SOPHIST

By Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS. 

The dramatic power of the dialogues of Plato appears to diminish asthe metaphysical interest of them increases (compare Introd. To thePhilebus). There are no descriptions of time, place or persons, in theSophist and Statesman, but we are plunged at once into philosophicaldiscussions; the poetical charm has disappeared, and those who have notaste for abstruse metaphysics will greatly prefer the earlier dialoguesto the later ones. Plato is conscious of the change, and in theStatesman expressly accuses himself of a tediousness in the twodialogues, which he ascribes to his desire of developing the dialecticalmethod. On the other hand, the kindred spirit of Hegel seemed to find inthe Sophist the crown and summit of the Platonic philosophy--here is theplace at which Plato most nearly approaches to the Hegelian identity ofBeing and Not-being. Nor will the great importance of the two dialoguesbe doubted by any one who forms a conception of the state of mind andopinion which they are intended to meet. The sophisms of the day wereundermining philosophy; the denial of the existence of Not-being, andof the connexion of ideas, was making truth and falsehood equallyimpossible. It has been said that Plato would have written differently, if he had been acquainted with the Organon of Aristotle. But couldthe Organon of Aristotle ever have been written unless the Sophistand Statesman had preceded? The swarm of fallacies which arose in theinfancy of mental science, and which was born and bred in the decay ofthe pre-Socratic philosophies, was not dispelled by Aristotle, butby Socrates and Plato. The summa genera of thought, the nature ofthe proposition, of definition, of generalization, of synthesis andanalysis, of division and cross-division, are clearly described, andthe processes of induction and deduction are constantly employed in thedialogues of Plato. The 'slippery' nature of comparison, the danger ofputting words in the place of things, the fallacy of arguing 'a dictosecundum, ' and in a circle, are frequently indicated by him. To allthese processes of truth and error, Aristotle, in the next generation, gave distinctness; he brought them together in a separate science. Buthe is not to be regarded as the original inventor of any of the greatlogical forms, with the exception of the syllogism. 

There is little worthy of remark in the characters of the Sophist. Themost noticeable point is the final retirement of Socrates from the fieldof argument, and the substitution for him of an Eleatic stranger, whois described as a pupil of Parmenides and Zeno, and is supposed to havedescended from a higher world in order to convict the Socratic circle oferror. As in the Timaeus, Plato seems to intimate by the withdrawal ofSocrates that he is passing beyond the limits of his teaching; and inthe Sophist and Statesman, as well as in the Parmenides, he probablymeans to imply that he is making a closer approach to the schools ofElea and Megara. He had much in common with them, but he must firstsubmit their ideas to criticism and revision. He had once thought ashe says, speaking by the mouth of the Eleatic, that he understood theirdoctrine of Not-being; but now he does not even comprehend the natureof Being. The friends of ideas (Soph. ) are alluded to by him as distantacquaintances, whom he criticizes ab extra; we do not recognize atfirst sight that he is criticizing himself. The character of the Eleaticstranger is colourless; he is to a certain extent the reflection of hisfather and master, Parmenides, who is the protagonist in the dialoguewhich is called by his name. Theaetetus himself is not distinguishedby the remarkable traits which are attributed to him in the precedingdialogue. He is no longer under the spell of Socrates, or subject to theoperation of his midwifery, though the fiction of question and answer isstill maintained, and the necessity of taking Theaetetus along with himis several times insisted upon by his partner in the discussion. Thereis a reminiscence of the old Theaetetus in his remark that he will nottire of the argument, and in his conviction, which the Eleatic thinkslikely to be permanent, that the course of events is governed by thewill of God. Throughout the two dialogues Socrates continues a silentauditor, in the Statesman just reminding us of his presence, at thecommencement, by a characteristic jest about the statesman and thephilosopher, and by an allusion to his namesake, with whom on thatground he claims relationship, as he had already claimed an affinitywith Theaetetus, grounded on the likeness of his ugly face. But inneither dialogue, any more than in the Timaeus, does he offer anycriticism on the views which are propounded by another. 

The style, though wanting in dramatic power, --in this respect resemblingthe Philebus and the Laws, --is very clear and accurate, and hasseveral touches of humour and satire. The language is less fanciful andimaginative than that of the earlier dialogues; and there is more ofbitterness, as in the Laws, though traces of a similar temper may alsobe observed in the description of the 'great brute' in the Republic, and in the contrast of the lawyer and philosopher in the Theaetetus. The following are characteristic passages: 'The ancient philosophers, of whom we may say, without offence, that they went on their way ratherregardless of whether we understood them or not;' the picture of thematerialists, or earth-born giants, 'who grasped oaks and rocks in theirhands, ' and who must be improved before they can be reasoned with; andthe equally humourous delineation of the friends of ideas, who defendthemselves from a fastness in the invisible world; or the comparison ofthe Sophist to a painter or maker (compare Republic), and the hunt afterhim in the rich meadow-lands of youth and wealth; or, again, thelight and graceful touch with which the older philosophies are painted('Ionian and Sicilian muses'), the comparison of them to mythologicaltales, and the fear of the Eleatic that he will be counted a parricideif he ventures to lay hands on his father Parmenides; or, once more, the likening of the Eleatic stranger to a god from heaven. --All thesepassages, notwithstanding the decline of the style, retain the impressof the great master of language. But the equably diffused grace is gone;instead of the endless variety of the early dialogues, traces of therhythmical monotonous cadence of the Laws begin to appear; and alreadyan approach is made to the technical language of Aristotle, in thefrequent use of the words 'essence, ' 'power, ' 'generation, ' 'motion, ''rest, ' 'action, ' 'passion, ' and the like. 

The Sophist, like the Phaedrus, has a double character, and unites twoenquirers, which are only in a somewhat forced manner connected witheach other. The first is the search after the Sophist, the second is theenquiry into the nature of Not-being, which occupies the middle part ofthe work. For 'Not-being' is the hole or division of the dialecticalnet in which the Sophist has hidden himself. He is the imaginaryimpersonation of false opinion. Yet he denies the possibility of falseopinion; for falsehood is that which is not, and therefore has noexistence. At length the difficulty is solved; the answer, inthe language of the Republic, appears 'tumbling out at our feet. 'Acknowledging that there is a communion of kinds with kinds, and notmerely one Being or Good having different names, or several isolatedideas or classes incapable of communion, we discover 'Not-being' to bethe other of 'Being. ' Transferring this to language and thought, we haveno difficulty in apprehending that a proposition may be false as wellas true. The Sophist, drawn out of the shelter which Cynic and Megarianparadoxes have temporarily afforded him, is proved to be a dissemblerand juggler with words. 

The chief points of interest in the dialogue are: (I) the characterattributed to the Sophist: (II) the dialectical method: (III) the natureof the puzzle about 'Not-being:' (IV) the battle of the philosophers:(V) the relation of the Sophist to other dialogues. 

I. The Sophist in Plato is the master of the art of illusion; thecharlatan, the foreigner, the prince of esprits-faux, the hireling whois not a teacher, and who, from whatever point of view he is regarded, is the opposite of the true teacher. He is the 'evil one, ' the idealrepresentative of all that Plato most disliked in the moral andintellectual tendencies of his own age; the adversary of the almostequally ideal Socrates. He seems to be always growing in the fancyof Plato, now boastful, now eristic, now clothing himself in rags ofphilosophy, now more akin to the rhetorician or lawyer, now haranguing, now questioning, until the final appearance in the Politicus of hisdeparting shadow in the disguise of a statesman. We are not to supposethat Plato intended by such a description to depict Protagoras orGorgias, or even Thrasymachus, who all turn out to be 'very good sortof people when we know them, ' and all of them part on good terms withSocrates. But he is speaking of a being as imaginary as the wise manof the Stoics, and whose character varies in different dialogues. Likemythology, Greek philosophy has a tendency to personify ideas. And theSophist is not merely a teacher of rhetoric for a fee of one or fiftydrachmae (Crat. ), but an ideal of Plato's in which the falsehood of allmankind is reflected. 

A milder tone is adopted towards the Sophists in a well-known passage ofthe Republic, where they are described as the followers rather thanthe leaders of the rest of mankind. Plato ridicules the notion thatany individuals can corrupt youth to a degree worth speaking of incomparison with the greater influence of public opinion. But there isno real inconsistency between this and other descriptions of the Sophistwhich occur in the Platonic writings. For Plato is not justifying theSophists in the passage just quoted, but only representing their powerto be contemptible; they are to be despised rather than feared, and areno worse than the rest of mankind. But a teacher or statesman may bejustly condemned, who is on a level with mankind when he ought to beabove them. There is another point of view in which this passage shouldalso be considered. The great enemy of Plato is the world, not exactlyin the theological sense, yet in one not wholly different--the world asthe hater of truth and lover of appearance, occupied in the pursuit ofgain and pleasure rather than of knowledge, banded together against thefew good and wise men, and devoid of true education. This creature hasmany heads: rhetoricians, lawyers, statesmen, poets, sophists. But theSophist is the Proteus who takes the likeness of all of them; all otherdeceivers have a piece of him in them. And sometimes he is representedas the corrupter of the world; and sometimes the world as the corrupterof him and of itself. 

Of late years the Sophists have found an enthusiastic defender in thedistinguished historian of Greece. He appears to maintain (1) that theterm 'Sophist' is not the name of a particular class, and would havebeen applied indifferently to Socrates and Plato, as well as to Gorgiasand Protagoras; (2) that the bad sense was imprinted on the word by thegenius of Plato; (3) that the principal Sophists were not the corruptersof youth (for the Athenian youth were no more corrupted in the age ofDemosthenes than in the age of Pericles), but honourable and estimablepersons, who supplied a training in literature which was generallywanted at the time. We will briefly consider how far these statementsappear to be justified by facts: and, 1, about the meaning of the wordthere arises an interesting question:--

Many words are used both in a general and a specific sense, and thetwo senses are not always clearly distinguished. Sometimes the genericmeaning has been narrowed to the specific, while in other cases thespecific meaning has been enlarged or altered. Examples of the formerclass are furnished by some ecclesiastical terms: apostles, prophets, bishops, elders, catholics. Examples of the latter class may also befound in a similar field: jesuits, puritans, methodists, and the like. Sometimes the meaning is both narrowed and enlarged; and a good or badsense will subsist side by side with a neutral one. A curious effectis produced on the meaning of a word when the very term which isstigmatized by the world (e. G. Methodists) is adopted by the obnoxiousor derided class; this tends to define the meaning. Or, again, theopposite result is produced, when the world refuses to allow some sector body of men the possession of an honourable name which they haveassumed, or applies it to them only in mockery or irony. 

The term 'Sophist' is one of those words of which the meaning has beenboth contracted and enlarged. Passages may be quoted from Herodotusand the tragedians, in which the word is used in a neutral sense for acontriver or deviser or inventor, without including any ethical idea ofgoodness or badness. Poets as well as philosophers were called Sophistsin the fifth century before Christ. In Plato himself the term is appliedin the sense of a 'master in art, ' without any bad meaning attaching toit (Symp. ; Meno). In the later Greek, again, 'sophist' and 'philosopher'became almost indistinguishable. There was no reproach conveyed by theword; the additional association, if any, was only that of rhetoricianor teacher. Philosophy had become eclecticism and imitation: in thedecline of Greek thought there was no original voice lifted up 'whichreached to a thousand years because of the god. ' Hence the two words, like the characters represented by them, tended to pass into oneanother. Yet even here some differences appeared; for the term 'Sophist'would hardly have been applied to the greater names, such as Plotinus, and would have been more often used of a professor of philosophy ingeneral than of a maintainer of particular tenets. 

But the real question is, not whether the word 'Sophist' has all thesesenses, but whether there is not also a specific bad sense in whichthe term is applied to certain contemporaries of Socrates. Would anAthenian, as Mr. Grote supposes, in the fifth century before Christ, have included Socrates and Plato, as well as Gorgias and Protagoras, under the specific class of Sophists? To this question we must answer, No: if ever the term is applied to Socrates and Plato, either theapplication is made by an enemy out of mere spite, or the sense in whichit is used is neutral. Plato, Xenophon, Isocrates, Aristotle, all givea bad import to the word; and the Sophists are regarded as a separateclass in all of them. And in later Greek literature, the distinctionis quite marked between the succession of philosophers from Thales toAristotle, and the Sophists of the age of Socrates, who appeared likemeteors for a short time in different parts of Greece. For the purposesof comedy, Socrates may have been identified with the Sophists, andhe seems to complain of this in the Apology. But there is no reason tosuppose that Socrates, differing by so many outward marks, would reallyhave been confounded in the mind of Anytus, or Callicles, or of anyintelligent Athenian, with the splendid foreigners who from time to timevisited Athens, or appeared at the Olympic games. The man of genius, thegreat original thinker, the disinterested seeker after truth, the masterof repartee whom no one ever defeated in an argument, was separated, even in the mind of the vulgar Athenian, by an 'interval which nogeometry can express, ' from the balancer of sentences, the interpreterand reciter of the poets, the divider of the meanings of words, theteacher of rhetoric, the professor of morals and manners. 

2. The use of the term 'Sophist' in the dialogues of Plato also showsthat the bad sense was not affixed by his genius, but already current. When Protagoras says, 'I confess that I am a Sophist, ' he implies thatthe art which he professes has already a bad name; and the words of theyoung Hippocrates, when with a blush upon his face which is just seenby the light of dawn he admits that he is going to be made 'a Sophist, 'would lose their point, unless the term had been discredited. There isnothing surprising in the Sophists having an evil name; that, whetherdeserved or not, was a natural consequence of their vocation. That theywere foreigners, that they made fortunes, that they taught novelties, that they excited the minds of youth, are quite sufficient reasons toaccount for the opprobrium which attached to them. The genius of Platocould not have stamped the word anew, or have imparted the associationswhich occur in contemporary writers, such as Xenophon and Isocrates. Changes in the meaning of words can only be made with great difficulty, and not unless they are supported by a strong current of popularfeeling. There is nothing improbable in supposing that Plato mayhave extended and envenomed the meaning, or that he may have done theSophists the same kind of disservice with posterity which Pascal did tothe Jesuits. But the bad sense of the word was not and could not havebeen invented by him, and is found in his earlier dialogues, e. G. TheProtagoras, as well as in the later. 

3. There is no ground for disbelieving that the principal Sophists, Gorgias, Protagoras, Prodicus, Hippias, were good and honourable men. The notion that they were corrupters of the Athenian youth has no realfoundation, and partly arises out of the use of the term 'Sophist' inmodern times. The truth is, that we know little about them; and thewitness of Plato in their favour is probably not much more historicalthan his witness against them. Of that national decline of genius, unity, political force, which has been sometimes described as thecorruption of youth, the Sophists were one among many signs;--in theserespects Athens may have degenerated; but, as Mr. Grote remarks, thereis no reason to suspect any greater moral corruption in the age ofDemosthenes than in the age of Pericles. The Athenian youth were notcorrupted in this sense, and therefore the Sophists could not havecorrupted them. It is remarkable, and may be fairly set down to theircredit, that Plato nowhere attributes to them that peculiar Greeksympathy with youth, which he ascribes to Parmenides, and which wasevidently common in the Socratic circle. Plato delights to exhibitthem in a ludicrous point of view, and to show them always rather ata disadvantage in the company of Socrates. But he has no quarrel withtheir characters, and does not deny that they are respectable men. 

The Sophist, in the dialogue which is called after him, is exhibited inmany different lights, and appears and reappears in a variety of forms. There is some want of the higher Platonic art in the Eleatic Strangereliciting his true character by a labourious process of enquiry, when hehad already admitted that he knew quite well the difference betweenthe Sophist and the Philosopher, and had often heard the questiondiscussed;--such an anticipation would hardly have occurred in theearlier dialogues. But Plato could not altogether give up his Socraticmethod, of which another trace may be thought to be discerned in hisadoption of a common instance before he proceeds to the greater matterin hand. Yet the example is also chosen in order to damage the 'hookerof men' as much as possible; each step in the pedigree of the anglersuggests some injurious reflection about the Sophist. They are bothhunters after a living prey, nearly related to tyrants and thieves, andthe Sophist is the cousin of the parasite and flatterer. The effect ofthis is heightened by the accidental manner in which the discovery ismade, as the result of a scientific division. His descent in anotherbranch affords the opportunity of more 'unsavoury comparisons. ' For heis a retail trader, and his wares are either imported or home-made, likethose of other retail traders; his art is thus deprived of the characterof a liberal profession. But the most distinguishing characteristic ofhim is, that he is a disputant, and higgles over an argument. A featureof the Eristic here seems to blend with Plato's usual description ofthe Sophists, who in the early dialogues, and in the Republic, arefrequently depicted as endeavouring to save themselves from disputingwith Socrates by making long orations. In this character he partscompany from the vain and impertinent talker in private life, who is aloser of money, while he is a maker of it. 

But there is another general division under which his art may be alsosupposed to fall, and that is purification; and from purificationis descended education, and the new principle of education is tointerrogate men after the manner of Socrates, and make them teachthemselves. Here again we catch a glimpse rather of a Socratic orEristic than of a Sophist in the ordinary sense of the term. And Platodoes not on this ground reject the claim of the Sophist to be the truephilosopher. One more feature of the Eristic rather than of the Sophistis the tendency of the troublesome animal to run away into the darknessof Not-being. Upon the whole, we detect in him a sort of hybrid ordouble nature, of which, except perhaps in the Euthydemus of Plato, we find no other trace in Greek philosophy; he combines the teacher ofvirtue with the Eristic; while in his omniscience, in his ignoranceof himself, in his arts of deception, and in his lawyer-like habit ofwriting and speaking about all things, he is still the antithesis ofSocrates and of the true teacher. 

II. The question has been asked, whether the method of 'abscissioinfinti, ' by which the Sophist is taken, is a real and valuable logicalprocess. Modern science feels that this, like other processes of formallogic, presents a very inadequate conception of the actual complexprocedure of the mind by which scientific truth is detected andverified. Plato himself seems to be aware that mere division is anunsafe and uncertain weapon, first, in the Statesman, when he says thatwe should divide in the middle, for in that way we are more likely toattain species; secondly, in the parallel precept of the Philebus, that we should not pass from the most general notions to infinity, butinclude all the intervening middle principles, until, as he also saysin the Statesman, we arrive at the infima species; thirdly, in thePhaedrus, when he says that the dialectician will carve the limbs oftruth without mangling them; and once more in the Statesman, if wecannot bisect species, we must carve them as well as we can. No betterimage of nature or truth, as an organic whole, can be conceived thanthis. So far is Plato from supposing that mere division and subdivisionof general notions will guide men into all truth. 

