice.
[245b] Guest: You speak most true. For, since in a certain respect being is passive to the one, it does not appear to be the same with the one, and all things will be more than one. Is it not so?
[245b] Theætetus: Yes.
[245c] Guest: But likewise if being is a non-whole on account of its becoming passive to whole, but yet is whole itself, being in this case will happen to be indigent of itself.
[245c] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[245c] Guest: And being, according to this reasoning, since it is deprived of itself, will be non-being.
[245c] Theætetus: It will so.
[245c] Guest: And thus again all things will be more than one, since being and the whole are allotted their proper nature, each separate from the other.
[245c] Theætetus: True.
[245d] Guest: And if the whole has in no respect a subsistence, these same things will take place with respect to being; and besides, being not having a subsistence, neither will it at any time have been generated.
[245d] Theætetus: Why not?
[245d] Guest: Whatever is generated is always generated a whole. So that he who does not place in the rank of beings, the one or the whole, ought neither to denominate essence, nor generation, as that which has a being.
[245d] Theætetus: It appears that this is entirely the case.
[245d] Guest: Likewise, that which is not a whole ought not to be any quantum whatever. For, being a certain quantum, so far as it is so, it must necessarily be a whole.
[245d] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[245e] Guest: It appears, therefore, that every one will be involved in ten thousand other insoluble doubts, who says that being is alone either two or one.
[245e] Theætetus: This is nearly evident by the things which have just now been shown. For greater and more difficult doubts will always follow each other in a connected series, respecting what has been above asserted.
[246a] Guest: But we have not yet discussed the assertions of those who accurately discourse about being and non-being. At the same time, what we have already said is sufficient. But let us again consider those who speak inaccurately about these, that we may perceive from all things, that it is in no respect more easy to say what being is, than what non-being is.
[246a] Theætetus: It will be, therefore, requisite to consider those.
[246a] Guest: Indeed, there appears to be among these a certain gigantic war as it were, through the doubts in which they are mutually involved respecting essence.
[246a] Theætetus: How so?
[246b] Guest: Some of these draw down all things from heaven and the invisible region to earth, seizing in reality, for this purpose, rocks and oaks. For, in consequence of touching all such things as these, they strenuously contend that that alone has a being which can be seen and handled¹⁰, and this they define to be body and essence. But if any one says that there are other things which are without a body, they perfectly despise the assertion, and are unwilling to hear of any thing that is not corporeal.
[246b] Theætetus: You speak of dire men: but I also have frequently met with such.
[246c] Guest: On the contrary, the opponents of these men very religiously contend supernally from the invisible region, and compel certain intelligible and incorporeal species to be true essence: but by their arguments they break into small pieces the bodies of the others, and that which is denominated by them truth, at the same time calling it flowing generation instead of essence. But between these, Theætetus, an immense contest always subsisted.
[246c] Theætetus: True.
[246c] Guest: Let us now, therefore, receive from each a particular account of the essence established by each.
[246d] Theætetus: But how can we receive it?
[246d] Guest: From those that place essence in forms we may easily receive it: for they are more mild. But from those who violently draw all things to body we shall receive it more difficultly. And perhaps it will be nearly impossible to do so. It appears to me, however, that we should act in the following manner with respect to them.
[246d] Theætetus: How?
[246d] Guest: It will be best, if possible, to make them in reality better: but if this is impossible, we must be content with making them so in our discourse, and suppose them to answer more equitably than at present they would be willing to do. For that which is assented to by better men possesses more authority than that which is assented to by worse men. However, we pay no attention to these things, but explore the truth.
[246e] Theætetus: Most right.
[246e] Guest: Order them, therefore, as being made better to answer you, and to unfold the meaning of that which they assert.
[246e] Theætetus: Be it so.
[246e] Guest: Do they, therefore, say, that what they call a mortal animal is any thing?
[246e] Theætetus: Undoubtedly they do.
[247a] Guest: And do they not acknowledge that this is an animated body?
[247a] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[247a] Guest: And, admitting this, do they also acknowledge that soul is something?
[247a] Theætetus: Yes.
[247a] Guest: Do they likewise assert that one soul is just, and another unjust; and that one is wise, and another unwise?
[247a] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[247a] Guest: But does not every soul become such through the habit and presence of justice, and the contrary, through the habit and presence of the contraries to these?
[247a] Theætetus: These things also they will assent to.
[247a] Guest: But will they say that that is altogether any thing, which is able to be present to and absent from any thing?
[247a] Theætetus: They will.
[247b] Guest: Since, therefore, justice is something, and likewise prudence, and every other virtue, and the contraries to the virtues, together with soul in which these subsist, whether will they say that each of these is visible and tangible, or that all of them are invisible?
[247b] Theætetus: They will nearly assert that no one of these is visible.
[247b] Guest: But what? Will they say that any one of things of this kind has a body?
[247c] Theætetus: They will not give the same answer to the whole of this question: but soul itself will appear to them to possess a certain body; but with respect to prudence, and the other things about which you just now inquired, they will be restrained by shame from daring strenuously to assert, that they are either nothing, or that all of them are bodies.
[247c] Guest: The men, Theætetus, are clearly become better. For such of them as are Spartans or natives would not be ashamed to assert this, but would contend that whatever cannot be grasped by the hands is altogether nothing.
[247c] Theætetus: You nearly speak their conceptions.
[247c] Guest: Let us, therefore, again ask them. For, if they are willing to grant that even any trifling thing is incorporeal, it is sufficient. For we ask them respecting that which is connate with incorporeal, and at the same time with corporeal natures, what it is they look to, when they say that both of them have a being.
[247d] Theætetus: Perhaps they would not be able to give an answer, if they should suffer any thing of this kind.
[247d] Guest: Consider whether, in consequence of our proposing this question, they will be willing to admit and acknowledge that being is a thing of this kind.
[247e] Theætetus: Of what kind? Speak, and perhaps we shall understand.
[247e] Guest: I say then that whatever possesses any power, whether of doing any thing naturally, or of suffering though in the least degree from the vilest thing, and though this takes place but once,—every thing of this kind truly is. For I define being to be nothing else than power.
[247e] Theætetus: But since they cannot at present say any thing better than this, they must admit it.
[248a] Guest: It is well said: for perhaps afterwards both we and they may think differently. Let this then now remain acknowledged by them.
[248a] Theætetus: Let it remain.
[248a] Guest: Let us now proceed to the others, the friends of forms. And do you unfold to us their sentiments.
[248a] Theætetus: Be it so.
[248a] Guest: Do you then say that generation is one thing, and essence another, separating them from each other?
[248a] Theætetus: We do.
[248a] Guest: And do you admit that by our body we communicate with generation, through sense, but that by our soul we communicate with true essence, through the reasoning power? Do you likewise say, that true essence always subsists similarly according to the same, but that generation subsists differently at different times?
[248b] Theætetus: We do.
[248b] Guest: But, O best of men, what do you call the communion which subsists between these two? Is it that which we just now mentioned?
[248b] Theætetus: What was that?
[248b] Guest: Passion or action arising from a certain power, from the concurrence of things with each other. Perhaps you, Theætetus, do not know what answer they would give to this question; but perhaps I do, through my familiarity with them.
[248b] Theætetus: What answer then would they give?
[248c] Guest: They would not grant us that which was just now said to the earth-born men respecting essence.
[248c] Theætetus: What was that?
[248c] Guest: We established this to be a sufficient definition of beings, viz. when a power though the smallest is present to any thing, either of acting or suffering.
[248c] Theætetus: We did.
[248c] Guest: To this they will say, that a power of acting and suffering is present with generation, but that no power of this kind is adapted to essence.
[248c] Theætetus: They will, therefore, speak to the purpose.
[248d] Guest: To this, however, we must say, that we require to hear from them still more clearly, whether they acknowledge that the soul knows, and that essence is known.
[248d] Theætetus: They certainly say so.
[248d] Guest: But what? Do you say that to know, or to be known, is action, or passion, or both? Or do you say that action is one thing, and passion another? Or that neither of these participates in no respect of the other? It is evident, indeed, that neither participates of the other. For, if they admitted this, they would contradict what they asserted above.
[248e] Theætetus: I understand you.
[248e] Guest: For if to know was to do something, it would necessarily happen that what is known would suffer, or become passive. And thus, according to this reasoning, essence being known by knowledge, would, so far as it is known, be moved, through becoming passive; which we say cannot take place about a thing at rest.
[248e] Theætetus: Right.