Plato does not really mean to say that the Sophist or the Statesmancan be caught in this way. But these divisions and subdivisions werefavourite logical exercises of the age in which he lived; and whileindulging his dialectical fancy, and making a contribution to logicalmethod, he delights also to transfix the Eristic Sophist with weaponsborrowed from his own armoury. As we have already seen, the divisiongives him the opportunity of making the most damaging reflections onthe Sophist and all his kith and kin, and to exhibit him in the mostdiscreditable light. 

Nor need we seriously consider whether Plato was right in assuming thatan animal so various could not be confined within the limits of asingle definition. In the infancy of logic, men sought only to obtaina definition of an unknown or uncertain term; the after reflectionscarcely occurred to them that the word might have several senses, whichshaded off into one another, and were not capable of being comprehendedin a single notion. There is no trace of this reflection in Plato. But neither is there any reason to think, even if the reflection hadoccurred to him, that he would have been deterred from carrying on thewar with weapons fair or unfair against the outlaw Sophist. 

III. The puzzle about 'Not-being' appears to us to be one of the mostunreal difficulties of ancient philosophy. We cannot understand theattitude of mind which could imagine that falsehood had no existence, ifreality was denied to Not-being: How could such a question arise atall, much less become of serious importance? The answer to this, and tonearly all other difficulties of early Greek philosophy, is to be soughtfor in the history of ideas, and the answer is only unsatisfactorybecause our knowledge is defective. In the passage from the worldof sense and imagination and common language to that of opinion andreflection the human mind was exposed to many dangers, and often

 'Found no end in wandering mazes lost. '

On the other hand, the discovery of abstractions was the great sourceof all mental improvement in after ages. It was the pushing aside ofthe old, the revelation of the new. But each one of the company ofabstractions, if we may speak in the metaphorical language of Plato, became in turn the tyrant of the mind, the dominant idea, which wouldallow no other to have a share in the throne. This is especially true ofthe Eleatic philosophy: while the absoluteness of Being was assertedin every form of language, the sensible world and all the phenomena ofexperience were comprehended under Not-being. Nor was any difficulty orperplexity thus created, so long as the mind, lost in the contemplationof Being, asked no more questions, and never thought of applying thecategories of Being or Not-being to mind or opinion or practical life. 

But the negative as well as the positive idea had sunk deep into theintellect of man. The effect of the paradoxes of Zeno extended farbeyond the Eleatic circle. And now an unforeseen consequence began toarise. If the Many were not, if all things were names of the One, andnothing could be predicated of any other thing, how could truth bedistinguished from falsehood? The Eleatic philosopher would havereplied that Being is alone true. But mankind had got beyond his barrenabstractions: they were beginning to analyze, to classify, to define, to ask what is the nature of knowledge, opinion, sensation. Still lesscould they be content with the description which Achilles gives in Homerof the man whom his soul hates--

os chi eteron men keuthe eni phresin, allo de eipe. 

For their difficulty was not a practical but a metaphysical one; andtheir conception of falsehood was really impaired and weakened by ametaphysical illusion. 

The strength of the illusion seems to lie in the alternative: If we onceadmit the existence of Being and Not-being, as two spheres which excludeeach other, no Being or reality can be ascribed to Not-being, andtherefore not to falsehood, which is the image or expression ofNot-being. Falsehood is wholly false; and to speak of true falsehood, asTheaetetus does (Theaet. ), is a contradiction in terms. The fallacyto us is ridiculous and transparent, --no better than those whichPlato satirizes in the Euthydemus. It is a confusion of falsehood andnegation, from which Plato himself is not entirely free. Instead ofsaying, 'This is not in accordance with facts, ' 'This is proved byexperience to be false, ' and from such examples forming a general notionof falsehood, the mind of the Greek thinker was lost in the mazes of theEleatic philosophy. And the greater importance which Plato attributesto this fallacy, compared with others, is due to the influence whichthe Eleatic philosophy exerted over him. He sees clearly to a certainextent; but he has not yet attained a complete mastery over the ideas ofhis predecessors--they are still ends to him, and not mere instrumentsof thought. They are too rough-hewn to be harmonized in a singlestructure, and may be compared to rocks which project or overhang insome ancient city's walls. There are many such imperfect syncretisms oreclecticisms in the history of philosophy. A modern philosopher, thoughemancipated from scholastic notions of essence or substance, mightstill be seriously affected by the abstract idea of necessity; or thoughaccustomed, like Bacon, to criticize abstract notions, might not extendhis criticism to the syllogism. 

The saying or thinking the thing that is not, would be the populardefinition of falsehood or error. If we were met by the Sophist'sobjection, the reply would probably be an appeal to experience. Tenthousands, as Homer would say (mala murioi), tell falsehoods andfall into errors. And this is Plato's reply, both in the Cratylusand Sophist. 'Theaetetus is flying, ' is a sentence in form quite asgrammatical as 'Theaetetus is sitting'; the difference between the twosentences is, that the one is true and the other false. But, before making this appeal to common sense, Plato propounds for ourconsideration a theory of the nature of the negative. 

The theory is, that Not-being is relation. Not-being is the other ofBeing, and has as many kinds as there are differences in Being. This doctrine is the simple converse of the famous proposition ofSpinoza, --not 'Omnis determinatio est negatio, ' but 'Omnis negatio estdeterminatio';--not, All distinction is negation, but, All negation isdistinction. Not-being is the unfolding or determining of Being, and isa necessary element in all other things that are. We should be carefulto observe, first, that Plato does not identify Being with Not-being; hehas no idea of progression by antagonism, or of the Hegelian vibrationof moments: he would not have said with Heracleitus, 'All things areand are not, and become and become not. ' Secondly, he has lost sightaltogether of the other sense of Not-being, as the negative of Being;although he again and again recognizes the validity of the law ofcontradiction. Thirdly, he seems to confuse falsehood with negation. Noris he quite consistent in regarding Not-being as one class of Being, andyet as coextensive with Being in general. Before analyzing further thetopics thus suggested, we will endeavour to trace the manner in whichPlato arrived at his conception of Not-being. 

In all the later dialogues of Plato, the idea of mind or intelligencebecomes more and more prominent. That idea which Anaxagoras employedinconsistently in the construction of the world, Plato, in the Philebus, the Sophist, and the Laws, extends to all things, attributing toProvidence a care, infinitesimal as well as infinite, of all creation. The divine mind is the leading religious thought of the later works ofPlato. The human mind is a sort of reflection of this, having ideasof Being, Sameness, and the like. At times they seem to be parted by agreat gulf (Parmenides); at other times they have a common nature, andthe light of a common intelligence. 

But this ever-growing idea of mind is really irreconcilable with theabstract Pantheism of the Eleatics. To the passionate language ofParmenides, Plato replies in a strain equally passionate:--What! hasnot Being mind? and is not Being capable of being known? and, if thisis admitted, then capable of being affected or acted upon?--in motion, then, and yet not wholly incapable of rest. Already we have beencompelled to attribute opposite determinations to Being. And theanswer to the difficulty about Being may be equally the answer to thedifficulty about Not-being. 

The answer is, that in these and all other determinations of any notionwe are attributing to it 'Not-being. ' We went in search of Not-being andseemed to lose Being, and now in the hunt after Being we recover both. Not-being is a kind of Being, and in a sense co-extensive with Being. And there are as many divisions of Not-being as of Being. Toevery positive idea--'just, ' 'beautiful, ' and the like, there is acorresponding negative idea--'not-just, ' 'not-beautiful, ' and the like. 

A doubt may be raised whether this account of the negative is reallythe true one. The common logicians would say that the 'not-just, ''not-beautiful, ' are not really classes at all, but are merged in onegreat class of the infinite or negative. The conception of Plato, inthe days before logic, seems to be more correct than this. For the word'not' does not altogether annihilate the positive meaning of the word'just': at least, it does not prevent our looking for the 'not-just'in or about the same class in which we might expect to find the 'just. ''Not-just is not-honourable' is neither a false nor an unmeaningproposition. The reason is that the negative proposition has reallypassed into an undefined positive. To say that 'not-just' has no moremeaning than 'not-honourable'--that is to say, that the two cannot inany degree be distinguished, is clearly repugnant to the common use oflanguage. 

The ordinary logic is also jealous of the explanation of negation asrelation, because seeming to take away the principle of contradiction. Plato, as far as we know, is the first philosopher who distinctlyenunciated this principle; and though we need not suppose him to havebeen always consistent with himself, there is no real inconsistencybetween his explanation of the negative and the principle ofcontradiction. Neither the Platonic notion of the negative as theprinciple of difference, nor the Hegelian identity of Being andNot-being, at all touch the principle of contradiction. For what isasserted about Being and Not-Being only relates to our most abstractnotions, and in no way interferes with the principle of contradictionemployed in the concrete. Because Not-being is identified with Other, orBeing with Not-being, this does not make the proposition 'Some have noteaten' any the less a contradiction of 'All have eaten. '

The explanation of the negative given by Plato in the Sophist is a truebut partial one; for the word 'not, ' besides the meaning of 'other, 'may also imply 'opposition. ' And difference or opposition may be eithertotal or partial: the not-beautiful may be other than the beautiful, orin no relation to the beautiful, or a specific class in various degreesopposed to the beautiful. And the negative may be a negation of factor of thought (ou and me). Lastly, there are certain ideas, such as'beginning, ' 'becoming, ' 'the finite, ' 'the abstract, ' in whichthe negative cannot be separated from the positive, and 'Being' and'Not-being' are inextricably blended. 

Plato restricts the conception of Not-being to difference. Man is arational animal, and is not--as many other things as are not includedunder this definition. He is and is not, and is because he is not. Besides the positive class to which he belongs, there are endlessnegative classes to which he may be referred. This is certainlyintelligible, but useless. To refer a subject to a negative class isunmeaning, unless the 'not' is a mere modification of the positive, asin the example of 'not honourable' and 'dishonourable'; or unless theclass is characterized by the absence rather than the presence of aparticular quality. 

Nor is it easy to see how Not-being any more than Sameness or Othernessis one of the classes of Being. They are aspects rather than classes ofBeing. Not-being can only be included in Being, as the denial of someparticular class of Being. If we attempt to pursue such airy phantomsat all, the Hegelian identity of Being and Not-being is a more apt andintelligible expression of the same mental phenomenon. For Plato hasnot distinguished between the Being which is prior to Not-being, and theBeing which is the negation of Not-being (compare Parm. ). 

But he is not thinking of this when he says that Being comprehendsNot-being. Again, we should probably go back for the true explanationto the influence which the Eleatic philosophy exercised over him. Under'Not-being' the Eleatic had included all the realities of the sensibleworld. Led by this association and by the common use of language, whichhas been already noticed, we cannot be much surprised that Plato shouldhave made classes of Not-being. It is observable that he does notabsolutely deny that there is an opposite of Being. He is inclined toleave the question, merely remarking that the opposition, if admissibleat all, is not expressed by the term 'Not-being. '

On the whole, we must allow that the great service rendered by Platoto metaphysics in the Sophist, is not his explanation of 'Not-being' asdifference. With this he certainly laid the ghost of 'Not-being'; and wemay attribute to him in a measure the credit of anticipating Spinozaand Hegel. But his conception is not clear or consistent; he does notrecognize the different senses of the negative, and he confusesthe different classes of Not-being with the abstract notion. As thePre-Socratic philosopher failed to distinguish between the universal andthe true, while he placed the particulars of sense under the false andapparent, so Plato appears to identify negation with falsehood, or isunable to distinguish them. The greatest service rendered by him tomental science is the recognition of the communion of classes, which, although based by him on his account of 'Not-being, ' is independentof it. He clearly saw that the isolation of ideas or classes is theannihilation of reasoning. Thus, after wandering in many divergingpaths, we return to common sense. And for this reason we may be inclinedto do less than justice to Plato, --because the truth which he attainsby a real effort of thought is to us a familiar and unconscious truism, which no one would any longer think either of doubting or examining. 

IV. The later dialogues of Plato contain many references to contemporaryphilosophy. Both in the Theaetetus and in the Sophist he recognizesthat he is in the midst of a fray; a huge irregular battle everywheresurrounds him (Theaet. ). First, there are the two great philosophiesgoing back into cosmogony and poetry: the philosophy of Heracleitus, supposed to have a poetical origin in Homer, and that of the Eleatics, which in a similar spirit he conceives to be even older than Xenophanes(compare Protag. ). Still older were theories of two and threeprinciples, hot and cold, moist and dry, which were ever marrying andbeing given in marriage: in speaking of these, he is probably referringto Pherecydes and the early Ionians. In the philosophy of motion therewere different accounts of the relation of plurality and unity, which were supposed to be joined and severed by love and hate, some maintaining that this process was perpetually going on (e. G. Heracleitus); others (e. G. Empedocles) that there was an alternation ofthem. Of the Pythagoreans or of Anaxagoras he makes no distinct mention. His chief opponents are, first, Eristics or Megarians; secondly, theMaterialists. 

The picture which he gives of both these latter schools is indistinct;and he appears reluctant to mention the names of their teachers. Nor canwe easily determine how much is to be assigned to the Cynics, how muchto the Megarians, or whether the 'repellent Materialists' (Theaet. )are Cynics or Atomists, or represent some unknown phase of opinion atAthens. To the Cynics and Antisthenes is commonly attributed, on theauthority of Aristotle, the denial of predication, while the Megariansare said to have been Nominalists, asserting the One Good under manynames to be the true Being of Zeno and the Eleatics, and, like Zeno, employing their negative dialectic in the refutation of opponents. Butthe later Megarians also denied predication; and this tenet, which isattributed to all of them by Simplicius, is certainly in accordance withtheir over-refining philosophy. The 'tyros young and old, ' of whomPlato speaks, probably include both. At any rate, we shall be safer inaccepting the general description of them which he has given, and in notattempting to draw a precise line between them. 

Of these Eristics, whether Cynics or Megarians, several characteristicsare found in Plato:--

1. They pursue verbal oppositions; 2. They make reasoning impossible bytheir over-accuracy in the use of language; 3. They deny predication;4. They go from unity to plurality, without passing through theintermediate stages; 5. They refuse to attribute motion or power toBeing; 6. They are the enemies of sense;--whether they are the 'friendsof ideas, ' who carry on the polemic against sense, is uncertain;probably under this remarkable expression Plato designates those whomore nearly approached himself, and may be criticizing an earlier formof his own doctrines. We may observe (1) that he professes only to giveus a few opinions out of many which were at that time current inGreece; (2) that he nowhere alludes to the ethical teaching of theCynics--unless the argument in the Protagoras, that the virtues are oneand not many, may be supposed to contain a reference to their views, aswell as to those of Socrates; and unless they are the school alluded toin the Philebus, which is described as 'being very skilful in physics, and as maintaining pleasure to be the absence of pain. ' That Antistheneswrote a book called 'Physicus, ' is hardly a sufficient reason fordescribing them as skilful in physics, which appear to have been veryalien to the tendency of the Cynics. 

The Idealism of the fourth century before Christ in Greece, as inother ages and countries, seems to have provoked a reaction towardsMaterialism. The maintainers of this doctrine are described in theTheaetetus as obstinate persons who will believe in nothing which theycannot hold in their hands, and in the Sophist as incapable of argument. They are probably the same who are said in the Tenth Book of the Lawsto attribute the course of events to nature, art, and chance. Who theywere, we have no means of determining except from Plato's description ofthem. His silence respecting the Atomists might lead us to suppose thathere we have a trace of them. But the Atomists were not Materialists inthe grosser sense of the term, nor were they incapable of reasoning; andPlato would hardly have described a great genius like Democritus in thedisdainful terms which he uses of the Materialists. Upon the whole, wemust infer that the persons here spoken of are unknown to us, like themany other writers and talkers at Athens and elsewhere, of whose endlessactivity of mind Aristotle in his Metaphysics has preserved an anonymousmemorial. 

V. The Sophist is the sequel of the Theaetetus, and is connected withthe Parmenides by a direct allusion (compare Introductions to Theaetetusand Parmenides). In the Theaetetus we sought to discover the natureof knowledge and false opinion. But the nature of false opinion seemedimpenetrable; for we were unable to understand how there could be anyreality in Not-being. In the Sophist the question is taken up again; thenature of Not-being is detected, and there is no longer any metaphysicalimpediment in the way of admitting the possibility of falsehood. Tothe Parmenides, the Sophist stands in a less defined and more remoterelation. There human thought is in process of disorganization; noabsurdity or inconsistency is too great to be elicited from theanalysis of the simple ideas of Unity or Being. In the Sophist the samecontradictions are pursued to a certain extent, but only with a viewto their resolution. The aim of the dialogue is to show how the fewelemental conceptions of the human mind admit of a natural connexion inthought and speech, which Megarian or other sophistry vainly attempts todeny. 

. .. 

True to the appointment of the previous day, Theodorus and Theaetetusmeet Socrates at the same spot, bringing with them an Eleatic Stranger, whom Theodorus introduces as a true philosopher. Socrates, half in jest, half in earnest, declares that he must be a god in disguise, who, asHomer would say, has come to earth that he may visit the good and evilamong men, and detect the foolishness of Athenian wisdom. At any rate heis a divine person, one of a class who are hardly recognized on earth;who appear in divers forms--now as statesmen, now as sophists, and areoften deemed madmen. 'Philosopher, statesman, sophist, ' says Socrates, repeating the words--'I should like to ask our Eleatic friend what hiscountrymen think of them; do they regard them as one, or three?'

The Stranger has been already asked the same question by Theodorus andTheaetetus; and he at once replies that they are thought to be three;but to explain the difference fully would take time. He is pressedto give this fuller explanation, either in the form of a speech orof question and answer. He prefers the latter, and chooses as hisrespondent Theaetetus, whom he already knows, and who is recommended tohim by Socrates. 

We are agreed, he says, about the name Sophist, but we may not beequally agreed about his nature. Great subjects should be approachedthrough familiar examples, and, considering that he is a creature noteasily caught, I think that, before approaching him, we should tryour hand upon some more obvious animal, who may be made the subject oflogical experiment; shall we say an angler? 'Very good. '

In the first place, the angler is an artist; and there are two kindsof art, --productive art, which includes husbandry, manufactures, imitations; and acquisitive art, which includes learning, trading, fighting, hunting. The angler's is an acquisitive art, and acquisitionmay be effected either by exchange or by conquest; in the latter case, either by force or craft. Conquest by craft is called hunting, and ofhunting there is one kind which pursues inanimate, and another whichpursues animate objects; and animate objects may be either land animalsor water animals, and water animals either fly over the water or livein the water. The hunting of the last is called fishing; and of fishing, one kind uses enclosures, catching the fish in nets and baskets, andanother kind strikes them either with spears by night or with barbedspears or barbed hooks by day; the barbed spears are impelled fromabove, the barbed hooks are jerked into the head and lips of the fish, which are then drawn from below upwards. Thus, by a series of divisions, we have arrived at the definition of the angler's art. 