[249a] Guest: What then, by Jupiter, shall we be easily persuaded that true motion, life, soul¹¹, and prudence, are not present to that which is perfectly being, and that it neither lives, nor is wise, but abides immovable, not possessing a venerable and holy intellect?
[249a] Theætetus: But it would be a dire thing, O guest, to admit this.
[249a] Guest: Shall we say then that it possesses intellect, but not life?
[249a] Theætetus: And how?
[249a] Guest: Or shall we say that both these reside in it, but that it does not possess these in soul?
[249a] Theætetus: But after what other manner can it possess these?
[249a] Guest: Shall we then say that it possesses intellect, life, and soul, but that, though animated, it abides perfectly immovable?
[249b] Theætetus: All these things apppear to me to be irrational.
[249b] Guest: We must therefore grant, that both that which is moved, and motion, are beings.
[249b] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[249b] Guest: It follows therefore, Theætetus, that intellect will never in any respect be present to any thing immovable.
[249b] Theætetus: It does follow.
[249b] Guest: But, indeed, if we grant that all things are borne along and moved, we shall by such an assertion take away sameness from beings.
[249c] Theætetus: How so?
[249c] Guest: Does it appear to you that that which subsists according to the same, and in a similar manner, and about the same, can ever subsist without permanency?
[249c] Theætetus: By no means.
[249c] Guest: But do you perceive that intellect ever was, or is, without these?
[249c] Theætetus: In the smallest degree.
[249d] Guest: But besides this, we should oppose, by every possible argument, him who entirely taking away science, or prudence, or intellect, strenuously endeavours to introduce any thing else.
[249d] Theætetus: And very much so.
[249d] Guest: But it is perfectly necessary, as it appears, that the philosopher, and he who honours these things in the highest degree, should not assent to those who, asserting that there is either one, or many species of things, consider the universe as standing still: nor yet should he by any means hear those who affirm that being is every where moved; but, according to the opinion even of boys, he should call things immovable, and things moved, considered as subsisting together, being, and the all.
[249e] Theætetus: Most true.
[249e] Guest: Do we not, then, now appear to have equitably comprehended being in our discourse?
[249e] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[249e] Guest: Now therefore, Theætetus, as it appears to me, we are strangely involved in doubt.
[249e] Theætetus: How so? and why do you assert this?
[249e] Guest: Do you not perceive, O blessed man, that we are at present in the greatest ignorance respecting being, and yet we have appeared to ourselves to say something about it?
[249e] Theætetus: I do perceive it; but I do not altogether understand in what respect we have deceived ourselves.
[250a] Guest: Consider more clearly, whether, in consequence of assenting to these things, any one may justly interrogate us, in the same manner as we interrogated those who said that the whole of things consisted of the hot and the cold.
[250a] Theætetus: Remind me what these interrogations were.
[250a] Guest: By all means: and I will endeavour to do this by asking you the same question as I then asked them, that we may at the same time make some advance in our inquiry.
[250b] Theætetus: Right.
[250b] Guest: Do you not then say, that motion and permanency are contrary to each other?
[250b] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[250b] Guest: And do you not likewise say, that both and each of them similarly are?
[250b] Theætetus: I do.
[250b] Guest: Do you, therefore, say, that both and each are moved, when you admit that they are?
[250b] Theætetus: By no means.
[250b] Guest: But do you signify that they stand still, when you say that both are?
[250b] Theætetus: But how can I?
[250b] Guest: You may, therefore, place in your soul being, as a third thing different from these, considering it as comprehending under itself permanency and motion; and looking to the communion of these with essence, you may thus assert that both of them are.
[250c] Theætetus: We seem to prophesy that being is a certain third thing, when we say that there are motion and permanency.
[250c] Guest: Being, therefore, is not both motion and permanency, but something different from these.
[250c] Theætetus: It appears so.
[250c] Guest: Hence being, according to its own nature, neither stands still, nor is moved.
[250c] Theætetus: It is nearly so.
[250c] Guest: Where then ought he to turn his thoughts, who wishes to establish in himself any clear conceptions respecting being?
[250c] Theætetus: Where?
[250c] Guest: I do not think it is yet easy for him to turn his thoughts any where. For, if being is not moved, why does it not stand still? Or how is it possible, if it in no respect stands still, that it should not be moved? But being has now appeared to us without both these. Is this, however, possible?
[250d] Theætetus: It is the most impossible of all things.
[250d] Guest: In the next place, therefore, it will be just to call to mind this.
[250d] Theætetus: What?
[250d] Guest: That being asked respecting the name of non-being, we were involved in the greatest doubt respecting what it ought to be. Do you remember?
[250d] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[250d] Guest: Are we, therefore, now involved in less doubt respecting being?
[250e] Theætetus: If it be possible to say so, O guest, we appear to be involved in greater doubt.
[251a] Guest: Let this ambiguity then rest here. But since both being and non-being equally participate of doubt, we may now hope, that if one of them shall appear to be more obscure, or more clear, the other likewise will appear to be the same: and again, that if we should not be able to perceive one of them, the other will also be invisible to us. And thus we shall pursue the discourse respecting both of them in the most becoming manner we are able.
[251a] Theætetus: It is well said.
[251a] Guest: Let us relate, then, after what manner we denominate this same thing by many names.
[251a] Theætetus: Adduce for this purpose a certain paradigm.
[251b] Guest: In speaking of man, we give him various appellations, and attribute to him colour, figure, magnitude, virtue, and vice; in all which, and ten thousand other particulars, we not only say that man is, but that he is good, and an infinity of other things: and we act in a similar manner with respect to other particulars; for, considering each as one thing, we again call it many things, and by many names.
[251b] Theætetus: True.
[251c] Guest: Whence, I think, we have given a feast to young men, and to those who study in old age. For it is easy for every one immediately to object, that it is impossible for the many to be one, and the one many. Hence, they will exult, not suffering us to say that a man is good, but that good is good, and man man. For I think, Theætetus, that you have often met with young men who seriously apply themselves to things of this kind, and sometimes with men advanced in years, who, through the poverty of their possessions with respect to wisdom, admire such things as these, and who think themselves all-wise for having discovered this.
[251c] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[251c] Guest: That our discourse, therefore, may extend to all who have ever asserted any thing respecting essence, let what we shall now say in the way of interrogation be understood as addressed as well to these as to those others whom we have above mentioned.
[251d] Theætetus: What is it you are now going to say?
[251d] Guest: Whether we should neither conjoin essence with motion and permanency, nor any thing else with any thing else, but, as if things were unmingled, and it were impossible for them to communicate with each other, we should consider them as separate in our discourse? Or whether we should collect all things into the same, as if they were able to communicate with each other? Or consider this as the case with some things, but not with others? Which of these, Theætetus, shall we say is to be preferred?
[251e] Theætetus: I indeed have nothing to answer to these things. Why, therefore, do you not, by answering to each particular, consider what follows from each?
[251e] Guest: You speak well. We will suppose them, therefore, if you please, to say, in the first place, that nothing has any power of communicating with any thing, in any respect. Will it not, therefore, follow, that motion and permanency in no respect participate of essence?
[251e] Theætetus: They certainly will not.
[252a] Guest: But what? Will any one of them be, and at the same time have no communication with essence?
[252a] Theætetus: It will not.
[252a] Guest: From consenting to this, all things, as it seems, will become rapidly subverted, as well the doctrine of those who contend that all things are moved, as of those who contend that all things stand still, together with the dogmas of those who assert that such things as subsist according to forms or species subsist similarly according to the same. For all these conjoin being with their doctrines, some asserting that things are truly moved, and others that they truly stand still.
[252b] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[252b] Guest: Such, likewise, as at one time unite all things, and at another time separate them, whether dividing from one thing into things infinite, or into things which have finite elements, and composing from these, and whether they consider this as partially, or as always taking place,—in all these cases they will say nothing to the purpose, if there is in no respect a mixture of things.
[252b] Theætetus: Right.
[252b] Guest: Further still, we ourselves shall have discoursed the most ridiculously of all men, who permitting nothing pertaining to the communion of the passion of different, have yet used the appellation the other.
[252b] Theætetus: How so?
[252c] Guest: They are in a certain respect compelled to employ the term to be, about all things, likewise the terms separate, others, and by itself, and ten thousand others, from which being unable to abstain, and finding it necessary to insert these expressions in their discourses, they do not require any other confutation, but, as it is said, they have an enemy and an adversary at home, vociferating within, and always walk as if carrying about with them the absurd Eurycles¹².