And now by the help of this example we may proceed to bring to lightthe nature of the Sophist. Like the angler, he is an artist, and theresemblance does not end here. For they are both hunters, and huntersof animals; the one of water, and the other of land animals. But at thispoint they diverge, the one going to the sea and the rivers, and theother to the rivers of wealth and rich meadow-lands, in which generousyouth abide. On land you may hunt tame animals, or you may hunt wildanimals. And man is a tame animal, and he may be hunted either by forceor persuasion;--either by the pirate, man-stealer, soldier, or by thelawyer, orator, talker. The latter use persuasion, and persuasion iseither private or public. Of the private practitioners of the art, somebring gifts to those whom they hunt: these are lovers. And others takehire; and some of these flatter, and in return are fed; others professto teach virtue and receive a round sum. And who are these last? Tell mewho? Have we not unearthed the Sophist?

But he is a many-sided creature, and may still be traced in another lineof descent. The acquisitive art had a branch of exchange as well as ofhunting, and exchange is either giving or selling; and the seller iseither a manufacturer or a merchant; and the merchant either retails orexports; and the exporter may export either food for the body or foodfor the mind. And of this trading in food for the mind, one kind may betermed the art of display, and another the art of selling learning; andlearning may be a learning of the arts or of virtue. The seller of thearts may be called an art-seller; the seller of virtue, a Sophist. 

Again, there is a third line, in which a Sophist may be traced. Foris he less a Sophist when, instead of exporting his wares to anothercountry, he stays at home, and retails goods, which he not only buys ofothers, but manufactures himself?

Or he may be descended from the acquisitive art in the combative line, through the pugnacious, the controversial, the disputatious arts; and hewill be found at last in the eristic section of the latter, and in thatdivision of it which disputes in private for gain about the generalprinciples of right and wrong. 

And still there is a track of him which has not yet been followed out byus. Do not our household servants talk of sifting, straining, winnowing?And they also speak of carding, spinning, and the like. All these areprocesses of division; and of division there are two kinds, --one inwhich like is divided from like, and another in which the good isseparated from the bad. The latter of the two is termed purification;and again, of purification, there are two sorts, --of animate bodies(which may be internal or external), and of inanimate. Medicine andgymnastic are the internal purifications of the animate, and bathing theexternal; and of the inanimate, fulling and cleaning and other humbleprocesses, some of which have ludicrous names. Not that dialectic is arespecter of names or persons, or a despiser of humble occupations; nordoes she think much of the greater or less benefits conferred by them. For her aim is knowledge; she wants to know how the arts are related toone another, and would quite as soon learn the nature of hunting fromthe vermin-destroyer as from the general. And she only desires to havea general name, which shall distinguish purifications of the soul frompurifications of the body. 

Now purification is the taking away of evil; and there are two kindsof evil in the soul, --the one answering to disease in the body, and theother to deformity. Disease is the discord or war of opposite principlesin the soul; and deformity is the want of symmetry, or failure in theattainment of a mark or measure. The latter arises from ignorance, andno one is voluntarily ignorant; ignorance is only the aberration of thesoul moving towards knowledge. And as medicine cures the diseases andgymnastic the deformity of the body, so correction cures the injustice, and education (which differs among the Hellenes from mere instruction inthe arts) cures the ignorance of the soul. Again, ignorance is twofold, simple ignorance, and ignorance having the conceit of knowledge. Andeducation is also twofold: there is the old-fashioned moral training ofour forefathers, which was very troublesome and not very successful; andanother, of a more subtle nature, which proceeds upon a notion thatall ignorance is involuntary. The latter convicts a man out of his ownmouth, by pointing out to him his inconsistencies and contradictions;and the consequence is that he quarrels with himself, instead ofquarrelling with his neighbours, and is cured of prejudices andobstructions by a mode of treatment which is equally entertaining andeffectual. The physician of the soul is aware that his patient willreceive no nourishment unless he has been cleaned out; and the soul ofthe Great King himself, if he has not undergone this purification, isunclean and impure. 

And who are the ministers of the purification? Sophists I may not callthem. Yet they bear about the same likeness to Sophists as the dog, who is the gentlest of animals, does to the wolf, who is the fiercest. Comparisons are slippery things; but for the present let us assume theresemblance of the two, which may probably be disallowed hereafter. And so, from division comes purification; and from this, mentalpurification; and from mental purification, instruction; and frominstruction, education; and from education, the nobly-descended artof Sophistry, which is engaged in the detection of conceit. I do nothowever think that we have yet found the Sophist, or that his willultimately prove to be the desired art of education; but neither do Ithink that he can long escape me, for every way is blocked. Before wemake the final assault, let us take breath, and reckon up the many formswhich he has assumed: (1) he was the paid hunter of wealth and birth;(2) he was the trader in the goods of the soul; (3) he was the retailerof them; (4) he was the manufacturer of his own learned wares; (5)he was the disputant; and (6) he was the purger away ofprejudices--although this latter point is admitted to be doubtful. 

Now, there must surely be something wrong in the professor of any arthaving so many names and kinds of knowledge. Does not the very number ofthem imply that the nature of his art is not understood? And that wemay not be involved in the misunderstanding, let us observe which ofhis characteristics is the most prominent. Above all things he is adisputant. He will dispute and teach others to dispute about thingsvisible and invisible--about man, about the gods, about politics, aboutlaw, about wrestling, about all things. But can he know all things? 'Hecannot. ' How then can he dispute satisfactorily with any one who knows?'Impossible. ' Then what is the trick of his art, and why does he receivemoney from his admirers? 'Because he is believed by them to know allthings. ' You mean to say that he seems to have a knowledge of them?'Yes. '

Suppose a person were to say, not that he would dispute about allthings, but that he would make all things, you and me, and all othercreatures, the earth and the heavens and the gods, and would sell themall for a few pence--this would be a great jest; but not greater than ifhe said that he knew all things, and could teach them in a short time, and at a small cost. For all imitation is a jest, and the most gracefulform of jest. Now the painter is a man who professes to make all things, and children, who see his pictures at a distance, sometimes take themfor realities: and the Sophist pretends to know all things, and he, too, can deceive young men, who are still at a distance from the truth, notthrough their eyes, but through their ears, by the mummery of words, and induce them to believe him. But as they grow older, and come intocontact with realities, they learn by experience the futility of hispretensions. The Sophist, then, has not real knowledge; he is only animitator, or image-maker. 

And now, having got him in a corner of the dialectical net, let usdivide and subdivide until we catch him. Of image-making there are twokinds, --the art of making likenesses, and the art of making appearances. The latter may be illustrated by sculpture and painting, which often useillusions, and alter the proportions of figures, in order to adapttheir works to the eye. And the Sophist also uses illusions, andhis imitations are apparent and not real. But how can anything be anappearance only? Here arises a difficulty which has always beset thesubject of appearances. For the argument is asserting the existenceof not-being. And this is what the great Parmenides was all his lifedenying in prose and also in verse. 'You will never find, ' he says, 'that not-being is. ' And the words prove themselves! Not-being cannot beattributed to any being; for how can any being be wholly abstracted frombeing? Again, in every predication there is an attribution of singularor plural. But number is the most real of all things, and cannot beattributed to not-being. Therefore not-being cannot be predicated orexpressed; for how can we say 'is, ' 'are not, ' without number?

And now arises the greatest difficulty of all. If not-being isinconceivable, how can not-being be refuted? And am I not contradictingmyself at this moment, in speaking either in the singular or the pluralof that to which I deny both plurality and unity? You, Theaetetus, havethe might of youth, and I conjure you to exert yourself, and, if youcan, to find an expression for not-being which does not imply being andnumber. 'But I cannot. ' Then the Sophist must be left in his hole. Wemay call him an image-maker if we please, but he will only say, 'Andpray, what is an image?' And we shall reply, 'A reflection in the water, or in a mirror'; and he will say, 'Let us shut our eyes and open ourminds; what is the common notion of all images?' 'I should answer, Suchanother, made in the likeness of the true. ' Real or not real? 'Not real;at least, not in a true sense. ' And the real 'is, ' and the not-real 'isnot'? 'Yes. ' Then a likeness is really unreal, and essentially not. Here is a pretty complication of being and not-being, in which themany-headed Sophist has entangled us. He will at once point out thathe is compelling us to contradict ourselves, by affirming being ofnot-being. I think that we must cease to look for him in the class ofimitators. 

But ought we to give him up? 'I should say, certainly not. ' Then I fearthat I must lay hands on my father Parmenides; but do not call me aparricide; for there is no way out of the difficulty except to showthat in some sense not-being is; and if this is not admitted, no one canspeak of falsehood, or false opinion, or imitation, without falling intoa contradiction. You observe how unwilling I am to undertake the task;for I know that I am exposing myself to the charge of inconsistency inasserting the being of not-being. But if I am to make the attempt, Ithink that I had better begin at the beginning. 

Lightly in the days of our youth, Parmenides and others told us talesabout the origin of the universe: one spoke of three principles warringand at peace again, marrying and begetting children; another oftwo principles, hot and cold, dry and moist, which also formedrelationships. There were the Eleatics in our part of the world, sayingthat all things are one; whose doctrine begins with Xenophanes, and iseven older. Ionian, and, more recently, Sicilian muses speak of a oneand many which are held together by enmity and friendship, ever parting, ever meeting. Some of them do not insist on the perpetual strife, butadopt a gentler strain, and speak of alternation only. Whether they areright or not, who can say? But one thing we can say--that they went ontheir way without much caring whether we understood them or not. Fortell me, Theaetetus, do you understand what they mean by their assertionof unity, or by their combinations and separations of two or moreprinciples? I used to think, when I was young, that I knew all aboutnot-being, and now I am in great difficulties even about being. 

Let us proceed first to the examination of being. Turning to the dualistphilosophers, we say to them: Is being a third element besides hot andcold? or do you identify one or both of the two elements with being?At any rate, you can hardly avoid resolving them into one. Let us nextinterrogate the patrons of the one. To them we say: Are being and onetwo different names for the same thing? But how can there be two nameswhen there is nothing but one? Or you may identify them; but then thename will be either the name of nothing or of itself, i. E. Of a name. Again, the notion of being is conceived of as a whole--in the wordsof Parmenides, 'like every way unto a rounded sphere. ' And a whole hasparts; but that which has parts is not one, for unity has no parts. Isbeing, then, one, because the parts of being are one, or shall we saythat being is not a whole? In the former case, one is made up of parts;and in the latter there is still plurality, viz. Being, and a wholewhich is apart from being. And being, if not all things, lacks somethingof the nature of being, and becomes not-being. Nor can being ever havecome into existence, for nothing comes into existence except as a whole;nor can being have number, for that which has number is a whole or sumof number. These are a few of the difficulties which are accumulatingone upon another in the consideration of being. 

We may proceed now to the less exact sort of philosophers. Some ofthem drag down everything to earth, and carry on a war like that of thegiants, grasping rocks and oaks in their hands. Their adversaries defendthemselves warily from an invisible world, and reduce the substancesof their opponents to the minutest fractions, until they are lost ingeneration and flux. The latter sort are civil people enough; but thematerialists are rude and ignorant of dialectics; they must be taughthow to argue before they can answer. Yet, for the sake of the argument, we may assume them to be better than they are, and able to give anaccount of themselves. They admit the existence of a mortal livingcreature, which is a body containing a soul, and to this they would notrefuse to attribute qualities--wisdom, folly, justice and injustice. Thesoul, as they say, has a kind of body, but they do not like to assertof these qualities of the soul, either that they are corporeal, or thatthey have no existence; at this point they begin to make distinctions. 'Sons of earth, ' we say to them, 'if both visible and invisiblequalities exist, what is the common nature which is attributed to themby the term "being" or "existence"?' And, as they are incapable ofanswering this question, we may as well reply for them, that being isthe power of doing or suffering. Then we turn to the friends of ideas:to them we say, 'You distinguish becoming from being?' 'Yes, ' they willreply. 'And in becoming you participate through the bodily senses, andin being, by thought and the mind?' 'Yes. ' And you mean by the word'participation' a power of doing or suffering? To this they answer--Iam acquainted with them, Theaetetus, and know their ways better than youdo--that being can neither do nor suffer, though becoming may. And werejoin: Does not the soul know? And is not 'being' known? And are not'knowing' and 'being known' active and passive? That which is known isaffected by knowledge, and therefore is in motion. And, indeed, howcan we imagine that perfect being is a mere everlasting form, devoid ofmotion and soul? for there can be no thought without soul, nor can soulbe devoid of motion. But neither can thought or mind be devoid of someprinciple of rest or stability. And as children say entreatingly, 'Give us both, ' so the philosopher must include both the moveable andimmoveable in his idea of being. And yet, alas! he and we are in thesame difficulty with which we reproached the dualists; for motion andrest are contradictions--how then can they both exist? Does he whoaffirms this mean to say that motion is rest, or rest motion? 'No; hemeans to assert the existence of some third thing, different from themboth, which neither rests nor moves. ' But how can there be anythingwhich neither rests nor moves? Here is a second difficulty about being, quite as great as that about not-being. And we may hope that any lightwhich is thrown upon the one may extend to the other. 

Leaving them for the present, let us enquire what we mean by giving manynames to the same thing, e. G. White, good, tall, to man; out of whichtyros old and young derive such a feast of amusement. Their meagre mindsrefuse to predicate anything of anything; they say that good is good, and man is man; and that to affirm one of the other would be makingthe many one and the one many. Let us place them in a class with ourprevious opponents, and interrogate both of them at once. Shall weassume (1) that being and rest and motion, and all other things, are incommunicable with one another? or (2) that they all haveindiscriminate communion? or (3) that there is communion of some and notof others? And we will consider the first hypothesis first of all. 

(1) If we suppose the universal separation of kinds, all theories alikeare swept away; the patrons of a single principle of rest or of motion, or of a plurality of immutable ideas--all alike have the ground cut fromunder them; and all creators of the universe by theories of compositionand division, whether out of or into a finite or infinite number ofelemental forms, in alternation or continuance, share the same fate. Most ridiculous is the discomfiture which attends the opponents ofpredication, who, like the ventriloquist Eurycles, have the voice thatanswers them in their own breast. For they cannot help using the words'is, ' 'apart, ' 'from others, ' and the like; and their adversaries arethus saved the trouble of refuting them. But (2) if all things havecommunion with all things, motion will rest, and rest will move; here isa reductio ad absurdum. Two out of the three hypotheses are thus seen tobe false. The third (3) remains, which affirms that only certain thingscommunicate with certain other things. In the alphabet and the scalethere are some letters and notes which combine with others, and somewhich do not; and the laws according to which they combine or areseparated are known to the grammarian and musician. And there is ascience which teaches not only what notes and letters, but what classesadmit of combination with one another, and what not. This is a noblescience, on which we have stumbled unawares; in seeking after theSophist we have found the philosopher. He is the master who discernsone whole or form pervading a scattered multitude, and many such wholescombined under a higher one, and many entirely apart--he is the truedialectician. Like the Sophist, he is hard to recognize, though for theopposite reasons; the Sophist runs away into the obscurity of not-being, the philosopher is dark from excess of light. And now, leaving him, wewill return to our pursuit of the Sophist. 

Agreeing in the truth of the third hypothesis, that some things havecommunion and others not, and that some may have communion with all, letus examine the most important kinds which are capable of admixture; andin this way we may perhaps find out a sense in which not-being may beaffirmed to have being. Now the highest kinds are being, rest, motion;and of these, rest and motion exclude each other, but both of them areincluded in being; and again, they are the same with themselves andthe other of each other. What is the meaning of these words, 'same' and'other'? Are there two more kinds to be added to the three others? Forsameness cannot be either rest or motion, because predicated both ofrest and motion; nor yet being; because if being were attributed to bothof them we should attribute sameness to both of them. Nor can other beidentified with being; for then other, which is relative, would have theabsoluteness of being. Therefore we must assume a fifth principle, whichis universal, and runs through all things, for each thing is other thanall other things. Thus there are five principles: (1) being, (2) motion, which is not (3) rest, and because participating both in the same andother, is and is not (4) the same with itself, and is and is not (5)other than the other. And motion is not being, but partakes of being, and therefore is and is not in the most absolute sense. Thus we havediscovered that not-being is the principle of the other which runsthrough all things, being not excepted. And 'being' is one thing, and'not-being' includes and is all other things. And not-being is not theopposite of being, but only the other. Knowledge has many branches, and the other or difference has as many, each of which is described byprefixing the word 'not' to some kind of knowledge. The not-beautiful isas real as the beautiful, the not-just as the just. And the essence ofthe not-beautiful is to be separated from and opposed to a certain kindof existence which is termed beautiful. And this opposition and negationis the not-being of which we are in search, and is one kind of being. Thus, in spite of Parmenides, we have not only discovered the existence, but also the nature of not-being--that nature we have found to berelation. In the communion of different kinds, being and other mutuallyinterpenetrate; other is, but is other than being, and other than eachand all of the remaining kinds, and therefore in an infinity of ways 'isnot. ' And the argument has shown that the pursuit of contradictions ischildish and useless, and the very opposite of that higher spirit whichcriticizes the words of another according to the natural meaningof them. Nothing can be more unphilosophical than the denial of allcommunion of kinds. And we are fortunate in having established such acommunion for another reason, because in continuing the hunt after theSophist we have to examine the nature of discourse, and there could beno discourse if there were no communion. For the Sophist, although hecan no longer deny the existence of not-being, may still affirm thatnot-being cannot enter into discourse, and as he was arguing before thatthere could be no such thing as falsehood, because there was no suchthing as not-being, he may continue to argue that there is no such thingas the art of image-making and phantastic, because not-being has noplace in language. Hence arises the necessity of examining speech, opinion, and imagination. 

And first concerning speech; let us ask the same question about wordswhich we have already answered about the kinds of being and the lettersof the alphabet: To what extent do they admit of combination? Some wordshave a meaning when combined, and others have no meaning. One class ofwords describes action, another class agents: 'walks, ' 'runs, ' 'sleeps'are examples of the first; 'stag, ' 'horse, ' 'lion' of the second. Butno combination of words can be formed without a verb and a noun, e. G. 'Aman learns'; the simplest sentence is composed of two words, and oneof these must be a subject. For example, in the sentence, 'Theaetetussits, ' which is not very long, 'Theaetetus' is the subject, and in thesentence 'Theaetetus flies, ' 'Theaetetus' is again the subject. But thetwo sentences differ in quality, for the first says of you that whichis true, and the second says of you that which is not true, or, in otherwords, attributes to you things which are not as though they were. Hereis false discourse in the shortest form. And thus not only speech, but thought and opinion and imagination are proved to be both true andfalse. For thought is only the process of silent speech, and opinion isonly the silent assent or denial which follows this, and imagination isonly the expression of this in some form of sense. All of them are akinto speech, and therefore, like speech, admit of true and false. Andwe have discovered false opinion, which is an encouraging sign of ourprobable success in the rest of the enquiry. 

Then now let us return to our old division of likeness-making andphantastic. When we were going to place the Sophist in one of them, a doubt arose whether there could be such a thing as an appearance, because there was no such thing as falsehood. At length falsehoodhas been discovered by us to exist, and we have acknowledged that theSophist is to be found in the class of imitators. All art was dividedoriginally by us into two branches--productive and acquisitive. Andnow we may divide both on a different principle into the creations orimitations which are of human, and those which are of divine, origin. For we must admit that the world and ourselves and the animals did notcome into existence by chance, or the spontaneous working of nature, butby divine reason and knowledge. And there are not only divine creationsbut divine imitations, such as apparitions and shadows and reflections, which are equally the work of a divine mind. And there are humancreations and human imitations too, --there is the actual house and thedrawing of it. Nor must we forget that image-making may be an imitationof realities or an imitation of appearances, which last has beencalled by us phantastic. And this phantastic may be again divided intoimitation by the help of instruments and impersonations. And thelatter may be either dissembling or unconscious, either with or withoutknowledge. A man cannot imitate you, Theaetetus, without knowing you, but he can imitate the form of justice or virtue if he have a sentimentor opinion about them. Not being well provided with names, the formerI will venture to call the imitation of science, and the latter theimitation of opinion. 

The latter is our present concern, for the Sophist has no claims toscience or knowledge. Now the imitator, who has only opinion, may beeither the simple imitator, who thinks that he knows, or the dissembler, who is conscious that he does not know, but disguises his ignorance. Andthe last may be either a maker of long speeches, or of shorter speecheswhich compel the person conversing to contradict himself. The maker oflonger speeches is the popular orator; the maker of the shorter isthe Sophist, whose art may be traced as being the

 / contradictious / dissembling / without knowledge / human and not divine / juggling with words / phantastic or unreal / art of image-making. 

. .. 

In commenting on the dialogue in which Plato most nearly approaches thegreat modern master of metaphysics there are several points whichit will be useful to consider, such as the unity of opposites, theconception of the ideas as causes, and the relation of the Platonic andHegelian dialectic. 

The unity of opposites was the crux of ancient thinkers in the age ofPlato: How could one thing be or become another? That substances haveattributes was implied in common language; that heat and cold, day andnight, pass into one another was a matter of experience 'on a level withthe cobbler's understanding' (Theat. ). But how could philosophy explainthe connexion of ideas, how justify the passing of them into oneanother? The abstractions of one, other, being, not-being, rest, motion, individual, universal, which successive generations of philosophers hadrecently discovered, seemed to be beyond the reach of human thought, like stars shining in a distant heaven. They were the symbols ofdifferent schools of philosophy: but in what relation did they stand toone another and to the world of sense? It was hardly conceivablethat one could be other, or the same different. Yet without somereconciliation of these elementary ideas thought was impossible. Therewas no distinction between truth and falsehood, between the Sophistand the philosopher. Everything could be predicated of everything, or nothing of anything. To these difficulties Plato finds what to usappears to be the answer of common sense--that Not-being is the relativeor other of Being, the defining and distinguishing principle, and thatsome ideas combine with others, but not all with all. It is remarkablehowever that he offers this obvious reply only as the result of a longand tedious enquiry; by a great effort he is able to look down as 'froma height' on the 'friends of the ideas' as well as on the pre-Socraticphilosophies. Yet he is merely asserting principles which no one whocould be made to understand them would deny. 

The Platonic unity of differences or opposites is the beginning of themodern view that all knowledge is of relations; it also anticipates thedoctrine of Spinoza that all determination is negation. Plato takes orgives so much of either of these theories as was necessary or possiblein the age in which he lived. In the Sophist, as in the Cratylus, he isopposed to the Heracleitean flux and equally to the Megarian andCynic denial of predication, because he regards both of them as makingknowledge impossible. He does not assert that everything is and is not, or that the same thing can be affected in the same and in opposite waysat the same time and in respect of the same part of itself. The lawof contradiction is as clearly laid down by him in the Republic, as byAristotle in his Organon. Yet he is aware that in the negative there isalso a positive element, and that oppositions may be only differences. And in the Parmenides he deduces the many from the one and Not-beingfrom Being, and yet shows that the many are included in the one, andthat Not-being returns to Being. 

In several of the later dialogues Plato is occupied with the connexionof the sciences, which in the Philebus he divides into two classes ofpure and applied, adding to them there as elsewhere (Phaedr. , Crat. , Republic, States. ) a superintending science of dialectic. This is theorigin of Aristotle's Architectonic, which seems, however, to havepassed into an imaginary science of essence, and no longer to retainany relation to other branches of knowledge. Of such a science, whetherdescribed as 'philosophia prima, ' the science of ousia, logic ormetaphysics, philosophers have often dreamed. But even now the time hasnot arrived when the anticipation of Plato can be realized. Though manya thinker has framed a 'hierarchy of the sciences, ' no one has as yetfound the higher science which arrays them in harmonious order, giving to the organic and inorganic, to the physical and moral, theirrespective limits, and showing how they all work together in the worldand in man. 

Plato arranges in order the stages of knowledge and of existence. Theyare the steps or grades by which he rises from sense and the shadows ofsense to the idea of beauty and good. Mind is in motion as well asat rest (Soph. ); and may be described as a dialectical progress whichpasses from one limit or determination of thought to another and backagain to the first. This is the account of dialectic given by Plato inthe Sixth Book of the Republic, which regarded under another aspectis the mysticism of the Symposium. He does not deny the existence ofobjects of sense, but according to him they only receive their truemeaning when they are incorporated in a principle which is above them(Republic). In modern language they might be said to come first in theorder of experience, last in the order of nature and reason. They areassumed, as he is fond of repeating, upon the condition that they shallgive an account of themselves and that the truth of their existenceshall be hereafter proved. For philosophy must begin somewhere and maybegin anywhere, --with outward objects, with statements of opinion, withabstract principles. But objects of sense must lead us onward to theideas or universals which are contained in them; the statements ofopinion must be verified; the abstract principles must be filled up andconnected with one another. In Plato we find, as we might expect, thegerms of many thoughts which have been further developed by the geniusof Spinoza and Hegel. But there is a difficulty in separating the germfrom the flower, or in drawing the line which divides ancientfrom modern philosophy. Many coincidences which occur in them areunconscious, seeming to show a natural tendency in the human mindtowards certain ideas and forms of thought. And there are manyspeculations of Plato which would have passed away unheeded, andtheir meaning, like that of some hieroglyphic, would have remainedundeciphered, unless two thousand years and more afterwards aninterpreter had arisen of a kindred spirit and of the same intellectualfamily. For example, in the Sophist Plato begins with the abstract andgoes on to the concrete, not in the lower sense of returning to outwardobjects, but to the Hegelian concrete or unity of abstractions. In theintervening period hardly any importance would have been attached to thequestion which is so full of meaning to Plato and Hegel. 

They differ however in their manner of regarding the question. For Platois answering a difficulty; he is seeking to justify the use of commonlanguage and of ordinary thought into which philosophy had introduceda principle of doubt and dissolution. Whereas Hegel tries to go beyondcommon thought, and to combine abstractions in a higher unity: theordinary mechanism of language and logic is carried by him into anotherregion in which all oppositions are absorbed and all contradictionsaffirmed, only that they may be done away with. But Plato, unlike Hegel, nowhere bases his system on the unity of opposites, although in theParmenides he shows an Hegelian subtlety in the analysis of one andBeing. 

It is difficult within the compass of a few pages to give even afaint outline of the Hegelian dialectic. No philosophy which is worthunderstanding can be understood in a moment; common sense will not teachus metaphysics any more than mathematics. If all sciences demand of usprotracted study and attention, the highest of all can hardly be matterof immediate intuition. Neither can we appreciate a great system withoutyielding a half assent to it--like flies we are caught in the spider'sweb; and we can only judge of it truly when we place ourselves at adistance from it. Of all philosophies Hegelianism is the most obscure:and the difficulty inherent in the subject is increased by the use ofa technical language. The saying of Socrates respecting the writings ofHeracleitus--'Noble is that which I understand, and that which I do notunderstand may be as noble; but the strength of a Delian diver is neededto swim through it'--expresses the feeling with which the reader risesfrom the perusal of Hegel. We may truly apply to him the words in whichPlato describes the Pre-Socratic philosophers: 'He went on his wayrather regardless of whether we understood him or not'; or, as he isreported himself to have said of his own pupils: 'There is only one ofyou who understands me, and he does NOT understand me. '

Nevertheless the consideration of a few general aspects of the Hegelianphilosophy may help to dispel some errors and to awaken an interestabout it. (i) It is an ideal philosophy which, in popular phraseology, maintains not matter but mind to be the truth of things, and this not bya mere crude substitution of one word for another, but by showingeither of them to be the complement of the other. Both are creations ofthought, and the difference in kind which seems to divide them may alsobe regarded as a difference of degree. One is to the other as the realto the ideal, and both may be conceived together under the higher formof the notion. (ii) Under another aspect it views all the forms of senseand knowledge as stages of thought which have always existed implicitlyand unconsciously, and to which the mind of the world, graduallydisengaged from sense, has become awakened. The present has been thepast. The succession in time of human ideas is also the eternal 'now';it is historical and also a divine ideal. The history of philosophystripped of personality and of the other accidents of time and placeis gathered up into philosophy, and again philosophy clothed incircumstance expands into history. (iii) Whether regarded as present orpast, under the form of time or of eternity, the spirit of dialecticis always moving onwards from one determination of thought to another, receiving each successive system of philosophy and subordinating it tothat which follows--impelled by an irresistible necessity from one ideato another until the cycle of human thought and existence is complete. It follows from this that all previous philosophies which are worthy ofthe name are not mere opinions or speculations, but stages or moments ofthought which have a necessary place in the world of mind. They areno longer the last word of philosophy, for another and another hassucceeded them, but they still live and are mighty; in the language ofthe Greek poet, 'There is a great God in them, and he grows not old. '(iv) This vast ideal system is supposed to be based upon experience. Ateach step it professes to carry with it the 'witness of eyes andears' and of common sense, as well as the internal evidence of itsown consistency; it has a place for every science, and affirms thatno philosophy of a narrower type is capable of comprehending all truefacts. 

The Hegelian dialectic may be also described as a movement from thesimple to the complex. Beginning with the generalizations of sense, (1)passing through ideas of quality, quantity, measure, number, and thelike, (2) ascending from presentations, that is pictorial forms ofsense, to representations in which the picture vanishes and the essenceis detached in thought from the outward form, (3) combining the I andthe not-I, or the subject and object, the natural order of thought is atlast found to include the leading ideas of the sciences and to arrangethem in relation to one another. Abstractions grow together andagain become concrete in a new and higher sense. They also admitof development from within their own spheres. Everywhere there isa movement of attraction and repulsion going on--an attraction orrepulsion of ideas of which the physical phenomenon described under asimilar name is a figure. Freedom and necessity, mind and matter, thecontinuous and the discrete, cause and effect, are perpetually beingsevered from one another in thought, only to be perpetually reunited. The finite and infinite, the absolute and relative are not reallyopposed; the finite and the negation of the finite are alike lost in ahigher or positive infinity, and the absolute is the sum or correlationof all relatives. When this reconciliation of opposites is finallycompleted in all its stages, the mind may come back again and review thethings of sense, the opinions of philosophers, the strife of theologyand politics, without being disturbed by them. Whatever is, if notthe very best--and what is the best, who can tell?--is, at any rate, historical and rational, suitable to its own age, unsuitable to anyother. Nor can any efforts of speculative thinkers or of soldiers andstatesmen materially quicken the 'process of the suns. '

Hegel was quite sensible how great would be the difficulty of presentingphilosophy to mankind under the form of opposites. Most of us livein the one-sided truth which the understanding offers to us, andif occasionally we come across difficulties like the time-honouredcontroversy of necessity and free-will, or the Eleatic puzzle ofAchilles and the tortoise, we relegate some of them to the sphere ofmystery, others to the book of riddles, and go on our way rejoicing. Most men (like Aristotle) have been accustomed to regard a contradictionin terms as the end of strife; to be told that contradiction is the lifeand mainspring of the intellectual world is indeed a paradox to them. Every abstraction is at first the enemy of every other, yet they arelinked together, each with all, in the chain of Being. The struggle forexistence is not confined to the animals, but appears in the kingdom ofthought. The divisions which arise in thought between the physical andmoral and between the moral and intellectual, and the like, are deepenedand widened by the formal logic which elevates the defects of the humanfaculties into Laws of Thought; they become a part of the mind whichmakes them and is also made up of them. Such distinctions become sofamiliar to us that we regard the thing signified by them as absolutelyfixed and defined. These are some of the illusions from which Hegeldelivers us by placing us above ourselves, by teaching us to analyzethe growth of 'what we are pleased to call our minds, ' by reverting toa time when our present distinctions of thought and language had noexistence. 

Of the great dislike and childish impatience of his system which wouldbe aroused among his opponents, he was fully aware, and would oftenanticipate the jests which the rest of the world, 'in the superfluityof their wits, ' were likely to make upon him. Men are annoyed at whatpuzzles them; they think what they cannot easily understand to be fullof danger. Many a sceptic has stood, as he supposed, firmly rooted inthe categories of the understanding which Hegel resolves into theiroriginal nothingness. For, like Plato, he 'leaves no stone unturned'in the intellectual world. Nor can we deny that he is unnecessarilydifficult, or that his own mind, like that of all metaphysicians, wastoo much under the dominion of his system and unable to see beyond:or that the study of philosophy, if made a serious business (compareRepublic), involves grave results to the mind and life of the student. For it may encumber him without enlightening his path; and it may weakenhis natural faculties of thought and expression without increasinghis philosophical power. The mind easily becomes entangled amongabstractions, and loses hold of facts. The glass which is adapted todistant objects takes away the vision of what is near and present to us. 

To Hegel, as to the ancient Greek thinkers, philosophy was a religion, aprinciple of life as well as of knowledge, like the idea of good in theSixth Book of the Republic, a cause as well as an effect, the source ofgrowth as well as of light. In forms of thought which by most of us areregarded as mere categories, he saw or thought that he saw a gradualrevelation of the Divine Being. He would have been said by his opponentsto have confused God with the history of philosophy, and to have beenincapable of distinguishing ideas from facts. And certainly we canscarcely understand how a deep thinker like Hegel could have hopedto revive or supplant the old traditional faith by an unintelligibleabstraction: or how he could have imagined that philosophy consistedonly or chiefly in the categories of logic. For abstractions, thoughcombined by him in the notion, seem to be never really concrete; theyare a metaphysical anatomy, not a living and thinking substance. Thoughwe are reminded by him again and again that we are gathering up theworld in ideas, we feel after all that we have not really spanned thegulf which separates phainomena from onta. 

Having in view some of these difficulties, he seeks--and we may followhis example--to make the understanding of his system easier (a)by illustrations, and (b) by pointing out the coincidence of thespeculative idea and the historical order of thought. 

(a) If we ask how opposites can coexist, we are told that many differentqualities inhere in a flower or a tree or in any other concrete object, and that any conception of space or matter or time involves the twocontradictory attributes of divisibility and continuousness. We mayponder over the thought of number, reminding ourselves that every unitboth implies and denies the existence of every other, and that the oneis many--a sum of fractions, and the many one--a sum of units. We may bereminded that in nature there is a centripetal as well as a centrifugalforce, a regulator as well as a spring, a law of attraction as well asof repulsion. The way to the West is the way also to the East; the northpole of the magnet cannot be divided from the south pole; two minussigns make a plus in Arithmetic and Algebra. Again, we may liken thesuccessive layers of thought to the deposits of geological strata whichwere once fluid and are now solid, which were at one time uppermost inthe series and are now hidden in the earth; or to the successive rindsor barks of trees which year by year pass inward; or to the ripple ofwater which appears and reappears in an ever-widening circle. Or ourattention may be drawn to ideas which the moment we analyze them involvea contradiction, such as 'beginning' or 'becoming, ' or to the oppositepoles, as they are sometimes termed, of necessity and freedom, of ideaand fact. We may be told to observe that every negative is a positive, that differences of kind are resolvable into differences of degree, andthat differences of degree may be heightened into differences of kind. We may remember the common remark that there is much to be said on bothsides of a question. We may be recommended to look within and to explainhow opposite ideas can coexist in our own minds; and we may be told toimagine the minds of all mankind as one mind in which the true ideas ofall ages and countries inhere. In our conception of God in his relationto man or of any union of the divine and human nature, a contradictionappears to be unavoidable. Is not the reconciliation of mind and bodya necessity, not only of speculation but of practical life? Reflectionssuch as these will furnish the best preparation and give the rightattitude of mind for understanding the Hegelian philosophy. 

(b) Hegel's treatment of the early Greek thinkers affords the readiestillustration of his meaning in conceiving all philosophy under the formof opposites. The first abstraction is to him the beginning of thought. Hitherto there had only existed a tumultuous chaos of mythologicalfancy, but when Thales said 'All is water' a new era began to dawn uponthe world. Man was seeking to grasp the universe under a single formwhich was at first simply a material element, the most equable andcolourless and universal which could be found. But soon the human mindbecame dissatisfied with the emblem, and after ringing the changeson one element after another, demanded a more abstract and perfectconception, such as one or Being, which was absolutely at rest. But thepositive had its negative, the conception of Being involved Not-being, the conception of one, many, the conception of a whole, parts. Then thependulum swung to the other side, from rest to motion, from Xenophanesto Heracleitus. The opposition of Being and Not-being projected intospace became the atoms and void of Leucippus and Democritus. Untilthe Atomists, the abstraction of the individual did not exist; in thephilosophy of Anaxagoras the idea of mind, whether human or divine, was beginning to be realized. The pendulum gave another swing, from theindividual to the universal, from the object to the subject. TheSophist first uttered the word 'Man is the measure of all things, ' whichSocrates presented in a new form as the study of ethics. Once more wereturn from mind to the object of mind, which is knowledge, and outof knowledge the various degrees or kinds of knowledge more or lessabstract were gradually developed. The threefold division of logic, physic, and ethics, foreshadowed in Plato, was finally established byAristotle and the Stoics. Thus, according to Hegel, in the course ofabout two centuries by a process of antagonism and negation the leadingthoughts of philosophy were evolved. 