[252d] Theætetus: You very much speak of that which is like and true.
[252d] Guest: But what if we should permit all things to have the power of communicating with each other? This, indeed, I myself am able to dissolve.
[252d] Theætetus: How?
[252d] Guest: Because motion itself would entirely stand still, and again, permanency itself would be moved, if they were mingled with each other. But this indeed is impossible from the greatest necessity, that motion should stand still, and permanency be moved.
[252d] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[252d] Guest: The third thing, therefore, alone remains.
[252d] Theætetus: It does.
[252d] Guest: For one of these things is necessary, either that all things should be mingled together, or nothing; or that some things should be willing to be mingled with each other, and that other things should be unwilling.
[252e] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[252e] Guest: And two of the members of this division cannot be found.
[252e] Theætetus: They cannot.
[252e] Guest: Every one, therefore, who wishes to answer rightly should adopt that which remains of the three.
[252e] Theætetus: And very much so.
[253a] Guest: But since some things are willing to be mingled, and others not, they will nearly be affected in the same manner as letters. For some of these are incongruous with respect to each other, but others mutually harmonize.
[253a] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[253a] Guest: For vowels being in a particular manner the bond, as it were, of the other letters, pervade through all of them, so that without some one of these it is impossible for any two of the others to accord with each other.
[253a] Theætetus: And very much so.
[253a] Guest: Does every one, therefore, know what letters will communicate with each other? or is art requisite in order to accomplish this sufficiently?
[253a] Theætetus: Art is requisite.
[253a] Guest: What kind of art?
[253b] Theætetus: The grammatic.
[253b] Guest: And is not this the case with respect to sharp and flat sounds? I mean, Is not he who knows by art what sounds are consonant or dissonant, a musician, but he who is ignorant of this not so?
[253b] Theætetus: It is.
[253b] Guest: And in other arts, and the privation of arts, we shall find other such circumstances take place.
[253b] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[253b] Guest: Since then we have acknowledged, that the genera¹³ of being are mixed with each other, after the same manner, ought not he necessarily to proceed in his discourse scientifically, who is about to show what genera mutually accord, and what do not admit each other? Likewise, whether these genera so hold together through all things as to be capable of being mutually mingled? And again in their divisions, if there is another cause of division through wholes?
[253c] Theætetus: How is it possible science should not be requisite for this purpose, and nearly, perhaps, the greatest of all sciences?
[253d] Guest: What then, again, Theætetus, shall we call this science? Or, by Jupiter, have we ignorantly fallen upon the science of the liberal? And do we appear, while investigating a sophist, to have first found a philosopher?
[253d] Theætetus: How do you say?
[253d] Guest: Do we not say, that to divide according to genera, and neither to think the same species different, nor a different species the same, is the business of the dialectic science?
[253e] Theætetus: We do say so.
[253e] Guest: He, therefore, who is able to do this, sufficiently perceives one idea¹⁴ every way extended through many things, the individuals of which are placed apart from each other, and many ideas different from each other externally comprehended under one, and one idea through many wholes conjoined in one; and lastly, many ideas, every way divided apart from each other. This is to know scientifically, how to distinguish according to genus, in what respect particulars communicate, and how far they do not communicate with each other.
[253e] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[253e] Guest: But I think you do not give dialectic to any other than one who philosophizes purely and justly.
[253e] Theætetus: For how is it possible to give it to any other?
[253e] Guest: If we seek, indeed, we shall find a philosopher in a place of this kind, both now and hereafter, though it is also difficult to see this character clearly; but the difficulty of perceiving a sophist is of a different kind from that with which the perceiving a philosopher is attended.
[254a] Theætetus: How so?
[254a] Guest: The former flying into the darkness of non-being, and by use becoming adapted to it, is with difficulty perceived through the obscurity of the place. Is it not so?
[254a] Theætetus: So it seems.
[254b] Guest: But the philosopher through reasoning, being always situated near the idea of being, is by no means easily discerned, on account of the splendor of the region. For the eyes of vulgar souls are unable to support the view of that which is divine.
[254b] Theætetus: It is likely that these things subsist in this manner, no less than those.
[254b] Guest: About this particular, therefore, we shall perhaps at another time consider more clearly, if it be permitted us. But, with respect to the sophist, it is evident that we should not dismiss him till we have sufficiently surveyed him.
[254b] Theætetus: You speak well.
[254b] Guest: Since then it [254c] is acknowledged by us, that some of the genera of being communicate with each other, and that some do not, and that some communicate with a few, and others with many things, and others again are not hindered from communicating through all things with all things;—this being the case, let us, in the next place, following the order of discourse, speculate not about all species, lest we should be confounded by their multitude,—but, choosing certain of those which are called the greatest, let us, in the first place, consider the qualities of each, and, in the next place, what communion of power they possess with each other, that we may not in any respect be indigent of discourse about being and non-being (though we may not be able to comprehend them with perfect perspicuity), as far as the condition of the present speculation admits. If, therefore, while we are assimilating non-being, we should say that it is truly non-being, we should be exculpated.
[254d] Theætetus: It would indeed be proper that we should.
[254d] Guest: But the greatest of all the genera which we have now mentioned are, being itself, permanency, and motion.
[254d] Theætetus: Very much so.
[254d] Guest: And we have said that the two latter are unmingled with each other.
[254d] Theætetus: Very much so.
[254d] Guest: But being is mingled with both: for both after a manner are.
[254d] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[254d] Guest: These things then become three.
[254d] Theætetus: Certainly.
[254d] Guest: Is not, therefore, each of these different from the other two, but the same with itself?
[254e] Theætetus: It is.
[255a] Guest: What then shall we now say respecting sameness and difference? Shall we say that they are two certain genera, different from the other three, but yet always mingled with them from necessity? And thus are we to consider about five, and not three genera only? Or are we ignorant that we have denominated this sameness and difference, as something belonging to the other three?
[255a] Theætetus: Perhaps so.
[255a] Guest: But, indeed, motion and permanency are neither different nor same.
[255a] Theætetus: How so?
[255a] Guest: That which we in common call motion and permanency can be neither of these.
[255a] Theætetus: Why?
[255b] Guest: Because motion would be permanent, and permanency be moved. For, with respect to both, the one becoming the other, would compel that other to change into the contrary to its nature, as participating of the contrary.
[255b] Theætetus: Very much so.
[255b] Guest: But yet both participate of same and different.
[255b] Theætetus: They do.
[255b] Guest: We must not, therefore, say that motion is either same or different, nor yet must we assert this of permanency.
[255b] Theætetus: We must not.
[255b] Guest: Are, therefore, being and sameness to be considered by us as one certain thing?
[255c] Theætetus: Perhaps so.
[255c] Guest: But if being and sameness signify that which is in no respect different, when we again assert of motion and permanency, that both are, we thus denominate both of them the same, as things which have a being.
[255c] Theætetus: But, indeed, this is impossible.
[255c] Guest: It is impossible, therefore, that sameness and being should be one thing.
[255c] Theætetus: Nearly so.
[255c] Guest: We must place sameness, therefore, as a fourth species, in addition to the former three.
[255c] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[255c] Guest: But what? Must we not say that difference is a fifth species? Or is it proper to think that this, and being, are two names belonging to one genus?
[255c] Theætetus: Perhaps so.
[255c] Guest: But I think you will grant, that of beings, some always subsist themselves by themselves, but others in relation to other things.
[255c] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[255d] Guest: But different is always referred to different. Is it not?
[255d] Theætetus: It is.
[255d] Guest: But this would not be the case unless being and difference widely differed from each other. But if difference participated of both species, as is the case with being, there would be some one among things different, which would be no longer different with reference to that which is different. But now it happens from necessity, that whatever is different is so from its relation to that which is different.
[255d] Theætetus: It is as you say.
[255d] Guest: We must say, then, that the nature of different must be added as a fifth to the species of which we have already spoken.
[255e] Theætetus: Yes.
[255e] Guest: And we must likewise say that it pervades through all these. For each one of the others is different, not through its own nature, but through participating the idea of difference.
[255e] Theætetus: And very much so.
[255e] Guest: But we may thus speak respecting each of the five genera.
[255e] Theætetus: How?
[255e] Guest: In the first place, that motion is entirely different from permanency. Or how shall we say?
[255e] Theætetus: That it is so.
[255e] Guest: It is not, therefore, permanency.
[255e] Theætetus: By no means.
[256a] Guest: But it is, through participating of being.
[256a] Theætetus: It is.