There is nothing like this progress of opposites in Plato, who in theSymposium denies the possibility of reconciliation until the oppositionhas passed away. In his own words, there is an absurdity in supposingthat 'harmony is discord; for in reality harmony consists of notes of ahigher and lower pitch which disagreed once, but are now reconciled bythe art of music' (Symp. ). He does indeed describe objects of senseas regarded by us sometimes from one point of view and sometimes fromanother. As he says at the end of the Fifth Book of the Republic, 'Thereis nothing light which is not heavy, or great which is not small. ' Andhe extends this relativity to the conceptions of just and good, as wellas to great and small. In like manner he acknowledges that the samenumber may be more or less in relation to other numbers without anyincrease or diminution (Theat. ). But the perplexity only arises out ofthe confusion of the human faculties; the art of measuring shows us whatis truly great and truly small. Though the just and good in particularinstances may vary, the IDEA of good is eternal and unchangeable. Andthe IDEA of good is the source of knowledge and also of Being, in whichall the stages of sense and knowledge are gathered up and from beinghypotheses become realities. 

Leaving the comparison with Plato we may now consider the value ofthis invention of Hegel. There can be no question of the importance ofshowing that two contraries or contradictories may in certain cases beboth true. The silliness of the so-called laws of thought ('All A = A, 'or, in the negative form, 'Nothing can at the same time be both A, andnot A') has been well exposed by Hegel himself (Wallace's Hegel), whoremarks that 'the form of the maxim is virtually self-contradictory, for a proposition implies a distinction between subject and predicate, whereas the maxim of identity, as it is called, A = A, does not fulfilwhat its form requires. Nor does any mind ever think or form conceptionsin accordance with this law, nor does any existence conform to it. 'Wisdom of this sort is well parodied in Shakespeare (Twelfth Night, 'Clown: For as the old hermit of Prague, that never saw pen and ink, very wittily said to a niece of King Gorboduc, "That that is is". .. Forwhat is "that" but "that, " and "is" but "is"?'). Unless we are willingto admit that two contradictories may be true, many questions which lieat the threshold of mathematics and of morals will be insoluble puzzlesto us. 

The influence of opposites is felt in practical life. The understandingsees one side of a question only--the common sense of mankind joinsone of two parties in politics, in religion, in philosophy. Yet, aseverybody knows, truth is not wholly the possession of either. But thecharacters of men are one-sided and accept this or that aspect of thetruth. The understanding is strong in a single abstract principle andwith this lever moves mankind. Few attain to a balance of principlesor recognize truly how in all human things there is a thesis andantithesis, a law of action and of reaction. In politics we requireorder as well as liberty, and have to consider the proportions in whichunder given circumstances they may be safely combined. In religion thereis a tendency to lose sight of morality, to separate goodness fromthe love of truth, to worship God without attempting to know him. In philosophy again there are two opposite principles, of immediateexperience and of those general or a priori truths which are supposed totranscend experience. But the common sense or common opinion of mankindis incapable of apprehending these opposite sides or views--men aredetermined by their natural bent to one or other of them; they gostraight on for a time in a single line, and may be many things by turnsbut not at once. 

Hence the importance of familiarizing the mind with forms which willassist us in conceiving or expressing the complex or contrary aspectsof life and nature. The danger is that they may be too much for us, andobscure our appreciation of facts. As the complexity of mechanics cannotbe understood without mathematics, so neither can the many-sidedness ofthe mental and moral world be truly apprehended without the assistanceof new forms of thought. One of these forms is the unity of opposites. Abstractions have a great power over us, but they are apt to be partialand one-sided, and only when modified by other abstractions do they makean approach to the truth. Many a man has become a fatalist because hehas fallen under the dominion of a single idea. He says to himself, forexample, that he must be either free or necessary--he cannot be both. Thus in the ancient world whole schools of philosophy passed away in thevain attempt to solve the problem of the continuity or divisibility ofmatter. And in comparatively modern times, though in the spirit of anancient philosopher, Bishop Berkeley, feeling a similar perplexity, is inclined to deny the truth of infinitesimals in mathematics. Manydifficulties arise in practical religion from the impossibility ofconceiving body and mind at once and in adjusting their movements to oneanother. There is a border ground between them which seems to belong toboth; and there is as much difficulty in conceiving the body without thesoul as the soul without the body. To the 'either' and 'or' philosophy('Everything is either A or not A') should at least be added the clause'or neither, ' 'or both. ' The double form makes reflection easier andmore conformable to experience, and also more comprehensive. Butin order to avoid paradox and the danger of giving offence to theunmetaphysical part of mankind, we may speak of it as due to theimperfection of language or the limitation of human faculties. It isnevertheless a discovery which, in Platonic language, may be termed a'most gracious aid to thought. '

The doctrine of opposite moments of thought or of progression byantagonism, further assists us in framing a scheme or system of thesciences. The negation of one gives birth to another of them. The doublenotions are the joints which hold them together. The simple is developedinto the complex, the complex returns again into the simple. Beginningwith the highest notion of mind or thought, we may descend by a seriesof negations to the first generalizations of sense. Or again we maybegin with the simplest elements of sense and proceed upwards to thehighest being or thought. Metaphysic is the negation or absorption ofphysiology--physiology of chemistry--chemistry of mechanical philosophy. Similarly in mechanics, when we can no further go we arrive atchemistry--when chemistry becomes organic we arrive at physiology:when we pass from the outward and animal to the inward nature of man wearrive at moral and metaphysical philosophy. These sciences have each ofthem their own methods and are pursued independently of one another. But to the mind of the thinker they are all one--latent in oneanother--developed out of one another. 

This method of opposites has supplied new instruments of thought for thesolution of metaphysical problems, and has thrown down many of the wallswithin which the human mind was confined. Formerly when philosophersarrived at the infinite and absolute, they seemed to be lost in a regionbeyond human comprehension. But Hegel has shown that the absolute andinfinite are no more true than the relative and finite, and that theymust alike be negatived before we arrive at a true absolute or a trueinfinite. The conceptions of the infinite and absolute as ordinarilyunderstood are tiresome because they are unmeaning, but there isno peculiar sanctity or mystery in them. We might as well make aninfinitesimal series of fractions or a perpetually recurring decimalthe object of our worship. They are the widest and also the thinnest ofhuman ideas, or, in the language of logicians, they have the greatestextension and the least comprehension. Of all words they may be trulysaid to be the most inflated with a false meaning. They have beenhanded down from one philosopher to another until they have acquired areligious character. They seem also to derive a sacredness from theirassociation with the Divine Being. Yet they are the poorest of thepredicates under which we describe him--signifying no more than this, that he is not finite, that he is not relative, and tending to obscurehis higher attributes of wisdom, goodness, truth. 

The system of Hegel frees the mind from the dominion of abstract ideas. We acknowledge his originality, and some of us delight to wander in themazes of thought which he has opened to us. For Hegel has found admirersin England and Scotland when his popularity in Germany has departed, andhe, like the philosophers whom he criticizes, is of the past. No otherthinker has ever dissected the human mind with equal patience andminuteness. He has lightened the burden of thought because he has shownus that the chains which we wear are of our own forging. To be able toplace ourselves not only above the opinions of men but above theirmodes of thinking, is a great height of philosophy. This dearly obtainedfreedom, however, we are not disposed to part with, or to allow him tobuild up in a new form the 'beggarly elements' of scholastic logicwhich he has thrown down. So far as they are aids to reflection andexpression, forms of thought are useful, but no further:--we may easilyhave too many of them. 

And when we are asked to believe the Hegelian to be the sole oruniversal logic, we naturally reply that there are other ways in whichour ideas may be connected. The triplets of Hegel, the division intobeing, essence, and notion, are not the only or necessary modes in whichthe world of thought can be conceived. There may be an evolution bydegrees as well as by opposites. The word 'continuity' suggests thepossibility of resolving all differences into differences of quantity. Again, the opposites themselves may vary from the least degree ofdiversity up to contradictory opposition. They are not like numbersand figures, always and everywhere of the same value. And thereforethe edifice which is constructed out of them has merely an imaginarysymmetry, and is really irregular and out of proportion. The spirit ofHegelian criticism should be applied to his own system, and the termsBeing, Not-being, existence, essence, notion, and the like challengedand defined. For if Hegel introduces a great many distinctions, heobliterates a great many others by the help of the universal solvent 'isnot, ' which appears to be the simplest of negations, and yet admitsof several meanings. Neither are we able to follow him in the play ofmetaphysical fancy which conducts him from one determination of thoughtto another. But we begin to suspect that this vast system is not Godwithin us, or God immanent in the world, and may be only the inventionof an individual brain. The 'beyond' is always coming back upon ushowever often we expel it. We do not easily believe that we have withinthe compass of the mind the form of universal knowledge. We ratherincline to think that the method of knowledge is inseparable from actualknowledge, and wait to see what new forms may be developed out ofour increasing experience and observation of man and nature. We areconscious of a Being who is without us as well as within us. Evenif inclined to Pantheism we are unwilling to imagine that the meagrecategories of the understanding, however ingeniously arranged ordisplayed, are the image of God;--that what all religions were seekingafter from the beginning was the Hegelian philosophy which has beenrevealed in the latter days. The great metaphysician, like a prophet ofold, was naturally inclined to believe that his own thoughts were divinerealities. We may almost say that whatever came into his head seemedto him to be a necessary truth. He never appears to have criticizedhimself, or to have subjected his own ideas to the process of analysiswhich he applies to every other philosopher. 

Hegel would have insisted that his philosophy should be accepted as awhole or not at all. He would have urged that the parts derived theirmeaning from one another and from the whole. He thought that he hadsupplied an outline large enough to contain all future knowledge, and amethod to which all future philosophies must conform. His metaphysicalgenius is especially shown in the construction of the categories--a workwhich was only begun by Kant, and elaborated to the utmost by himself. But is it really true that the part has no meaning when separated fromthe whole, or that knowledge to be knowledge at all must be universal?Do all abstractions shine only by the reflected light of otherabstractions? May they not also find a nearer explanation in theirrelation to phenomena? If many of them are correlatives they are notall so, and the relations which subsist between them vary from a mereassociation up to a necessary connexion. Nor is it easy to determinehow far the unknown element affects the known, whether, for example, newdiscoveries may not one day supersede our most elementary notions aboutnature. To a certain extent all our knowledge is conditional uponwhat may be known in future ages of the world. We must admit thishypothetical element, which we cannot get rid of by an assumption thatwe have already discovered the method to which all philosophy mustconform. Hegel is right in preferring the concrete to the abstract, in setting actuality before possibility, in excluding from thephilosopher's vocabulary the word 'inconceivable. ' But he is too wellsatisfied with his own system ever to consider the effect of what isunknown on the element which is known. To the Hegelian all things areplain and clear, while he who is outside the charmed circle is inthe mire of ignorance and 'logical impurity': he who is within isomniscient, or at least has all the elements of knowledge under hishand. 

Hegelianism may be said to be a transcendental defence of the worldas it is. There is no room for aspiration and no need of any: 'What isactual is rational, what is rational is actual. ' But a good man will notreadily acquiesce in this aphorism. He knows of course that all thingsproceed according to law whether for good or evil. But when he seesthe misery and ignorance of mankind he is convinced that without anyinterruption of the uniformity of nature the condition of the world maybe indefinitely improved by human effort. There is also an adaptationof persons to times and countries, but this is very far from being thefulfilment of their higher natures. The man of the seventeenth centuryis unfitted for the eighteenth, and the man of the eighteenth for thenineteenth, and most of us would be out of place in the world of ahundred years hence. But all higher minds are much more akin thanthey are different: genius is of all ages, and there is perhaps moreuniformity in excellence than in mediocrity. The sublimer intelligencesof mankind--Plato, Dante, Sir Thomas More--meet in a higher sphereabove the ordinary ways of men; they understand one another fromafar, notwithstanding the interval which separates them. They are 'thespectators of all time and of all existence;' their works live forever; and there is nothing to prevent the force of their individualitybreaking through the uniformity which surrounds them. But suchdisturbers of the order of thought Hegel is reluctant to acknowledge. 

The doctrine of Hegel will to many seem the expression of an indolentconservatism, and will at any rate be made an excuse for it. The mind ofthe patriot rebels when he is told that the worst tyranny and oppressionhas a natural fitness: he cannot be persuaded, for example, that theconquest of Prussia by Napoleon I. Was either natural or necessary, or that any similar calamity befalling a nation should be a matter ofindifference to the poet or philosopher. We may need such a philosophyor religion to console us under evils which are irremediable, but we seethat it is fatal to the higher life of man. It seems to say to us, 'Theworld is a vast system or machine which can be conceived under the formsof logic, but in which no single man can do any great good or any greatharm. Even if it were a thousand times worse than it is, it could bearranged in categories and explained by philosophers. And what more dowe want?'

The philosophy of Hegel appeals to an historical criterion: the ideasof men have a succession in time as well as an order of thought. Butthe assumption that there is a correspondence between the succession ofideas in history and the natural order of philosophy is hardly true evenof the beginnings of thought. And in later systems forms of thoughtare too numerous and complex to admit of our tracing in them a regularsuccession. They seem also to be in part reflections of the past, and itis difficult to separate in them what is original and what is borrowed. Doubtless they have a relation to one another--the transition fromDescartes to Spinoza or from Locke to Berkeley is not a matter ofchance, but it can hardly be described as an alternation of opposites orfigured to the mind by the vibrations of a pendulum. Even in Aristotleand Plato, rightly understood, we cannot trace this law of action andreaction. They are both idealists, although to the one the idea isactual and immanent, --to the other only potential and transcendent, asHegel himself has pointed out (Wallace's Hegel). The true meaning ofAristotle has been disguised from us by his own appeal to fact and theopinions of mankind in his more popular works, and by the use made ofhis writings in the Middle Ages. No book, except the Scriptures, has been so much read, and so little understood. The Pre-Socraticphilosophies are simpler, and we may observe a progress in them; but isthere any regular succession? The ideas of Being, change, number, seemto have sprung up contemporaneously in different parts of Greece and wehave no difficulty in constructing them out of one another--we can seethat the union of Being and Not-being gave birth to the idea of changeor Becoming and that one might be another aspect of Being. Again, the Eleatics may be regarded as developing in one direction intothe Megarian school, in the other into the Atomists, but there is nonecessary connexion between them. Nor is there any indication that thedeficiency which was felt in one school was supplemented or compensatedby another. They were all efforts to supply the want which the Greeksbegan to feel at the beginning of the sixth century before Christ, --thewant of abstract ideas. Nor must we forget the uncertainty ofchronology;--if, as Aristotle says, there were Atomists beforeLeucippus, Eleatics before Xenophanes, and perhaps 'patrons of theflux' before Heracleitus, Hegel's order of thought in the historyof philosophy would be as much disarranged as his order of religiousthought by recent discoveries in the history of religion. 

Hegel is fond of repeating that all philosophies still live and that theearlier are preserved in the later; they are refuted, and they are notrefuted, by those who succeed them. Once they reigned supreme, now theyare subordinated to a power or idea greater or more comprehensivethan their own. The thoughts of Socrates and Plato and Aristotle havecertainly sunk deep into the mind of the world, and have exercised aninfluence which will never pass away; but can we say that they havethe same meaning in modern and ancient philosophy? Some of them, asfor example the words 'Being, ' 'essence, ' 'matter, ' 'form, ' eitherhave become obsolete, or are used in new senses, whereas 'individual, ''cause, ' 'motive, ' have acquired an exaggerated importance. Is themanner in which the logical determinations of thought, or 'categories'as they may be termed, have been handed down to us, really differentfrom that in which other words have come down to us? Have they notbeen equally subject to accident, and are they not often used by Hegelhimself in senses which would have been quite unintelligible to theiroriginal inventors--as for example, when he speaks of the 'ground' ofLeibnitz ('Everything has a sufficient ground') as identical withhis own doctrine of the 'notion' (Wallace's Hegel), or the 'Being andNot-being' of Heracleitus as the same with his own 'Becoming'?

As the historical order of thought has been adapted to the logical, sowe have reason for suspecting that the Hegelian logic has been insome degree adapted to the order of thought in history. There isunfortunately no criterion to which either of them can be subjected, andnot much forcing was required to bring either into near relations withthe other. We may fairly doubt whether the division of the first andsecond parts of logic in the Hegelian system has not really arisen froma desire to make them accord with the first and second stages of theearly Greek philosophy. Is there any reason why the conception ofmeasure in the first part, which is formed by the union of quality andquantity, should not have been equally placed in the second division ofmediate or reflected ideas? The more we analyze them the less exact doesthe coincidence of philosophy and the history of philosophy appear. Manyterms which were used absolutely in the beginning of philosophy, suchas 'Being, ' 'matter, ' 'cause, ' and the like, became relative inthe subsequent history of thought. But Hegel employs some of themabsolutely, some relatively, seemingly without any principle and withoutany regard to their original significance. 

The divisions of the Hegelian logic bear a superficial resemblance tothe divisions of the scholastic logic. The first part answers to theterm, the second to the proposition, the third to the syllogism. Theseare the grades of thought under which we conceive the world, first, inthe general terms of quality, quantity, measure; secondly, under therelative forms of 'ground' and existence, substance and accidents, andthe like; thirdly in syllogistic forms of the individual mediated withthe universal by the help of the particular. Of syllogisms there arevarious kinds, --qualitative, quantitative, inductive, mechanical, teleological, --which are developed out of one another. But is there anymeaning in reintroducing the forms of the old logic? Who ever thinksof the world as a syllogism? What connexion is there between theproposition and our ideas of reciprocity, cause and effect, and similarrelations? It is difficult enough to conceive all the powers of natureand mind gathered up in one. The difficulty is greatly increasedwhen the new is confused with the old, and the common logic is theProcrustes' bed into which they are forced. 

The Hegelian philosophy claims, as we have seen, to be based uponexperience: it abrogates the distinction of a priori and a posterioritruth. It also acknowledges that many differences of kind are resolvableinto differences of degree. It is familiar with the terms 'evolution, ''development, ' and the like. Yet it can hardly be said to haveconsidered the forms of thought which are best adapted for theexpression of facts. It has never applied the categories to experience;it has not defined the differences in our ideas of opposition, ordevelopment, or cause and effect, in the different sciences which makeuse of these terms. It rests on a knowledge which is not the result ofexact or serious enquiry, but is floating in the air; the mind has beenimperceptibly informed of some of the methods required in the sciences. Hegel boasts that the movement of dialectic is at once necessary andspontaneous: in reality it goes beyond experience and is unverifiedby it. Further, the Hegelian philosophy, while giving us the power ofthinking a great deal more than we are able to fill up, seems to bewanting in some determinations of thought which we require. We cannotsay that physical science, which at present occupies so large a shareof popular attention, has been made easier or more intelligible by thedistinctions of Hegel. Nor can we deny that he has sometimes interpretedphysics by metaphysics, and confused his own philosophical fancies withthe laws of nature. The very freedom of the movement is not withoutsuspicion, seeming to imply a state of the human mind which has entirelylost sight of facts. Nor can the necessity which is attributed to it bevery stringent, seeing that the successive categories or determinationsof thought in different parts of his writings are arranged by thephilosopher in different ways. What is termed necessary evolution seemsto be only the order in which a succession of ideas presented themselvesto the mind of Hegel at a particular time. 

The nomenclature of Hegel has been made by himself out of the languageof common life. He uses a few words only which are borrowed from hispredecessors, or from the Greek philosophy, and these generally in asense peculiar to himself. The first stage of his philosophy answers tothe word 'is, ' the second to the word 'has been, ' the third to thewords 'has been' and 'is' combined. In other words, the first sphereis immediate, the second mediated by reflection, the third or highestreturns into the first, and is both mediate and immediate. As Luther'sBible was written in the language of the common people, so Hegel seemsto have thought that he gave his philosophy a truly German characterby the use of idiomatic German words. But it may be doubted whether theattempt has been successful. First because such words as 'in sich seyn, ''an sich seyn, ' 'an und fur sich seyn, ' though the simplest combinationsof nouns and verbs, require a difficult and elaborate explanation. Thesimplicity of the words contrasts with the hardness of their meaning. Secondly, the use of technical phraseology necessarily separatesphilosophy from general literature; the student has to learn a newlanguage of uncertain meaning which he with difficulty remembers. Noformer philosopher had ever carried the use of technical terms to thesame extent as Hegel. The language of Plato or even of Aristotle is butslightly removed from that of common life, and was introduced naturallyby a series of thinkers: the language of the scholastic logic has becometechnical to us, but in the Middle Ages was the vernacular Latin ofpriests and students. The higher spirit of philosophy, the spirit ofPlato and Socrates, rebels against the Hegelian use of language asmechanical and technical. 

Hegel is fond of etymologies and often seems to trifle with words. Hegives etymologies which are bad, and never considers that the meaning ofa word may have nothing to do with its derivation. He lived before thedays of Comparative Philology or of Comparative Mythology and Religion, which would have opened a new world to him. He makes no allowance forthe element of chance either in language or thought; and perhaps thereis no greater defect in his system than the want of a sound theoryof language. He speaks as if thought, instead of being identical withlanguage, was wholly independent of it. It is not the actual growthof the mind, but the imaginary growth of the Hegelian system, which isattractive to him. 

Neither are we able to say why of the common forms of thought some arerejected by him, while others have an undue prominence given to them. Some of them, such as 'ground' and 'existence, ' have hardly any basiseither in language or philosophy, while others, such as 'cause' and'effect, ' are but slightly considered. All abstractions are supposed byHegel to derive their meaning from one another. This is true of some, but not of all, and in different degrees. There is an explanation ofabstractions by the phenomena which they represent, as well as by theirrelation to other abstractions. If the knowledge of all were necessaryto the knowledge of any one of them, the mind would sink under the loadof thought. Again, in every process of reflection we seem to requirea standing ground, and in the attempt to obtain a complete analysis welose all fixedness. If, for example, the mind is viewed as the complexof ideas, or the difference between things and persons denied, such ananalysis may be justified from the point of view of Hegel: but we shallfind that in the attempt to criticize thought we have lost the power ofthinking, and, like the Heracliteans of old, have no words in whichour meaning can be expressed. Such an analysis may be of value as acorrective of popular language or thought, but should still allow us toretain the fundamental distinctions of philosophy. 

In the Hegelian system ideas supersede persons. The world of thought, though sometimes described as Spirit or 'Geist, ' is really impersonal. The minds of men are to be regarded as one mind, or more correctly asa succession of ideas. Any comprehensive view of the world mustnecessarily be general, and there may be a use with a view tocomprehensiveness in dropping individuals and their lives and actions. In all things, if we leave out details, a certain degree of orderbegins to appear; at any rate we can make an order which, with a littleexaggeration or disproportion in some of the parts, will cover the wholefield of philosophy. But are we therefore justified in saying thatideas are the causes of the great movement of the world rather than thepersonalities which conceived them? The great man is the expression ofhis time, and there may be peculiar difficulties in his age which hecannot overcome. He may be out of harmony with his circumstances, tooearly or too late, and then all his thoughts perish; his genius passesaway unknown. But not therefore is he to be regarded as a mere waifor stray in human history, any more than he is the mere creature orexpression of the age in which he lives. His ideas are inseparable fromhimself, and would have been nothing without him. Through a thousandpersonal influences they have been brought home to the minds ofothers. He starts from antecedents, but he is great in proportion as hedisengages himself from them or absorbs himself in them. Moreoverthe types of greatness differ; while one man is the expression of theinfluences of his age, another is in antagonism to them. One man isborne on the surface of the water; another is carried forward by thecurrent which flows beneath. The character of an individual, whether hebe independent of circumstances or not, inspires others quite as muchas his words. What is the teaching of Socrates apart from his personalhistory, or the doctrines of Christ apart from the Divine life in whichthey are embodied? Has not Hegel himself delineated the greatness ofthe life of Christ as consisting in his 'Schicksalslosigkeit' orindependence of the destiny of his race? Do not persons become ideas, and is there any distinction between them? Take away the five greatestlegislators, the five greatest warriors, the five greatest poets, thefive greatest founders or teachers of a religion, the five greatestphilosophers, the five greatest inventors, --where would have been allthat we most value in knowledge or in life? And can that be a truetheory of the history of philosophy which, in Hegel's own language, 'does not allow the individual to have his right'?

Once more, while we readily admit that the world is relative to themind, and the mind to the world, and that we must suppose a common orcorrelative growth in them, we shrink from saying that this complexnature can contain, even in outline, all the endless forms of Being andknowledge. Are we not 'seeking the living among the dead' and dignifyinga mere logical skeleton with the name of philosophy and almost of God?When we look far away into the primeval sources of thought and belief, do we suppose that the mere accident of our being the heirs of the Greekphilosophers can give us a right to set ourselves up as having the trueand only standard of reason in the world? Or when we contemplate theinfinite worlds in the expanse of heaven can we imagine that a fewmeagre categories derived from language and invented by the genius ofone or two great thinkers contain the secret of the universe? Or, havingregard to the ages during which the human race may yet endure, do wesuppose that we can anticipate the proportions human knowledge mayattain even within the short space of one or two thousand years?

Again, we have a difficulty in understanding how ideas can be causes, which to us seems to be as much a figure of speech as the old notionof a creator artist, 'who makes the world by the help of the demigods'(Plato, Tim. ), or with 'a golden pair of compasses' measures out thecircumference of the universe (Milton, P. L. ). We can understand howthe idea in the mind of an inventor is the cause of the work which isproduced by it; and we can dimly imagine how this universal frame maybe animated by a divine intelligence. But we cannot conceive how all thethoughts of men that ever were, which are themselves subject to so manyexternal conditions of climate, country, and the like, even if regardedas the single thought of a Divine Being, can be supposed to havemade the world. We appear to be only wrapping up ourselves in our ownconceits--to be confusing cause and effect--to be losing the distinctionbetween reflection and action, between the human and divine. 

These are some of the doubts and suspicions which arise in the mind ofa student of Hegel, when, after living for a time within the charmedcircle, he removes to a little distance and looks back upon what hehas learnt, from the vantage-ground of history and experience. Theenthusiasm of his youth has passed away, the authority of the master nolonger retains a hold upon him. But he does not regret the time spentin the study of him. He finds that he has received from him a realenlargement of mind, and much of the true spirit of philosophy, evenwhen he has ceased to believe in him. He returns again and again to hiswritings as to the recollections of a first love, not undeserving ofhis admiration still. Perhaps if he were asked how he can admirewithout believing, or what value he can attribute to what he knows to beerroneous, he might answer in some such manner as the following:--

1. That in Hegel he finds glimpses of the genius of the poet and of thecommon sense of the man of the world. His system is not cast in a poeticform, but neither has all this load of logic extinguished in him thefeeling of poetry. He is the true countryman of his contemporariesGoethe and Schiller. Many fine expressions are scattered up and downin his writings, as when he tells us that 'the Crusaders went to theSepulchre but found it empty. ' He delights to find vestiges of his ownphilosophy in the older German mystics. And though he can be scarcelysaid to have mixed much in the affairs of men, for, as his biographertells us, 'he lived for thirty years in a single room, ' yet he is farfrom being ignorant of the world. No one can read his writings withoutacquiring an insight into life. He loves to touch with the spear oflogic the follies and self-deceptions of mankind, and make them appearin their natural form, stripped of the disguises of language and custom. He will not allow men to defend themselves by an appeal to one-sided orabstract principles. In this age of reason any one can too easily finda reason for doing what he likes (Wallace). He is suspicious of adistinction which is often made between a person's character and hisconduct. His spirit is the opposite of that of Jesuitism or casuistry(Wallace). He affords an example of a remark which has been often made, that in order to know the world it is not necessary to have had a greatexperience of it. 

2. Hegel, if not the greatest philosopher, is certainly the greatestcritic of philosophy who ever lived. No one else has equally masteredthe opinions of his predecessors or traced the connexion of them inthe same manner. No one has equally raised the human mind above thetrivialities of the common logic and the unmeaningness of 'mere'abstractions, and above imaginary possibilities, which, as he trulysays, have no place in philosophy. No one has won so much for thekingdom of ideas. Whatever may be thought of his own system it willhardly be denied that he has overthrown Locke, Kant, Hume, and theso-called philosophy of common sense. He shows us that only by the studyof metaphysics can we get rid of metaphysics, and that those who arein theory most opposed to them are in fact most entirely and hopelesslyenslaved by them: 'Die reinen Physiker sind nur die Thiere. 'The disciple of Hegel will hardly become the slave of any othersystem-maker. What Bacon seems to promise him he will find realizedin the great German thinker, an emancipation nearly complete from theinfluences of the scholastic logic. 

3. Many of those who are least disposed to become the votaries ofHegelianism nevertheless recognize in his system a new logic supplyinga variety of instruments and methods hitherto unemployed. We may notbe able to agree with him in assimilating the natural order of humanthought with the history of philosophy, and still less in identifyingboth with the divine idea or nature. But we may acknowledge that thegreat thinker has thrown a light on many parts of human knowledge, and has solved many difficulties. We cannot receive his doctrine ofopposites as the last word of philosophy, but still we may regard it asa very important contribution to logic. We cannot affirm that words haveno meaning when taken out of their connexion in the history of thought. But we recognize that their meaning is to a great extent due toassociation, and to their correlation with one another. We see theadvantage of viewing in the concrete what mankind regard only in theabstract. There is much to be said for his faith or conviction, that Godis immanent in the world, --within the sphere of the human mind, and notbeyond it. It was natural that he himself, like a prophet of old, shouldregard the philosophy which he had invented as the voice of God in man. But this by no means implies that he conceived himself as creating Godin thought. He was the servant of his own ideas and not the master ofthem. The philosophy of history and the history of philosophy may bealmost said to have been discovered by him. He has done more to explainGreek thought than all other writers put together. Many ideas ofdevelopment, evolution, reciprocity, which have become the symbols ofanother school of thinkers may be traced to his speculations. In thetheology and philosophy of England as well as of Germany, and also inthe lighter literature of both countries, there are always appearing'fragments of the great banquet' of Hegel. 

SOPHIST

PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Theodorus, Theaetetus, Socrates. An EleaticStranger, whom Theodorus and Theaetetus bring with them. The youngerSocrates, who is a silent auditor. 

THEODORUS: Here we are, Socrates, true to our agreement of yesterday;and we bring with us a stranger from Elea, who is a disciple ofParmenides and Zeno, and a true philosopher. 

SOCRATES: Is he not rather a god, Theodorus, who comes to us in thedisguise of a stranger? For Homer says that all the gods, and especiallythe god of strangers, are companions of the meek and just, and visitthe good and evil among men. And may not your companion be one of thosehigher powers, a cross-examining deity, who has come to spy out ourweakness in argument, and to cross-examine us?

THEODORUS: Nay, Socrates, he is not one of the disputatious sort--heis too good for that. And, in my opinion, he is not a god at all; butdivine he certainly is, for this is a title which I should give to allphilosophers. 

SOCRATES: Capital, my friend! and I may add that they are almost as hardto be discerned as the gods. For the true philosophers, and such asare not merely made up for the occasion, appear in various formsunrecognized by the ignorance of men, and they 'hover about cities, 'as Homer declares, looking from above upon human life; and some thinknothing of them, and others can never think enough; and sometimes theyappear as statesmen, and sometimes as sophists; and then, again, to manythey seem to be no better than madmen. I should like to ask our Eleaticfriend, if he would tell us, what is thought about them in Italy, and towhom the terms are applied. 

THEODORUS: What terms?

SOCRATES: Sophist, statesman, philosopher. 

THEODORUS: What is your difficulty about them, and what made you ask?

SOCRATES: I want to know whether by his countrymen they are regarded asone or two; or do they, as the names are three, distinguish also threekinds, and assign one to each name?

THEODORUS: I dare say that the Stranger will not object to discuss thequestion. What do you say, Stranger?

STRANGER: I am far from objecting, Theodorus, nor have I any difficultyin replying that by us they are regarded as three. But to defineprecisely the nature of each of them is by no means a slight or easytask. 

THEODORUS: You have happened to light, Socrates, almost on the veryquestion which we were asking our friend before we came hither, and heexcused himself to us, as he does now to you; although he admitted thatthe matter had been fully discussed, and that he remembered the answer. 

SOCRATES: Then do not, Stranger, deny us the first favour which we askof you: I am sure that you will not, and therefore I shall only beg ofyou to say whether you like and are accustomed to make a long orationon a subject which you want to explain to another, or to proceed bythe method of question and answer. I remember hearing a very noblediscussion in which Parmenides employed the latter of the two methods, when I was a young man, and he was far advanced in years. (CompareParm. )

STRANGER: I prefer to talk with another when he responds pleasantly, andis light in hand; if not, I would rather have my own say. 

SOCRATES: Any one of the present company will respond kindly to you, andyou can choose whom you like of them; I should recommend you to take ayoung person--Theaetetus, for example--unless you have a preference forsome one else. 

STRANGER: I feel ashamed, Socrates, being a new-comer into your society, instead of talking a little and hearing others talk, to be spinning outa long soliloquy or address, as if I wanted to show off. For the trueanswer will certainly be a very long one, a great deal longer than mightbe expected from such a short and simple question. At the same time, I fear that I may seem rude and ungracious if I refuse your courteousrequest, especially after what you have said. For I certainly cannotobject to your proposal, that Theaetetus should respond, having alreadyconversed with him myself, and being recommended by you to take him. 

THEAETETUS: But are you sure, Stranger, that this will be quite soacceptable to the rest of the company as Socrates imagines?

STRANGER: You hear them applauding, Theaetetus; after that, there isnothing more to be said. Well then, I am to argue with you, and if youtire of the argument, you may complain of your friends and not of me. 

THEAETETUS: I do not think that I shall tire, and if I do, I shall getmy friend here, young Socrates, the namesake of the elder Socrates, tohelp; he is about my own age, and my partner at the gymnasium, and isconstantly accustomed to work with me. 

STRANGER: Very good; you can decide about that for yourself as weproceed. Meanwhile you and I will begin together and enquire into thenature of the Sophist, first of the three: I should like you to make outwhat he is and bring him to light in a discussion; for at present we areonly agreed about the name, but of the thing to which we both apply thename possibly you have one notion and I another; whereas we oughtalways to come to an understanding about the thing itself in terms of adefinition, and not merely about the name minus the definition. Now thetribe of Sophists which we are investigating is not easily caught ordefined; and the world has long ago agreed, that if great subjects areto be adequately treated, they must be studied in the lesser and easierinstances of them before we proceed to the greatest of all. And as Iknow that the tribe of Sophists is troublesome and hard to be caught, Ishould recommend that we practise beforehand the method which is to beapplied to him on some simple and smaller thing, unless you can suggesta better way. 

THEAETETUS: Indeed I cannot. 

STRANGER: Then suppose that we work out some lesser example which willbe a pattern of the greater?

THEAETETUS: Good. 

STRANGER: What is there which is well known and not great, and is yet assusceptible of definition as any larger thing? Shall I say an angler?He is familiar to all of us, and not a very interesting or importantperson. 

THEAETETUS: He is not. 

STRANGER: Yet I suspect that he will furnish us with the sort ofdefinition and line of enquiry which we want. 

THEAETETUS: Very good. 

STRANGER: Let us begin by asking whether he is a man having art or nothaving art, but some other power. 

THEAETETUS: He is clearly a man of art. 

STRANGER: And of arts there are two kinds?

THEAETETUS: What are they?

STRANGER: There is agriculture, and the tending of mortal creatures, and the art of constructing or moulding vessels, and there is the art ofimitation--all these may be appropriately called by a single name. 

THEAETETUS: What do you mean? And what is the name?

STRANGER: He who brings into existence something that did not existbefore is said to be a producer, and that which is brought intoexistence is said to be produced. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And all the arts which were just now mentioned arecharacterized by this power of producing?

THEAETETUS: They are. 

STRANGER: Then let us sum them up under the name of productive orcreative art. 

THEAETETUS: Very good. 

STRANGER: Next follows the whole class of learning and cognition;then comes trade, fighting, hunting. And since none of these producesanything, but is only engaged in conquering by word or deed, or inpreventing others from conquering, things which exist and have beenalready produced--in each and all of these branches there appears to bean art which may be called acquisitive. 