[256a] Guest: Again, motion is different from sameness.
[256a] Theætetus: Nearly so.
[256a] Guest: It is not, therefore, sameness.
[256a] Theætetus: It is not.
[256a] Guest: And yet it is same, in consequence of all things participating of sameness.
[256a] Theætetus: And very much so.
[256a] Guest: It must be confessed, therefore, that motion is both same, and not same, nor must we be indignant that it is so. For, when we say that it is both same, and not same, we do not speak of it in a similar manner; but when we say it is same, we call it so, through the participation of sameness with respect to itself; and when we say it is not same, we call it so through its communion with different, through which, separating it from same, it becomes not same, but different. So that it is again rightly said to be not same.
[256b] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[256b] Guest: If, therefore, motion itself should in any respect participate of permanency, there would be no absurdity in calling it stable.
[256b] Theætetus: Most right, since we have acknowledged that some of the genera are willing to be mingled with each other, and others not.
[256b] Guest: And, indeed, we arrived at the demonstration of this prior to what we have evinced at present, by proving that the thing subsists after this manner.
[256c] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[256c] Guest: But we may again say that motion is different from different, just as it is different from sameness and permanency.
[256c] Theætetus: It is necessary.
[256c] Guest: It is, therefore, in a certain respect, not different and different, according to this reasoning.
[256c] Theætetus: True.
[256d] Guest: What then follows? Shall we say it is different from three of the genera, but not from the fourth? acknowledging that the genera are five, about which, and in which, we propose to speculate?
[256d] Theætetus: And how?
[256d] Guest: For it is impossible to grant that they are fewer in number than they now appear to be. We may, therefore, safely contend, that motion is different from being.
[256d] Theætetus: We may, most safely.
[256d] Guest: It clearly follows, therefore, that motion is truly non-being, and at the same time being, since it participates of being.
[256e] Theætetus: Most clearly.
[256e] Guest: Non-being, therefore, is necessarily in motion, and in all the genera. For, in all of them, the nature of different rendering them different from being, makes each to be non-being. Hence, we rightly say that all of them are non-beings; and again, because they participate of being, that they are, and are beings.
[256e] Theætetus: It appears so.
[256e] Guest: About each of the species, therefore, there is much of being, but there is also non-being infinite in multitude.
[257a] Theætetus: It appears so.
[257a] Guest: Must not, therefore, being itself be said to be different from the others?
[257a] Theætetus: It is necessary.
[257a] Guest: Being, therefore, is not so many in number as the others; for, not being them, it is itself one, but is not other things, which are infinite in number.
[257a] Theætetus: This is nearly the case.
[257a] Guest: We ought not, therefore, to be indignant at these things, since the genera have naturally a mutual communion. But if some one does not admit these things, yet, as we have been persuaded by the former assertions, in like manner we ought to be persuaded by these.
[257b] Theætetus: You speak most justly.
[257b] Guest: We may also see this.
[257b] Theætetus: What?
[257b] Guest: When we say non-being, we do not, as it appears, say any thing contrary to being, but only that which is different¹⁵.
[257b] Theætetus: How so?
[257b] Guest: Just as when we say a thing is not great, do we then appear to you to evince by this word that which is small rather than that which is equal?
[257b] Theætetus: How is it possible we should?
[257b] Guest: We must not, therefore, admit that the contrary to a thing is signified, when negation is spoken of; but thus much only must be asserted, that the terms not, and neither, signify something of other things, when placed before names, or rather before things, about which the names of the negations afterwards enunciated are distributed.
[257c] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[257c] Guest: This also we may consider by a dianoëtic energy, if it is agreeable to you.
[257c] Theætetus: What is that?
[257c] Guest: The nature of different appears to me to be cut into small parts, in the same manner as science.
[257c] Theætetus: How?
[257d] Guest: This nature itself is one; but a part of it residing in any thing and being individually defined, possesses a private appellation of its own; on which account there are said to be many arts and sciences.
[257d] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[257d] Guest: Do not, therefore, the parts of the nature of different, which is itself one thing, suffer this very same thing?
[257d] Theætetus: Perhaps so. But we must show how this takes place.
[257d] Guest: Is there any part of different opposite to the beautiful?
[257d] Theætetus: There is.
[257d] Guest: Must we say that this part is nameless, or that it has a certain name?
[257d] Theætetus: That it has a name. For every thing which we say is not beautiful, is not different from any thing else than the nature of the beautiful.
[257e] Guest: Come, then, answer me the following question.
[257e] Theætetus: What question?
[257e] Guest: When any thing is defined as belonging to one particular genus, and is again opposed to a certain essence, does it happen that thus it is not beautiful?
[257e] Theætetus: It does.
[257e] Guest: But the opposition of being to being happens, as it seems, to be not beautiful.
[257e] Theætetus: Most right.
[257e] Guest: What then? Does it follow from this reasoning that the beautiful belongs more to beings, and the non-beautiful less?
[258a] Theætetus: It does not.
[258a] Guest: We must say, therefore, that the non-great and the great similarly are.
[258a] Theætetus: Similarly.
[258a] Guest: Hence, too, we must assert of the just and the non-just, that the one in no respect is more than the other.
[258a] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[258a] Guest: And the same must be said of other things, since the nature of different appears to rank among beings. But difference having a subsistence, it is necessary to place the parts of it as no less having subsistence.
[258b] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[258b] Guest: As it appears, therefore, the opposition of a part of the nature of different, and of the parts of being, are no less essence, if it be lawful so to speak, than being itself; nor do they signify that which is contrary to being, but only something different from it.
[258b] Theætetus: It is most clear.
[258b] Guest: What then shall we call it?
[258b] Theætetus: It is evident that non-being, which we have sought after on account of a sophist, is this very thing.
[258c] Guest: Whether, therefore, as you say, is it no more deficient of essence than the others? And ought we now boldly to say, that non-being possesses its own nature firmly, in the same manner as the great was found to be great, and the beautiful beautiful, and the non-great to be non-great, and the non-beautiful non-beautiful? Shall we in like manner say, that non-being was and is non-being, as one species which must be numbered among many beings? Or must we still, Theætetus, be diffident about this?
[258c] Theætetus: By no means.
[258d] Guest: Do you perceive, therefore, how disobedient we have been to the prohibition of Parmenides?
[258d] Theætetus: In what respect?
[258d] Guest: We have wandered beyond the limits he appointed us, by thus continuing still further to explore and evince.
[258d] Theætetus: How?
[258d] Guest: Because he says, “Non-beings never, and by no means are; but do you, while investigating, restrain your conceptions from this path.”
[258d] Theætetus: He does speak in this manner.
[258e] Guest: But we have not only shown that non-beings are, but we have demonstrated what the form of non-being is. For, having evinced that the nature of different has a subsistence, and that it is divided into small parts, which are mutually distributed through all things, we then dared to say, that the part of it which is opposed to the being of every thing, is itself truly non-being.
[259a] Theætetus: And to me, O guest, we appear to have spoken with the greatest truth.
[259a] Guest: Let no one, therefore, say, that we, having evinced that non-being is contrary to being, dare to assert that it is. For we some time since bade farewell to him who asks whether that which is contrary to any thing has a subsistence, and possesses a certain reason, or is entirely irrational. But, with respect to that which we now call non-being, either some one who is not persuaded by our arguments should confute us, as not having spoken well; or, if he cannot do this, he must also say as we say, that the genera are mingled with each other, and that being and different pervading through all things, and through [259b] each other, different participating of being, is through this participation, not being that of which it participates, but something else. But, being different from being, it clearly follows that it is necessarily non-being. And again, being, in consequence of participating of difference, will be different from the other genera: but being different from all of them, it is not any one of them, nor all the others, nor any thing besides itself. So that, without doubt, being is not ten thousand things in ten thousand things: and, in like manner, each and all of the other genera are multifariously distributed, but are not themselves multifarious.
[259b] Theætetus: True.
[259c] Guest: And if any one does not believe in these contrarieties, he should consider, and assert something better than has been now said. Or if some one, in consequence of finding this to be a difficult speculation, rejoices, drawing the arguments from one side to another, such a one, as our present reasoning asserts, is not engaged in a pursuit which deserves much serious attention. For this neither possesses any thing elegant, nor is difficult to discover; but that is difficult, and at the same time beautiful.
[259d] Theætetus: What?