THEAETETUS: Yes, that is the proper name. 

STRANGER: Seeing, then, that all arts are either acquisitive orcreative, in which class shall we place the art of the angler?

THEAETETUS: Clearly in the acquisitive class. 

STRANGER: And the acquisitive may be subdivided into two parts: there isexchange, which is voluntary and is effected by gifts, hire, purchase;and the other part of acquisitive, which takes by force of word or deed, may be termed conquest?

THEAETETUS: That is implied in what has been said. 

STRANGER: And may not conquest be again subdivided?

THEAETETUS: How?

STRANGER: Open force may be called fighting, and secret force may havethe general name of hunting?

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: And there is no reason why the art of hunting should not befurther divided. 

THEAETETUS: How would you make the division?

STRANGER: Into the hunting of living and of lifeless prey. 

THEAETETUS: Yes, if both kinds exist. 

STRANGER: Of course they exist; but the hunting after lifeless thingshaving no special name, except some sorts of diving, and other smallmatters, may be omitted; the hunting after living things may be calledanimal hunting. 

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: And animal hunting may be truly said to have two divisions, land-animal hunting, which has many kinds and names, and water-animalhunting, or the hunting after animals who swim?

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And of swimming animals, one class lives on the wing and theother in the water?

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: Fowling is the general term under which the hunting of allbirds is included. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: The hunting of animals who live in the water has the generalname of fishing. 

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: And this sort of hunting may be further divided also into twoprincipal kinds?

THEAETETUS: What are they?

STRANGER: There is one kind which takes them in nets, another whichtakes them by a blow. 

THEAETETUS: What do you mean, and how do you distinguish them?

STRANGER: As to the first kind--all that surrounds and encloses anythingto prevent egress, may be rightly called an enclosure. 

THEAETETUS: Very true. 

STRANGER: For which reason twig baskets, casting-nets, nooses, creels, and the like may all be termed 'enclosures'?

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And therefore this first kind of capture may be called by uscapture with enclosures, or something of that sort?

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: The other kind, which is practised by a blow with hooks andthree-pronged spears, when summed up under one name, may be calledstriking, unless you, Theaetetus, can find some better name?

THEAETETUS: Never mind the name--what you suggest will do very well. 

STRANGER: There is one mode of striking, which is done at night, and bythe light of a fire, and is by the hunters themselves called firing, orspearing by firelight. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And the fishing by day is called by the general name ofbarbing, because the spears, too, are barbed at the point. 

THEAETETUS: Yes, that is the term. 

STRANGER: Of this barb-fishing, that which strikes the fish who is belowfrom above is called spearing, because this is the way in which thethree-pronged spears are mostly used. 

THEAETETUS: Yes, it is often called so. 

STRANGER: Then now there is only one kind remaining. 

THEAETETUS: What is that?

STRANGER: When a hook is used, and the fish is not struck in any chancepart of his body, as he is with the spear, but only about the headand mouth, and is then drawn out from below upwards with reeds androds:--What is the right name of that mode of fishing, Theaetetus?

THEAETETUS: I suspect that we have now discovered the object of oursearch. 

STRANGER: Then now you and I have come to an understanding not onlyabout the name of the angler's art, but about the definition ofthe thing itself. One half of all art was acquisitive--half of theacquisitive art was conquest or taking by force, half of this washunting, and half of hunting was hunting animals, half of this washunting water animals--of this again, the under half was fishing, halfof fishing was striking; a part of striking was fishing with a barb, and one half of this again, being the kind which strikes with a hookand draws the fish from below upwards, is the art which we have beenseeking, and which from the nature of the operation is denoted anglingor drawing up (aspalieutike, anaspasthai). 

THEAETETUS: The result has been quite satisfactorily brought out. 

STRANGER: And now, following this pattern, let us endeavour to find outwhat a Sophist is. 

THEAETETUS: By all means. 

STRANGER: The first question about the angler was, whether he was askilled artist or unskilled?

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And shall we call our new friend unskilled, or a thoroughmaster of his craft?

THEAETETUS: Certainly not unskilled, for his name, as, indeed, youimply, must surely express his nature. 

STRANGER: Then he must be supposed to have some art. 

THEAETETUS: What art?

STRANGER: By heaven, they are cousins! it never occurred to us. 

THEAETETUS: Who are cousins?

STRANGER: The angler and the Sophist. 

THEAETETUS: In what way are they related?

STRANGER: They both appear to me to be hunters. 

THEAETETUS: How the Sophist? Of the other we have spoken. 

STRANGER: You remember our division of hunting, into hunting afterswimming animals and land animals?

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: And you remember that we subdivided the swimming and left theland animals, saying that there were many kinds of them?

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: Thus far, then, the Sophist and the angler, starting from theart of acquiring, take the same road?

THEAETETUS: So it would appear. 

STRANGER: Their paths diverge when they reach the art of animal hunting;the one going to the sea-shore, and to the rivers and to the lakes, andangling for the animals which are in them. 

THEAETETUS: Very true. 

STRANGER: While the other goes to land and water of another sort--riversof wealth and broad meadow-lands of generous youth; and he also isintending to take the animals which are in them. 

THEAETETUS: What do you mean?

STRANGER: Of hunting on land there are two principal divisions. 

THEAETETUS: What are they?

STRANGER: One is the hunting of tame, and the other of wild animals. 

THEAETETUS: But are tame animals ever hunted?

STRANGER: Yes, if you include man under tame animals. But if you likeyou may say that there are no tame animals, or that, if there are, manis not among them; or you may say that man is a tame animal but is nothunted--you shall decide which of these alternatives you prefer. 

THEAETETUS: I should say, Stranger, that man is a tame animal, and Iadmit that he is hunted. 

STRANGER: Then let us divide the hunting of tame animals into two parts. 

THEAETETUS: How shall we make the division?

STRANGER: Let us define piracy, man-stealing, tyranny, the wholemilitary art, by one name, as hunting with violence. 

THEAETETUS: Very good. 

STRANGER: But the art of the lawyer, of the popular orator, and the artof conversation may be called in one word the art of persuasion. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And of persuasion, there may be said to be two kinds?

THEAETETUS: What are they?

STRANGER: One is private, and the other public. 

THEAETETUS: Yes; each of them forms a class. 

STRANGER: And of private hunting, one sort receives hire, and the otherbrings gifts. 

THEAETETUS: I do not understand you. 

STRANGER: You seem never to have observed the manner in which lovershunt. 

THEAETETUS: To what do you refer?

STRANGER: I mean that they lavish gifts on those whom they hunt inaddition to other inducements. 

THEAETETUS: Most true. 

STRANGER: Let us admit this, then, to be the amatory art. 

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: But that sort of hireling whose conversation is pleasingand who baits his hook only with pleasure and exacts nothing but hismaintenance in return, we should all, if I am not mistaken, describe aspossessing flattery or an art of making things pleasant. 

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: And that sort, which professes to form acquaintances only forthe sake of virtue, and demands a reward in the shape of money, may befairly called by another name?

THEAETETUS: To be sure. 

STRANGER: And what is the name? Will you tell me?

THEAETETUS: It is obvious enough; for I believe that we have discoveredthe Sophist: which is, as I conceive, the proper name for the classdescribed. 

STRANGER: Then now, Theaetetus, his art may be traced as a branch of theappropriative, acquisitive family--which hunts animals, --living--land--tame animals; which hunts man, --privately--for hire, --taking money inexchange--having the semblance of education; and this is termedSophistry, and is a hunt after young men of wealth and rank--such is theconclusion. 

THEAETETUS: Just so. 

STRANGER: Let us take another branch of his genealogy; for he is aprofessor of a great and many-sided art; and if we look back at what haspreceded we see that he presents another aspect, besides that of whichwe are speaking. 

THEAETETUS: In what respect?

STRANGER: There were two sorts of acquisitive art; the one concernedwith hunting, the other with exchange. 

THEAETETUS: There were. 

STRANGER: And of the art of exchange there are two divisions, the one ofgiving, and the other of selling. 

THEAETETUS: Let us assume that. 

STRANGER: Next, we will suppose the art of selling to be divided intotwo parts. 

THEAETETUS: How?

STRANGER: There is one part which is distinguished as the sale of aman's own productions; another, which is the exchange of the works ofothers. 

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: And is not that part of exchange which takes place in thecity, being about half of the whole, termed retailing?

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: And that which exchanges the goods of one city for those ofanother by selling and buying is the exchange of the merchant?

THEAETETUS: To be sure. 

STRANGER: And you are aware that this exchange of the merchant is oftwo kinds: it is partly concerned with food for the use of the body, and partly with the food of the soul which is bartered and received inexchange for money. 

THEAETETUS: What do you mean?

STRANGER: You want to know what is the meaning of food for the soul; theother kind you surely understand. 

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: Take music in general and painting and marionette playing andmany other things, which are purchased in one city, and carried away andsold in another--wares of the soul which are hawked about either for thesake of instruction or amusement;--may not he who takes them about andsells them be quite as truly called a merchant as he who sells meats anddrinks?

THEAETETUS: To be sure he may. 

STRANGER: And would you not call by the same name him who buys upknowledge and goes about from city to city exchanging his wares formoney?

THEAETETUS: Certainly I should. 

STRANGER: Of this merchandise of the soul, may not one part be fairlytermed the art of display? And there is another part which is certainlynot less ridiculous, but being a trade in learning must be called bysome name germane to the matter?

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: The latter should have two names, --one descriptive of the saleof the knowledge of virtue, and the other of the sale of other kinds ofknowledge. 

THEAETETUS: Of course. 

STRANGER: The name of art-seller corresponds well enough to the latter;but you must try and tell me the name of the other. 

THEAETETUS: He must be the Sophist, whom we are seeking; no other namecan possibly be right. 

STRANGER: No other; and so this trader in virtue again turns out tobe our friend the Sophist, whose art may now be traced from the art ofacquisition through exchange, trade, merchandise, to a merchandise ofthe soul which is concerned with speech and the knowledge of virtue. 

THEAETETUS: Quite true. 

STRANGER: And there may be a third reappearance of him;--for he mayhave settled down in a city, and may fabricate as well as buy these samewares, intending to live by selling them, and he would still be called aSophist?

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: Then that part of the acquisitive art which exchanges, and ofexchange which either sells a man's own productions or retails thoseof others, as the case may be, and in either way sells the knowledge ofvirtue, you would again term Sophistry?

THEAETETUS: I must, if I am to keep pace with the argument. 

STRANGER: Let us consider once more whether there may not be yet anotheraspect of sophistry. 

THEAETETUS: What is it?

STRANGER: In the acquisitive there was a subdivision of the combative orfighting art. 

THEAETETUS: There was. 

STRANGER: Perhaps we had better divide it. 

THEAETETUS: What shall be the divisions?

STRANGER: There shall be one division of the competitive, and another ofthe pugnacious. 

THEAETETUS: Very good. 

STRANGER: That part of the pugnacious which is a contest of bodilystrength may be properly called by some such name as violent. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And when the war is one of words, it may be termedcontroversy?

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: And controversy may be of two kinds. 

THEAETETUS: What are they?

STRANGER: When long speeches are answered by long speeches, and thereis public discussion about the just and unjust, that is forensiccontroversy. 

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: And there is a private sort of controversy, which is cut upinto questions and answers, and this is commonly called disputation?

THEAETETUS: Yes, that is the name. 

STRANGER: And of disputation, that sort which is only a discussion aboutcontracts, and is carried on at random, and without rules of art, isrecognized by the reasoning faculty to be a distinct class, but hashitherto had no distinctive name, and does not deserve to receive onefrom us. 

THEAETETUS: No; for the different sorts of it are too minute andheterogeneous. 

STRANGER: But that which proceeds by rules of art to dispute aboutjustice and injustice in their own nature, and about things in general, we have been accustomed to call argumentation (Eristic)?

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: And of argumentation, one sort wastes money, and the othermakes money. 

THEAETETUS: Very true. 

STRANGER: Suppose we try and give to each of these two classes a name. 

THEAETETUS: Let us do so. 

STRANGER: I should say that the habit which leads a man to neglect hisown affairs for the pleasure of conversation, of which the style isfar from being agreeable to the majority of his hearers, may be fairlytermed loquacity: such is my opinion. 

THEAETETUS: That is the common name for it. 

STRANGER: But now who the other is, who makes money out of privatedisputation, it is your turn to say. 

THEAETETUS: There is only one true answer: he is the wonderful Sophist, of whom we are in pursuit, and who reappears again for the fourth time. 

STRANGER: Yes, and with a fresh pedigree, for he is the money-makingspecies of the Eristic, disputatious, controversial, pugnacious, combative, acquisitive family, as the argument has already proven. 

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: How true was the observation that he was a many-sided animal, and not to be caught with one hand, as they say!

THEAETETUS: Then you must catch him with two. 

STRANGER: Yes, we must, if we can. And therefore let us try anothertrack in our pursuit of him: You are aware that there are certain menialoccupations which have names among servants?

THEAETETUS: Yes, there are many such; which of them do you mean?

STRANGER: I mean such as sifting, straining, winnowing, threshing. 

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: And besides these there are a great many more, such ascarding, spinning, adjusting the warp and the woof; and thousands ofsimilar expressions are used in the arts. 

THEAETETUS: Of what are they to be patterns, and what are we going to dowith them all?

STRANGER: I think that in all of these there is implied a notion ofdivision. 

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: Then if, as I was saying, there is one art which includes allof them, ought not that art to have one name?

THEAETETUS: And what is the name of the art?

STRANGER: The art of discerning or discriminating. 

THEAETETUS: Very good. 

STRANGER: Think whether you cannot divide this. 

THEAETETUS: I should have to think a long while. 

STRANGER: In all the previously named processes either like has beenseparated from like or the better from the worse. 

THEAETETUS: I see now what you mean. 

STRANGER: There is no name for the first kind of separation; of thesecond, which throws away the worse and preserves the better, I do knowa name. 

THEAETETUS: What is it?

STRANGER: Every discernment or discrimination of that kind, as I haveobserved, is called a purification. 

THEAETETUS: Yes, that is the usual expression. 

STRANGER: And any one may see that purification is of two kinds. 

THEAETETUS: Perhaps so, if he were allowed time to think; but I do notsee at this moment. 

STRANGER: There are many purifications of bodies which may withpropriety be comprehended under a single name. 

THEAETETUS: What are they, and what is their name?

STRANGER: There is the purification of living bodies in their inward andin their outward parts, of which the former is duly effected by medicineand gymnastic, the latter by the not very dignified art of the bath-man;and there is the purification of inanimate substances--to this the artsof fulling and of furbishing in general attend in a number of minuteparticulars, having a variety of names which are thought ridiculous. 

THEAETETUS: Very true. 

STRANGER: There can be no doubt that they are thought ridiculous, Theaetetus; but then the dialectical art never considers whether thebenefit to be derived from the purge is greater or less than that to bederived from the sponge, and has not more interest in the one than inthe other; her endeavour is to know what is and is not kindred in allarts, with a view to the acquisition of intelligence; and having thisin view, she honours them all alike, and when she makes comparisons, shecounts one of them not a whit more ridiculous than another; nor does sheesteem him who adduces as his example of hunting, the general's art, atall more decorous than another who cites that of the vermin-destroyer, but only as the greater pretender of the two. And as to your questionconcerning the name which was to comprehend all these arts ofpurification, whether of animate or inanimate bodies, the art ofdialectic is in no wise particular about fine words, if she may be onlyallowed to have a general name for all other purifications, binding themup together and separating them off from the purification of the soulor intellect. For this is the purification at which she wants to arrive, and this we should understand to be her aim. 

THEAETETUS: Yes, I understand; and I agree that there are two sorts ofpurification, and that one of them is concerned with the soul, and thatthere is another which is concerned with the body. 

STRANGER: Excellent; and now listen to what I am going to say, and tryto divide further the first of the two. 

THEAETETUS: Whatever line of division you suggest, I will endeavour toassist you. 

STRANGER: Do we admit that virtue is distinct from vice in the soul?

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: And purification was to leave the good and to cast outwhatever is bad?

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: Then any taking away of evil from the soul may be properlycalled purification?

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: And in the soul there are two kinds of evil. 

THEAETETUS: What are they?

STRANGER: The one may be compared to disease in the body, the other todeformity. 

THEAETETUS: I do not understand. 

STRANGER: Perhaps you have never reflected that disease and discord arethe same. 

THEAETETUS: To this, again, I know not what I should reply. 

STRANGER: Do you not conceive discord to be a dissolution of kindredelements, originating in some disagreement?

THEAETETUS: Just that. 

STRANGER: And is deformity anything but the want of measure, which isalways unsightly?

THEAETETUS: Exactly. 

STRANGER: And do we not see that opinion is opposed to desire, pleasureto anger, reason to pain, and that all these elements are opposed to oneanother in the souls of bad men?

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: And yet they must all be akin?

THEAETETUS: Of course. 

STRANGER: Then we shall be right in calling vice a discord and diseaseof the soul?

THEAETETUS: Most true. 

STRANGER: And when things having motion, and aiming at an appointedmark, continually miss their aim and glance aside, shall we say thatthis is the effect of symmetry among them, or of the want of symmetry?

THEAETETUS: Clearly of the want of symmetry. 

STRANGER: But surely we know that no soul is voluntarily ignorant ofanything?

THEAETETUS: Certainly not. 

STRANGER: And what is ignorance but the aberration of a mind which isbent on truth, and in which the process of understanding is perverted?

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: Then we are to regard an unintelligent soul as deformed anddevoid of symmetry?

THEAETETUS: Very true. 

STRANGER: Then there are these two kinds of evil in the soul--theone which is generally called vice, and is obviously a disease of thesoul. .. 

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: And there is the other, which they call ignorance, and which, because existing only in the soul, they will not allow to be vice. 

THEAETETUS: I certainly admit what I at first disputed--that there aretwo kinds of vice in the soul, and that we ought to consider cowardice, intemperance, and injustice to be alike forms of disease in thesoul, and ignorance, of which there are all sorts of varieties, to bedeformity. 

STRANGER: And in the case of the body are there not two arts which haveto do with the two bodily states?

THEAETETUS: What are they?

STRANGER: There is gymnastic, which has to do with deformity, andmedicine, which has to do with disease. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And where there is insolence and injustice and cowardice, isnot chastisement the art which is most required?

THEAETETUS: That certainly appears to be the opinion of mankind. 

STRANGER: Again, of the various kinds of ignorance, may not instructionbe rightly said to be the remedy?

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And of the art of instruction, shall we say that there is oneor many kinds? At any rate there are two principal ones. Think. 