[259d] Guest: That of which we have spoken above; I mean that, omitting these particulars, we may be able to confute any one who asserts that different is same, or same different. For, to show that same is different, and different same, that the great is small, and the similar dissimilar, and to rejoice in thus introducing contraries in discourse, is not a true confutation, but is evidently the province of one who has but a slight apprehension of the thing, and is recently born.
[259e] Theætetus: Very much so.
[259e] Guest: For, O excellent young man, to endeavour to separate every thing from every thing, is both inelegant, and the province of one rude and destitute of philosophy.
[259e] Theætetus: Why so?
[259e] Guest: To dissolve each thing from all things, is the most perfect abolition of all discourse. For discourse subsists through the conjunction of species with each other.
[260a] Theætetus: True.
[260a] Guest: Consider, therefore, how opportunely we have now contended with men of this kind, and compelled them to permit one thing to be mingled with another.
[260a] Theætetus: With a view to what?
[260b] Guest: To this, that discourse may be one certain thing belonging to the genera of being. For, if we are deprived of this, we shall, for the most part, be deprived of philosophy. And further still, it is requisite at present that we should mutually consent to determine what discourse is. But, if it is entirely taken away from us, we can no longer speak about any thing. And it will be taken away, if we admit that things are not in any respect mingled with each other.
[260b] Theætetus: Right. But I do not understand why we should now mutually consent to determine what discourse is.
[260b] Guest: But, perhaps, you will easily understand by attending to this.
[260b] Theætetus: To what?
[260b] Guest: Non-being has appeared to us to be one of the other genera, and to be dispersed through all beings.
[260b] Theætetus: It has so.
[260b] Guest: After this, therefore, we should consider whether it is mingled with opinion and discourse.
[260b] Theætetus: On what account?
[260c] Guest: Because, if it is not mingled with these, it must necessarily follow that all things are true: but, if it is mingled with these, false opinion and false discourse must be produced. For to opine, or speak of non-beings, is itself falsehood subsisting in the dianoëtic part and discourse.
[260c] Theætetus: It is so.
[260c] Guest: But, being falsehood, it is deception.
[260c] Theætetus: It is.
[260c] Guest: And deception subsisting, all things must necessarily be full of resemblances, images, and phantasy.
[260c] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[260c] Guest: But we have said that the sophist flies into this place, while he denies that there is any such thing as falsehood. For he asserts that no one can either think or speak of non-being; because it in no respect participates of essence.
[260d] Theætetus: These things were said by us.
[260e] Guest: But now it has appeared that non-being participates of being. So that in this respect perhaps he will no longer oppose us. Perhaps however he will say, that of species, some participate of non-being, and others not; and that discourse and opinion rank among those things which do not participate it. So that he will again contend with us, that the image-making and phantastic art, in which we have said he is concealed, has no subsistence; since opinion and discourse have no communion with non-being. [261a] He will likewise assert that falsehood has not any kind of subsistence, since this communion of things is no where to be found. Hence we must investigate the nature of discourse, opinion, and phantasy, that, these becoming apparent, we may perceive their communion with non-being; and, perceiving this, may evince that there is such a thing as falsehood; and, having evinced this, may bind the sophist in it, if he is found to be guilty; or, liberating him, investigate in some other genus.
[261b] Theætetus: That, O guest, which we said at first about the sophist, appears to be very true—I mean, that he is a genus difficult to apprehend. For he appears to be full of problems; nor can any one arrive at his retreats, till he has first vanquished the obstacle which he throws in the way. For now we have scarcely overcome the obstacle which he hurled forth, I mean that non-being is not, and he immediately throws in our way another. Hence it is requisite to show that there is falehood, both in discourse and opinion, and after this perhaps something else, and another thing after that, and so on, as it appears, without end.
[261c] Guest: He, O Theætetus, who is able to make advances continually, though in a small degree, ought to proceed boldly in this affair. For what will he be able to accomplish in other things, who is without ardor in these? For he who either effects nothing in these, or is repelled backwards, will scarcely (according to the proverb) ever take the city. But now, O good man, since as you say this is accomplished, we shall have captured the greatest wall, and the rest will be easy and trifling.
[261c] Theætetus: You speak well.
[261c] Guest: Let us then now, in the first place, as we said, consider discourse and opinion, that we may more clearly show, whether non-being touches upon these, or whether both these are in every respect true, and neither of them at any time false.
[261c] Theætetus: Right.
[261c] Guest: Come then, let us again speculate about nouns, in the same manner as we did about species and letters. For that which is the object of our present investigation appears in a certain respect to have a similar subsistence.
[261d] Theætetus: What is it you wish to be conceived respecting nouns?
[261d] Guest: Whether all of them harmonize with each other; or some accord, but others do not.
[261d] Theætetus: It is evident that some accord, and others do not.
[261e] Guest: Perhaps your meaning is this, that such nouns as in an orderly succession assert and evince something, mutually accord; but that such as signify nothing by continuity, do not mutually accord.
[261e] Theætetus: How do you mean? and what is it you say?
[261e] Guest: What I thought you would both understand and assent to. For there is a twofold genus of vocal declarations respecting essence.
[261e] Theætetus: How?
[261e] Guest: One, which is called nouns, and the other verbs.
[262a] Theætetus: Speak of each.
[262a] Guest: That which is a declaration in actions, we call a verb.
[262a] Theætetus: We do.
[262a] Guest: But a mark or sign of voice imposed on the agents themselves, we call a noun.
[262a] Theætetus: Very much so.
[262a] Guest: From nouns, therefore, alone, enunciated in continued succession, a sentence is never produced; nor yet again from verbs enunciated without nouns.
[262a] Theætetus: These things I have not learned.
[262b] Guest: But it is evident that you just now acknowledged this, when looking to something else. For this is what I wished to say, that when these are enunciated in continued succession, a sentence is not produced.
[262b] Theætetus: How so?
[262b] Guest: As, for instance, walks, runs, sleeps, and such other words as signify actions, all which when any one enunciates in continued succession, he will not by this means produce a sentence.
[262b] Theætetus: For how can he?
[262b] Guest: Again, therefore, when any one says, a lion, a stag, a horse, and such other nouns as signify agents themselves, a sentence will not yet be produced by this continuity. For the things enunciated do not evince action, or a privation of action, or the essence of a thing which is, or which is not, till verbs are mingled with nouns. But when they are harmonized, a sentence is immediately produced, and the first connection of these is nearly the first sentence, though it should be the shortest possible.
[262c] Theætetus: How is this?
[262c] Guest: When any one says, A man learns, would you not say that this is the shortest and first sentence?
[262d] Theætetus: I should.
[262d] Guest: For he then evinces something respecting things which actually are, or are rising into being, or have been, or will be. Nor does he denominate only, but he finishes something connecting verbs and nouns. Hence we say that he speaks, and does not alone denominate, and to this connection we give the name of discourse.
[262d] Theætetus: Right.
[262d] Guest: And thus as we said respecting things, that some harmonized with each other, and that others did not, so likewise with respect to the signs of voice, some do not harmonize, but others do, and produce discourse.
[262e] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[262e] Guest: Further still, attend to this trifling thing,
[262e] Theætetus: To what?
[262e] Guest: That discourse when it takes place must necessarily be a discourse about something: for it is impossible that it can be about nothing.
[262e] Theætetus: It must.
[262e] Guest: Ought it not, therefore, to be of some particular kind?
[262e] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[262e] Guest: Let us then give diligent attention.
[262e] Theætetus: For it is requisite.
[262e] Guest: I will, therefore, enunciate to you a sentence, in which a thing is conjoined with action, through a noun and a verb: but do you inform me of what it is a sentence.
[263a] Theætetus: I will, as far as I am able.
[263a] Guest: Theætetus sits:—is this a long sentence?
[263a] Theætetus: It is not; but a moderate one.
[263a] Guest: It is now your business to say what it is about, and of whom it is a sentence.
[263a] Theætetus: It is evident that it is about me, and of me.
[263a] Guest: But what again with respect to this?
[263a] Theætetus: To what?
[263a] Guest: Theætetus, with whom I now discourse, flies.
[263a] Theætetus: Respecting this also, no one can say but that it is about me, and of me.
[263a] Guest: But we said it was necessary that every sentence should be of some particular kind.
[263b] Theætetus: We did.
[263b] Guest: But of what kind must each of the sentences just now mentioned be?
[263b] Theætetus: One must be false, and the other true.
[263b] Guest: But that which is true asserts things respecting you as they are.
[263b] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[263b] Guest: But that which is false asserts things respecting you different from what they are.
[263b] Theætetus: It does:
[263b] Guest: It speaks, therefore, of things which are not, as if they were.
[263b] Theætetus: Nearly so.
[263b] Guest: And it speaks of things which have a subsistence, but which do not belong to you. For we say, that about every thing there are many things which have a subsistence, and many things which have no subsistence.
[263c] Theætetus: Very much so.
[263c] Guest: In the first place, therefore, it is most necessary, that the latter sentence which I enunciated respecting you should be one of the shortest, according to the definition we have given of a sentence.
[263c] Theætetus: This must now be acknowledged by us.
[263c] Guest: In the next place, it must be confessed that it is a sentence of something.
[263c] Theætetus: It must.
[263c] Guest: But if it is not of you, it is not of any thing else.
[263c] Theætetus: For how should it?
[263c] Guest: But if it is not of any thing, it cannot in any respect be a sentence. For we have shown that it belongs to things impossible, that discourse should exist, and yet be a discourse of nothing.
[263d] Theætetus: Most right.
[263d] Guest: When, therefore, other things are asserted of you, as if they were the same, and things which are not, as things which are, such a composition of verbs and nouns becomes altogether, as it appears, a really and truly false discourse.
[263d] Theætetus: Most true.
[263d] Guest: But what with respect to the dianoëtic energy, opinion, and phantasy, is it not now evident that all these genera, as well the false as the true, are produced in our souls?
[263e] Theætetus: How?
[263e] Guest: You will easily understand, if you first of all apprehend what each of them is, and in what they differ from each other.
[263e] Theætetus: Only inform me.
[263e] Guest: Are not, therefore, the dianoëtic energy and discourse the same, except that the former is an inward dialogue without voice, of soul with itself?
[263e] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[263e] Guest: But the fluxion from the dianoëtic energy through the mouth, proceeding with sound, is called discourse.
[264a] Theætetus: True.
[264a] Guest: We perceive this also in discourse.
[264a] Theætetus: What?
[264a] Guest: Affirmation and negation.
[264a] Theætetus: We do.
[264a] Guest: When, therefore, this takes place in the soul according to the dianoëtic energy, accompanied with silence, can you call it any thing else than opinion?
[264a] Theætetus: How can I?
[264a] Guest: But, when again, a certain passion of this kind is present, not according to the dianoëtic energy, but through sense, can it be rightly denominated any thing else than phantasy?
[264b] Theætetus: Nothing else.
[264b] Guest: Since, then, discourse is both true and false, and it appears that the dianoëtic energy is a dialogue of the soul with itself, but opinion the conclusion of the dianoëtic energy, and phantasy the mixture of sense and opinion with each other, it is necessary, since these are allied to discourse, that some of them should be sometimes true, and sometimes false.
[264b] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[264b] Guest: Do you perceive, therefore, that we have found more easily than we expected, that opinion and discourse are sometimes false? For just now we were afraid, lest by investigating this matter we should attempt a work which it is perfectly impossible to accomplish.
[264c] Theætetus: I do perceive.
[264c] Guest: Let us not, therefore, despair as to what remains; but, since these things are rendered apparent, let us recall into our memory those divisions according to species which we mentioned before.
[264c] Theætetus: Of what kind were they?
[264c] Guest: We divided image-making into two species; the one assimilative, and the other phantastic.
[264d] Theætetus: We did.
[264d] Guest: And we said we were dubious in which of these we should place the sophist.
[264d] Theætetus: These things were said by us.
[264d] Guest: And while we were doubting about this, we were oppressed with a still darker vertigo, in consequence of that assertion which is dubious to all men, that there can be no such thing as either a resemblance, or an image, because that which is false has never in any respect any subsistence whatever.
[264d] Theætetus: You speak the truth.
[264d] Guest: But now since discourse has become apparent, and likewise false opinion, it is possible there may be imitations of things, and that from this disposition the art of deceiving may be produced.
[264e] Theætetus: It is possible.
[264e] Guest: And was it not also acknowledged by us above, that the sophist is conversant with these?
[264e] Theætetus: It was.
[264e] Guest: Let us, therefore, again endeavour, by always bisecting the proposed genus, to proceed to the right hand part of the section, attending to its communion with the sophist, till, having taken away all his common properties, and leaving the nature peculiar to him, we may be able especially to exhibit this to ourselves, and afterwards to those who are naturally most proximate to the genus of this method.
[265a] Theætetus: Right.
[265a] Guest: Did we not, therefore, begin dividing the effective art, and the art of acquiring?
[265a] Theætetus: Yes.
[265a] Guest: And the art of acquiring presented itself to us in hunting, contests, merchandize, and such-like species.
[265b] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[265b] Guest: But now, since the imitative art comprehends the sophist, it is evident that the effective art must first receive a twofold division. For imitation is a certain making. We said, indeed, it was the making of images, and not of things themselves. Did we not?
[265b] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[265b] Guest: But, in the first place, let there be two parts of the effective art.
[265b] Theætetus: What are they?
[265b] Guest: The one is divine, the other human.
[265b] Theætetus: I do not yet understand you.
[265b] Guest: If we remember what was said at first we asserted that the whole of the effective art was a power causing things to exist afterwards which were not before.
[265b] Theætetus: We do remember.
[265c] Guest: But, with respect to all mortal animals, and plants which are produced in the earth from seeds and roots, together with such inanimate natures as subsist on the earth, whether they are bodies which can be liquefied, or not, can we say that they were afterwards generated, when before they were not, by any other than a certain fabricating God? Or shall we employ the dogma and assertion of many?
[265c] Theætetus: What is that?
[265c] Guest: That nature generates these from a certain fortuitous cause, and which operates without thought. Or shall we say that they are produced in conjunction with reason and divine science, originating from Deity itself?
[265d] Theætetus: I, perhaps, through my age, often change my opinion. However, at present looking to you, and apprehending that you think these things were produced by Divinity, I think so too.
[265d] Guest: It is well, [265e] Theætetus. And if we thought that in some future time you would be of a different opinion, we should now endeavour to make you acknowledge this by the force of reason, in conjunction with necessary persuasion; but since I know your nature to be such, that, without any arguments from us, you would of yourself arrive at that conclusion to which I have drawn you, I shall dismiss the attempt; for it would be superfluous. But I adopt this position, that things which are said to subsist from nature are produced by a divine art: but that the things which are composed from these by men, are produced by human art: and that, according to this position, there are two genera of the effective art, one of which is human, and the other divine.
[265e] Theætetus: Right.
[265e] Guest: But, since there are two genera, bisect each of them.
[265e] Theætetus: How?
[265e] Guest: Just as the whole of the effective art was then divided according to breadth, so now let it be divided according to length.
[266a] Theætetus: Let it be so divided.
[266a] Guest: And thus all its parts will become four; two of which indeed, with reference to us, will be human; and two again, with reference to the Gods, divine.
[266a] Theætetus: They will.
[266a] Guest: But with respect to these, as being again divided in a different manner, one part of each division is effective, but the remaining parts may be nearly called representative. And hence, again, the effective art receives a twofold division.
[266b] Theætetus: Inform me again how each is to be divided.
[266b] Guest: With respect to ourselves and other animals, and the things from which they naturally consist, viz. fire and water, and the sisters of these, we know that each of these productions is the offspring of Divinity. Do we not?
[266b] Theætetus: We do.
[266b] Guest: After these the images of each, and not the things themselves, follow; and these are produced by a dæmoniacal artifice.
[266b] Theætetus: What kind of images are these?
[266c] Guest: Phantasms which occur in sleep, and such as appearing in the day are called spontaneous; as, for instance, shadow, when darkness is generated in fire: but this is twofold, when domestic and foreign light concurring in one about splendid¹⁶ and smooth bodies, and producing a sensation of seeing contrary to accustomed vision, effect by these means a species.
[266c] Theætetus: These works, therefore, of divine making are two, viz. the things themselves, and the image which follows each.
[266c] Guest: But what? Shall we not say that our art, by architecture, makes a house, but by painting, that other thing, the image of the house, which is, as it were, a human dream effected by men awake?
[266c] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[266c] Guest: Hence, by giving a twofold division after this manner to other things, we shall again find twofold works of our effective action, and we must call the one auturgic, or the thing itself effected, but the image, representative.
[266d] Theætetus: I now understand you better, and I admit these two species of the effective art, with a twofold division, viz. the divine and human according to one section; and the thing itself effected, and the offspring of certain imitations, according to the other.
[266d] Guest: Let us, therefore, recollect, that of the image-producing art we said, one kind would be assimilative, and the other phantastic, if it should appear that the false is truly false, and one certain thing belonging to beings.
[266e] Theætetus: We did say so.
[266e] Guest: Is it not, therefore, apparent, that we have now indubitably enumerated two species?
[266e] Theætetus: Yes.
[266e] Guest: We must, therefore, again give a twofold distribution to the phantastic species.
[267a] Theætetus: How?
[267a] Guest: One kind being that which is effected through instruments, but the other being the phantasm of that which exhibits itself as the instrument of the efficient.
[267a] Theætetus: How do you say?
[267a] Guest: I think, when any one employing your figure causes body to appear similar to body, or voice to voice, this is particularly called an imitation belonging to the phantastic species.
[267a] Theætetus: It is.
[267b] Guest: Calling this then imitative, we will divide it; but we will dismiss the whole of the other member, as being now weary, and we will permit some other person to collect it into one, and give it a proper denomination.
[267b] Theætetus: Let the member then you speak of be divided, and let us dismiss the other.
[267b] Guest: And indeed, Theætetus, it is fit to think that this also is twofold; but take notice on what account.
[267b] Theætetus: Say.
[267b] Guest: Of those who imitate, some knowing that which they imitate do this, but others not knowing it. Though, can we place any division greater than that of ignorance and knowledge?
[267b] Theætetus: We cannot.
[267b] Guest: Will not, therefore, that which we just now spoke of be an imitation of those that are endued with knowledge? For this man, knowing you, imitates your figure.
[267b] Theætetus: Undoubtedly.
[267b] Guest: But what shall we say respecting the figure of justice, and, in short, of the whole of virtue? Do not many, though they are ignorant. think that they know this, and, while they imitate that which seems to them to be the figure of justice, endeavour, both in words and works, to make it appear that it is inherent in them?
[267c] Theætetus: Very many, indeed.
[267c] Guest: Are they not, therefore, disappointed in their expectations of appearing to be just, as they are not so in any respect? Or does the very contrary to this take place?
[267c] Theætetus: The very contrary takes place.
[267d] Guest: I think then we must say that this imitator is different from the other, he who is ignorant from him who knows.
[267e] Theætetus: We must.
[267e] Guest: Whence, then, can any one derive a name adapted to each? Or is it evident that it is difficult? Because a certain antient cause of the division of genera into species was unknown to our ancestors, so that none of them attempted to divide; and on this account they were necessarily very much in want of names. But at the same time, though it may be a bolder assertion, for the sake of distinction, we shall call the imitation which subsists with opinion doxomimetic; but that which subsists in conjunction with science, a certain historic imitation.
[267e] Theætetus: Be it so.
[267e] Guest: The other of these appellations, therefore, must be used: for a sophist was not found to be among the scientific, but among imitators.
[267e] Theætetus: And very much so.
[267e] Guest: Let us then consider this doxastic imitator, or one who imitates from opinion, as if he were iron, and see whether he is sound, or whether he contains in himself something twofold.
[267e] Theætetus: Let us consider.
[268a] Guest: He is, therefore, very copious. For, of sophists, one is foolish, thinking that he knows the things which he opines: but the figure of another, through his rolling like a cylinder in discourse, is replete with abundance of suspicion and fear, that he is ignorant of those things which he feigns himself to know before others.
[268a] Theætetus: There are both these kinds of sophists, as you have said.
[268a] Guest: May we not, therefore, place one of these as a simple, and the other as an ironical imitator?
[268a] Theætetus: It is proper so to do.
[268a] Guest: And again, shall we say that the genus of this is one or two?
[268b] Theætetus: Do you see whether it is or not.
[268b] Guest: I consider; and two imitators appear to me: one employing irony among the multitude publicly, and in prolix discourses; and the other compelling the person who converses with him to contradict himself, and this privately, and by short discourses.
[268b] Theætetus: You speak most rightly.
[268b] Guest: What then did we evince the imitator to be who employs prolix discourses? Did we evince him to be a politician, or a popular speaker?
[268b] Theætetus: A popular speaker.
[268b] Guest: But what did we call the other,—a wise man, or sophistic?
[268c] Theætetus: To call him a wise man is impossible, since we have placed him as one who is ignorant; but as he is an imitator of a wise man, he must evidently receive a similar appellation. And I now nearly understand that this character ought truly to be called one who is in every respect a real sophist.
[268c] Guest: Shall we not, therefore, bind together his name, as we did before, connecting every thing from the end to the beginning?
[268c] Theætetus: Entirely so.
[268c] Guest: He, therefore, who compels those that converse with him to contradict themselves, who is a part of the ironic genus, and a doxastic imitator, who likewise belongs to the phantastic genus, which proceeds from the representative art, who is to be defined to be not a divine but a human production, and who by the artifice of his discourses belongs to the wonder-working division; he who says that a real sophist is of this stock and consanguinity will, as it appears, speak most truly.
[268d] Theætetus: Entirely so.

## Notes

[1] Odyss. lib. vii. ver. 485, &c. See the Apology for the Fables of Homer, vol. i. p. 163 of this work. It is well observed by the Greek Scholiast on this place, that Socrates now, consistently with what he asserts in the Republic, reprobates these verses of Homer, but in a milder manner, in consequence of becoming an associate with the Elean guest.
[2] The dictuon was a larger and wider kind of net.
[3] Plato here alludes to the third energy of the dialectic method, the end of which is a purification from twofold ignorance. See the Introduction to the Parmenides.
[4] See the Notes to the tenth book of the Republic.
[5] Of the antient philosophers that physiologized, some said that the first beings were three in number, the hot and the cold as extremes, but the moist as the medium, which sometimes conciliates the extremes, and sometimes not; but they did not place the dry in the rank of a principle, because they thought it subsisted either from a privation or a concretion of moisture. On the other hand, the followers of Anaxagoras asserted that there were four elements, two of which, viz. heat and cold, ranked as agents, but the other two, dryness and moisture, as patients. Heraclitus and Empedocles asserted that there is one matter of the universe, but different qualities, with which this matter sometimes accords, and at others is dissonant. Heraclitus, however, was of opinion that the world, together with a certain discordant concord, was nearly always similar, though not entirely the same: for all things are in a continual flux. But Empedocles asserted that the substance of the world remained the same, but that in one age all things were dissolved into chaos through discord, and in another were adorned through concord.
[6] Viz. the Ionians.
[7] This was the doctrine of Empedocles.
[8] Plato here dividing the one and being from each other, and showing that the conception of the one is different from that of being, evinces that what is most properly and primarily one is exempt from the one being. For the one being does not abide purely in an unmultiplied and uniform hyparxis. But the one withdraws itself from all addition; since by adding any thing to it you diminish its supreme and ineffable union. It is necessary, therefore, to arrange the one prior to the one being, and to suspend the latter from the former. For, if the one in no respect differs from the one being, all things will be one, and there will not be multitude in beings, nor will it be possible to name things, lest there should be two things, the thing itself, and the name. For all multitude being taken away, and all division, there will neither be a name of any thing, nor any discourse about it, but the name will appear to be the same with the thing. Nor yet will a name be the name of a thing, but a name will be the name of a name, if a thing is the same with a name, and a name the same with a thing; and a thing also will be a thing of a thing. For all the same things will take place about a thing as about a name, through the union of thing and name. If these things, therefore, are absurd, both the one and being have a subsistence, and being participates of the one. And hence the one is not the same as the one being. See the Introduction and Notes to the Parmenides.
[9] The following extract from the Commentaries of Simplicius on Aristotle’s Physics, p. 31, contains an admirable account of the doctrine of Parmenides concerning the first being: “That Parmenides did not consider the one being, το ἑν ον, to be any thing among things generated and corrupted, is evident from his asserting that the one is unbegotten and incorruptible. And, in short, he was far from thinking that it is corporeal, since he says it is indivisible; for thus he speaks: ‘nor is it divisible, since the whole is similar.’ Hence, neither can what he says be adapted to the heavens, according to the assertions of some, as we are informed by Eudemus, who were led to this opinion from that verse of Parmenides,

παντοθεν ευκυκλου σφαιρης εναλιγκιον ογκῳ,

i. e. ‘on all sides similar to the bulk of a perfect sphere:’ for the heavens are not indivisible, nor a sphere similar to that which Parmenides mentions, though they form a sphere the most accurate of all such as are physical. It is also evident that neither does Parmenides call the one being psychical, because he says that it is immovable; for the psychical essence, according to the Eleatics, possesses motion. He likewise says, that the whole of this one being is present at once, επει νυν εστιν ὁμου παν, and that it subsists according to the same, and after the same manner.

Ταυτον εν ταυτῳ τε μενον, καθ’ ἑαυτο τε κειται.

‘Same in the same abides, and by itself subsists.’ And it is evident that it possesses the whole at once, and according to the same, in essence, power, and energy, since it is beyond a psychical hypostasis. Neither does he say that it is intellectual: for that which is intellectual subsists according to a separation from the intelligible, and a conversion to it. But, according to him, in the one being intellection, intelligible, and intellect, are the same: for thus he writes—

Ταυτον δε εστι νοειν τε, και ου ενεκεν εστι νοημα.

i. e. ‘Intellection, and that for the sake of which intellectual conception subsists, are the same.’ He adds, ου γαρ ανευ του εοντος, ‘for it is not without being,’ i. e. the intelligible, in which, says he, you will find intellection has not a subsistence separate from being. Further still, the intellectual is separated into forms, as the intelligible pre-assumes unitedly, or, in other words, causally comprehends the separation of forms. But where there is separation, there difference subsists, and where this is, there non-being also is at the same time apparent. Parmenides however entirely exterminates non-being from being: for he says, ‘non-beings never are, nor do they subsist in any respect; but do thou, investigating in this path, restrain thy intellectual conception.’ Neither likewise, according to him, is the one being a thing of posterior origin, subsisting in our conceptions, from an ablation of sensibles; for this is neither unbegotten nor indestructible. Nor is it that which is common in things: for this is sensible, and belongs to things doxastic and deceitful, about which he afterwards speaks. Besides, how could it be true to assert of this, that it is at once all things, or that it contracts in itself intellect and the intelligible? Shall we say, therefore, that he calls the one being an individual substance? But this indeed is more dissonant. For an individual substance is generated, is distinguished by difference, is material and sensible, and is different from accident. It is also divisible and in motion. It remains, therefore, that the Parmenidean one being must be the intelligible, the cause of all things: and hence it is intellect and intellection, in which all things are unitedly and contractedly comprehended according to one union, in which also there is one nature of the one and being. Hence Zeno says, that he who demonstrates the one will likewise assign being, not as rejecting the one, but as subsisting together with being. But all the above-mentioned conclusions accord with the one being: for it is without generation and indestructible, entire and only-begotten. For that which is prior to all separation will not be secondary to any other being. To this likewise it pertains to be all things at once, and to have no connection with non-being. The undivided also, and the immovable according to every form of division and motion, a subsistence perfectly uniform, and termination, for it is the end of all things, accord with this one being. If besides it is that for the sake of which intellection subsists, it is evidently intelligible: for intellection and intellect are for the sake of the intelligible. And if intellection and the intelligible are the same in it, the transcendency of its union will be ineffable.” After this, Simplicius, in order to give credibility to what he has said of Parmenides, and on account of the books of that philosopher being very rare in his time, the sixth century, has preserved a considerable number of his verses, which are well worthy the attention of the learned and philosophical reader. He then adds as follows: “We must not wonder if Parmenides says that the one being is similar to the bulk of a perfectly round sphere: for, on account of his poetry, he touches on a certain mythological fiction. In what, therefore, does this differ from that assertion of Orpheus, It is of a white texture? And it is evident that some of the assertions of Parmenides accord with other things posterior to being. Thus, for instance, the unbegotten and the indestructible are adapted to both soul and intellect; and the immovable and abiding in sameness to intellect. But all the assertions at once, and genuinely understood, accord with the one being. For though according to a certain signification the soul is unbegotten, and also intellect, yet they are produced by the intelligible. Likewise this one or first being is properly immovable, in which motion is not separated according to energy. An abiding in sameness also properly pertains to being. But soul and much-honoured intellect proceed from that which abides, and are converted to it. It is likewise evident that such things as are said to pertain to being pre-subsist in it unitedly, but are unfolded from it with separation. And it seems indeed that the one being is delivered by Parmenides as the first cause, since it is at once, one and all, and the last boundary. But if he does not simply call it one, but the one being, and only-begotten, and a boundary but finite, perhaps he indicates that the ineffable cause of all things is established above it.” Simplicius concludes with observing, that the objections both of Plato and Aristotle to the assertions of Parmenides are philanthropic, and were made by those philosophers to prevent his doctrine from being perverted.
[10] Is not this the doctrine of those who are called experimental philosophers? If so, the fable of the Giants is unfolded in those men.
[11] All these are causally contained in the first being, because it is better than all these.
[12] “This is a proverb, says the Greek Scholiast on this dialogue, applied to those who prophesy evil to themselves. For Eurycles appeared to have a certain dæmon in his belly, exhorting him to speak concerning future events; whence he was called a ventriloquist.”
[13] Of the sciences, some look to one scientific object, as medicine to health, but others extend to more than one, as arithmetic to philosophy, to a polity, to the tectonic art, and to many others; and others contribute to all arts, not the fabricative only, but also such as are theoretic, such as is the divisive art, of which Socrates speaks in the Philebus. As, therefore, in the sciences some are most total, and others partial, so in intelligible causes some are altogether partial, alone being the leaders of a peculiar number of one species, but others extend themselves to many, as equal, similar, and whole; for whole so far as whole is not common to all things, since a part so far as a part is not a whole: and others extend themselves to all things, because all things participate of them so far as they are beings, and not so far as they are vital, or animated, or possess any other idiom, but according to the appellation itself of being. Because, therefore, being is the first among intelligible causes, it has the most total order among the genera; and these are five in number, viz. essence, same, different, motion, permanency. For every being is essentialized, is united itself to itself, is separated from itself and other things, proceeds from itself, and its proper principle, and participates of a certain permanency, so far as it preserves its proper form. Whether, therefore, it be intelligible, or sensible, or a thing subsisting between these two, it is composed from these genera. For all things are not vital, or wholes, or parts, or animated; but of these genera all things participate. Likewise essence not subsisting about a thing, neither will any thing else be there; for essence is the receptacle of other things. Without the subsistence of sameness, that which is a whole will be dissipated; and difference being destroyed there will be one thing alone without multitude. In like manner, motion and permanency not subsisting; all things will be unenergetic and dead, without stability, and tending to non-entity. It is necessary, therefore, that each of these should be in all things, and that essence should rank as the first, being as it were the Vesta and monad of the genera, and arranged analogous to the one. After essence, sameness and difference must succeed, the former being analogous to bound, and the latter to infinity; and next to these motion and permanency. Of these genera too, some are particularly beheld about the powers, and others about the energies of beings. For every being so far as it is a being participates of a certain essence, as it is said in this dialogue, and in the Parmenides. But every essential power is either under same, or under different, or under both. Thus for instance heat, and every separ- ative power, subsists under different, but coldness, and every collective power, is under same. And if there is any thing which subsists between these, it is under both same and different. For every energy is either motion or permanency, or in a certain respect both; since the energy of intellect may be rather said to be permanency than motion, and in like manner every energy which preserves the energizing nature in the same condition, or that about which it energizes. But the motion of bodies into each other does not abide in same, but departs from that in which it subsists; and that which changes the energizing nature in the same and about the same, is stable motion. Every thing, therefore, by its very being participates of this triad, essence, power, and energy, on account of these five genera.
[14] Here genus is signified by one idea extended through many: for genus is not an aggregate of species, as a whole of parts, but it is present to every species, to which it is at the same time prior. But every species subsisting separate from other species, and from genus itself, participates of genus. By many ideas different from each other, but exter- nally comprehended under one idea, which is genus, species are signified: externally comprehended, indeed, genus being exempt from species, but comprehending the causes of species: for genera, truly so called, are both more antient and more essential than the species which are ranked under them. Of genera, also, some have a subsistence prior to species, but others subsist in them according to participation. To perceive these two, therefore, viz. one idea extended through many, the individuals of which subsist apart from each other, is the province of the divisive power of dialectic; but the other two pertain to the definitive power of this art: for definition perceives one idea through many wholes conjoined in one, and collects into one definitive conception many ideas, each subsisting as a whole. It also connects them with each other, and perfects one idea from the assumption of all wholes; conjoining the many in one. Besides this, it considers the many which it has collected in one, lying apart, and the whole which is produced from them.
[15] By non-being, therefore, in this place, Plato means difference, one of the five genera of being.
[16] See the latter part of the Introduction to the Timæus.