THEAETETUS: I will. 

STRANGER: I believe that I can see how we shall soonest arrive at theanswer to this question. 

THEAETETUS: How?

STRANGER: If we can discover a line which divides ignorance into twohalves. For a division of ignorance into two parts will certainlyimply that the art of instruction is also twofold, answering to the twodivisions of ignorance. 

THEAETETUS: Well, and do you see what you are looking for?

STRANGER: I do seem to myself to see one very large and bad sort ofignorance which is quite separate, and may be weighed in the scaleagainst all other sorts of ignorance put together. 

THEAETETUS: What is it?

STRANGER: When a person supposes that he knows, and does not know; thisappears to be the great source of all the errors of the intellect. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And this, if I am not mistaken, is the kind of ignorance whichspecially earns the title of stupidity. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: What name, then, shall be given to the sort of instructionwhich gets rid of this?

THEAETETUS: The instruction which you mean, Stranger, is, I shouldimagine, not the teaching of handicraft arts, but what, thanks to us, has been termed education in this part the world. 

STRANGER: Yes, Theaetetus, and by nearly all Hellenes. But we have stillto consider whether education admits of any further division. 

THEAETETUS: We have. 

STRANGER: I think that there is a point at which such a division ispossible. 

THEAETETUS: Where?

STRANGER: Of education, one method appears to be rougher, and anothersmoother. 

THEAETETUS: How are we to distinguish the two?

STRANGER: There is the time-honoured mode which our fathers commonlypractised towards their sons, and which is still adopted by many--eitherof roughly reproving their errors, or of gently advising them;which varieties may be correctly included under the general term ofadmonition. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: But whereas some appear to have arrived at the conclusion thatall ignorance is involuntary, and that no one who thinks himself wise iswilling to learn any of those things in which he is conscious of hisown cleverness, and that the admonitory sort of instruction gives muchtrouble and does little good--

THEAETETUS: There they are quite right. 

STRANGER: Accordingly, they set to work to eradicate the spirit ofconceit in another way. 

THEAETETUS: In what way?

STRANGER: They cross-examine a man's words, when he thinks that he issaying something and is really saying nothing, and easily convict himof inconsistencies in his opinions; these they then collect by thedialectical process, and placing them side by side, show that theycontradict one another about the same things, in relation to the samethings, and in the same respect. He, seeing this, is angry with himself, and grows gentle towards others, and thus is entirely delivered fromgreat prejudices and harsh notions, in a way which is most amusing tothe hearer, and produces the most lasting good effect on the person whois the subject of the operation. For as the physician considers thatthe body will receive no benefit from taking food until the internalobstacles have been removed, so the purifier of the soul is consciousthat his patient will receive no benefit from the application ofknowledge until he is refuted, and from refutation learns modesty; hemust be purged of his prejudices first and made to think that he knowsonly what he knows, and no more. 

THEAETETUS: That is certainly the best and wisest state of mind. 

STRANGER: For all these reasons, Theaetetus, we must admit thatrefutation is the greatest and chiefest of purifications, and he who hasnot been refuted, though he be the Great King himself, is in an awfulstate of impurity; he is uninstructed and deformed in those things inwhich he who would be truly blessed ought to be fairest and purest. 

THEAETETUS: Very true. 

STRANGER: And who are the ministers of this art? I am afraid to say theSophists. 

THEAETETUS: Why?

STRANGER: Lest we should assign to them too high a prerogative. 

THEAETETUS: Yet the Sophist has a certain likeness to our minister ofpurification. 

STRANGER: Yes, the same sort of likeness which a wolf, who is thefiercest of animals, has to a dog, who is the gentlest. But he whowould not be found tripping, ought to be very careful in this matterof comparisons, for they are most slippery things. Nevertheless, let usassume that the Sophists are the men. I say this provisionally, for Ithink that the line which divides them will be marked enough if propercare is taken. 

THEAETETUS: Likely enough. 

STRANGER: Let us grant, then, that from the discerning art comespurification, and from purification let there be separated off apart which is concerned with the soul; of this mental purificationinstruction is a portion, and of instruction education, and ofeducation, that refutation of vain conceit which has been discoveredin the present argument; and let this be called by you and me thenobly-descended art of Sophistry. 

THEAETETUS: Very well; and yet, considering the number of forms in whichhe has presented himself, I begin to doubt how I can with any truth orconfidence describe the real nature of the Sophist. 

STRANGER: You naturally feel perplexed; and yet I think that he mustbe still more perplexed in his attempt to escape us, for as the proverbsays, when every way is blocked, there is no escape; now, then, is thetime of all others to set upon him. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: First let us wait a moment and recover breath, and while weare resting, we may reckon up in how many forms he has appeared. Inthe first place, he was discovered to be a paid hunter after wealth andyouth. 

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: In the second place, he was a merchant in the goods of thesoul. 

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: In the third place, he has turned out to be a retailer of thesame sort of wares. 

THEAETETUS: Yes; and in the fourth place, he himself manufactured thelearned wares which he sold. 

STRANGER: Quite right; I will try and remember the fifth myself. Hebelonged to the fighting class, and was further distinguished as a heroof debate, who professed the eristic art. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: The sixth point was doubtful, and yet we at last agreedthat he was a purger of souls, who cleared away notions obstructive toknowledge. 

THEAETETUS: Very true. 

STRANGER: Do you not see that when the professor of any art has onename and many kinds of knowledge, there must be something wrong? Themultiplicity of names which is applied to him shows that the commonprinciple to which all these branches of knowledge are tending, is notunderstood. 

THEAETETUS: I should imagine this to be the case. 

STRANGER: At any rate we will understand him, and no indolence shallprevent us. Let us begin again, then, and re-examine some of ourstatements concerning the Sophist; there was one thing which appeared tome especially characteristic of him. 

THEAETETUS: To what are you referring?

STRANGER: We were saying of him, if I am not mistaken, that he was adisputer?

THEAETETUS: We were. 

STRANGER: And does he not also teach others the art of disputation?

THEAETETUS: Certainly he does. 

STRANGER: And about what does he profess that he teaches men to dispute?To begin at the beginning--Does he make them able to dispute aboutdivine things, which are invisible to men in general?

THEAETETUS: At any rate, he is said to do so. 

STRANGER: And what do you say of the visible things in heaven and earth, and the like?

THEAETETUS: Certainly he disputes, and teaches to dispute about them. 

STRANGER: Then, again, in private conversation, when any universalassertion is made about generation and essence, we know that suchpersons are tremendous argufiers, and are able to impart their own skillto others. 

THEAETETUS: Undoubtedly. 

STRANGER: And do they not profess to make men able to dispute about lawand about politics in general?

THEAETETUS: Why, no one would have anything to say to them, if they didnot make these professions. 

STRANGER: In all and every art, what the craftsman ought to say inanswer to any question is written down in a popular form, and he wholikes may learn. 

THEAETETUS: I suppose that you are referring to the precepts ofProtagoras about wrestling and the other arts?

STRANGER: Yes, my friend, and about a good many other things. In a word, is not the art of disputation a power of disputing about all things?

THEAETETUS: Certainly; there does not seem to be much which is left out. 

STRANGER: But oh! my dear youth, do you suppose this possible? forperhaps your young eyes may see things which to our duller sight do notappear. 

THEAETETUS: To what are you alluding? I do not think that I understandyour present question. 

STRANGER: I ask whether anybody can understand all things. 

THEAETETUS: Happy would mankind be if such a thing were possible!

SOCRATES: But how can any one who is ignorant dispute in a rationalmanner against him who knows?

THEAETETUS: He cannot. 

STRANGER: Then why has the sophistical art such a mysterious power?

THEAETETUS: To what do you refer?

STRANGER: How do the Sophists make young men believe in their supremeand universal wisdom? For if they neither disputed nor were thoughtto dispute rightly, or being thought to do so were deemed no wiser fortheir controversial skill, then, to quote your own observation, no onewould give them money or be willing to learn their art. 

THEAETETUS: They certainly would not. 

STRANGER: But they are willing. 

THEAETETUS: Yes, they are. 

STRANGER: Yes, and the reason, as I should imagine, is that they aresupposed to have knowledge of those things about which they dispute?

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: And they dispute about all things?

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And therefore, to their disciples, they appear to be all-wise?

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: But they are not; for that was shown to be impossible. 

THEAETETUS: Impossible, of course. 

STRANGER: Then the Sophist has been shown to have a sort of conjecturalor apparent knowledge only of all things, which is not the truth?

THEAETETUS: Exactly; no better description of him could be given. 

STRANGER: Let us now take an illustration, which will still more clearlyexplain his nature. 

THEAETETUS: What is it?

STRANGER: I will tell you, and you shall answer me, giving your veryclosest attention. Suppose that a person were to profess, not that hecould speak or dispute, but that he knew how to make and do all things, by a single art. 

THEAETETUS: All things?

STRANGER: I see that you do not understand the first word that I utter, for you do not understand the meaning of 'all. '

THEAETETUS: No, I do not. 

STRANGER: Under all things, I include you and me, and also animals andtrees. 

THEAETETUS: What do you mean?

STRANGER: Suppose a person to say that he will make you and me, and allcreatures. 

THEAETETUS: What would he mean by 'making'? He cannot be ahusbandman;--for you said that he is a maker of animals. 

STRANGER: Yes; and I say that he is also the maker of the sea, and theearth, and the heavens, and the gods, and of all other things; and, further, that he can make them in no time, and sell them for a fewpence. 

THEAETETUS: That must be a jest. 

STRANGER: And when a man says that he knows all things, and can teachthem to another at a small cost, and in a short time, is not that ajest?

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: And is there any more artistic or graceful form of jest thanimitation?

THEAETETUS: Certainly not; and imitation is a very comprehensive term, which includes under one class the most diverse sorts of things. 

STRANGER: We know, of course, that he who professes by one art tomake all things is really a painter, and by the painter's art makesresemblances of real things which have the same name with them; andhe can deceive the less intelligent sort of young children, to whomhe shows his pictures at a distance, into the belief that he has theabsolute power of making whatever he likes. 

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: And may there not be supposed to be an imitative art ofreasoning? Is it not possible to enchant the hearts of young men bywords poured through their ears, when they are still at a distance fromthe truth of facts, by exhibiting to them fictitious arguments, andmaking them think that they are true, and that the speaker is the wisestof men in all things?

THEAETETUS: Yes; why should there not be another such art?

STRANGER: But as time goes on, and their hearers advance in years, and come into closer contact with realities, and have learnt by sadexperience to see and feel the truth of things, are not the greaterpart of them compelled to change many opinions which they formerlyentertained, so that the great appears small to them, and the easydifficult, and all their dreamy speculations are overturned by the factsof life?

THEAETETUS: That is my view, as far as I can judge, although, at my age, I may be one of those who see things at a distance only. 

STRANGER: And the wish of all of us, who are your friends, is and alwayswill be to bring you as near to the truth as we can without the sadreality. And now I should like you to tell me, whether the Sophistis not visibly a magician and imitator of true being; or are we stilldisposed to think that he may have a true knowledge of the variousmatters about which he disputes?

THEAETETUS: But how can he, Stranger? Is there any doubt, after whathas been said, that he is to be located in one of the divisions ofchildren's play?

STRANGER: Then we must place him in the class of magicians and mimics. 

THEAETETUS: Certainly we must. 

STRANGER: And now our business is not to let the animal out, for we havegot him in a sort of dialectical net, and there is one thing which hedecidedly will not escape. 

THEAETETUS: What is that?

STRANGER: The inference that he is a juggler. 

THEAETETUS: Precisely my own opinion of him. 

STRANGER: Then, clearly, we ought as soon as possible to divide theimage-making art, and go down into the net, and, if the Sophist does notrun away from us, to seize him according to orders and deliver him overto reason, who is the lord of the hunt, and proclaim the capture of him;and if he creeps into the recesses of the imitative art, and secreteshimself in one of them, to divide again and follow him up until in somesub-section of imitation he is caught. For our method of tackling eachand all is one which neither he nor any other creature will ever escapein triumph. 

THEAETETUS: Well said; and let us do as you propose. 

STRANGER: Well, then, pursuing the same analytic method as before, Ithink that I can discern two divisions of the imitative art, but I amnot as yet able to see in which of them the desired form is to be found. 

THEAETETUS: Will you tell me first what are the two divisions of whichyou are speaking?

STRANGER: One is the art of likeness-making;--generally a likeness ofanything is made by producing a copy which is executed according to theproportions of the original, similar in length and breadth and depth, each thing receiving also its appropriate colour. 

THEAETETUS: Is not this always the aim of imitation?

STRANGER: Not always; in works either of sculpture or of painting, which are of any magnitude, there is a certain degree of deception; forartists were to give the true proportions of their fair works, the upperpart, which is farther off, would appear to be out of proportion incomparison with the lower, which is nearer; and so they give up thetruth in their images and make only the proportions which appear to bebeautiful, disregarding the real ones. 

THEAETETUS: Quite true. 

STRANGER: And that which being other is also like, may we not fairlycall a likeness or image?

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: And may we not, as I did just now, call that part of theimitative art which is concerned with making such images the art oflikeness-making?

THEAETETUS: Let that be the name. 

STRANGER: And what shall we call those resemblances of the beautiful, which appear such owing to the unfavourable position of the spectator, whereas if a person had the power of getting a correct view of worksof such magnitude, they would appear not even like that to which theyprofess to be like? May we not call these 'appearances, ' since theyappear only and are not really like?

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: There is a great deal of this kind of thing in painting, andin all imitation. 

THEAETETUS: Of course. 

STRANGER: And may we not fairly call the sort of art, which produces anappearance and not an image, phantastic art?

THEAETETUS: Most fairly. 

STRANGER: These then are the two kinds of image-making--the art ofmaking likenesses, and phantastic or the art of making appearances?

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: I was doubtful before in which of them I should place theSophist, nor am I even now able to see clearly; verily he is a wonderfuland inscrutable creature. And now in the cleverest manner he has gotinto an impossible place. 

THEAETETUS: Yes, he has. 

STRANGER: Do you speak advisedly, or are you carried away at the momentby the habit of assenting into giving a hasty answer?

THEAETETUS: May I ask to what you are referring?

STRANGER: My dear friend, we are engaged in a very difficultspeculation--there can be no doubt of that; for how a thing can appearand seem, and not be, or how a man can say a thing which is not true, has always been and still remains a very perplexing question. Can anyone say or think that falsehood really exists, and avoid being caught ina contradiction? Indeed, Theaetetus, the task is a difficult one. 

THEAETETUS: Why?

STRANGER: He who says that falsehood exists has the audacity to assertthe being of not-being; for this is implied in the possibility offalsehood. But, my boy, in the days when I was a boy, the greatParmenides protested against this doctrine, and to the end of his lifehe continued to inculcate the same lesson--always repeating both inverse and out of verse:

'Keep your mind from this way of enquiry, for never will you show thatnot-being is. '

Such is his testimony, which is confirmed by the very expression whensifted a little. Would you object to begin with the consideration of thewords themselves?

THEAETETUS: Never mind about me; I am only desirous that you shouldcarry on the argument in the best way, and that you should take me withyou. 

STRANGER: Very good; and now say, do we venture to utter the forbiddenword 'not-being'?

THEAETETUS: Certainly we do. 

STRANGER: Let us be serious then, and consider the question neitherin strife nor play: suppose that one of the hearers of Parmenides wasasked, 'To what is the term "not-being" to be applied?'--do you knowwhat sort of object he would single out in reply, and what answer hewould make to the enquirer?

THEAETETUS: That is a difficult question, and one not to be answered atall by a person like myself. 

STRANGER: There is at any rate no difficulty in seeing that thepredicate 'not-being' is not applicable to any being. 

THEAETETUS: None, certainly. 

STRANGER: And if not to being, then not to something. 

THEAETETUS: Of course not. 

STRANGER: It is also plain, that in speaking of something we speak ofbeing, for to speak of an abstract something naked and isolated from allbeing is impossible. 

THEAETETUS: Impossible. 

STRANGER: You mean by assenting to imply that he who says something mustsay some one thing?

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: Some in the singular (ti) you would say is the sign of one, some in the dual (tine) of two, some in the plural (tines) of many?

THEAETETUS: Exactly. 

STRANGER: Then he who says 'not something' must say absolutely nothing. 

THEAETETUS: Most assuredly. 

STRANGER: And as we cannot admit that a man speaks and says nothing, hewho says 'not-being' does not speak at all. 

THEAETETUS: The difficulty of the argument can no further go. 

STRANGER: Not yet, my friend, is the time for such a word; for therestill remains of all perplexities the first and greatest, touching thevery foundation of the matter. 

THEAETETUS: What do you mean? Do not be afraid to speak. 

STRANGER: To that which is, may be attributed some other thing which is?

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: But can anything which is, be attributed to that which is not?

THEAETETUS: Impossible. 

STRANGER: And all number is to be reckoned among things which are?

THEAETETUS: Yes, surely number, if anything, has a real existence. 

STRANGER: Then we must not attempt to attribute to not-being numbereither in the singular or plural?

THEAETETUS: The argument implies that we should be wrong in doing so. 

STRANGER: But how can a man either express in words or even conceive inthought things which are not or a thing which is not without number?

THEAETETUS: How indeed?

STRANGER: When we speak of things which are not, are we not attributingplurality to not-being?

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: But, on the other hand, when we say 'what is not, ' do we notattribute unity?

THEAETETUS: Manifestly. 

STRANGER: Nevertheless, we maintain that you may not and ought not toattribute being to not-being?

THEAETETUS: Most true. 

STRANGER: Do you see, then, that not-being in itself can neither bespoken, uttered, or thought, but that it is unthinkable, unutterable, unspeakable, indescribable?

THEAETETUS: Quite true. 

STRANGER: But, if so, I was wrong in telling you just now that thedifficulty which was coming is the greatest of all. 

THEAETETUS: What! is there a greater still behind?

STRANGER: Well, I am surprised, after what has been said already, thatyou do not see the difficulty in which he who would refute the notion ofnot-being is involved. For he is compelled to contradict himself as soonas he makes the attempt. 

THEAETETUS: What do you mean? Speak more clearly. 

STRANGER: Do not expect clearness from me. For I, who maintain thatnot-being has no part either in the one or many, just now spoke andam still speaking of not-being as one; for I say 'not-being. ' Do youunderstand?

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: And a little while ago I said that not-being is unutterable, unspeakable, indescribable: do you follow?

THEAETETUS: I do after a fashion. 

STRANGER: When I introduced the word 'is, ' did I not contradict what Isaid before?

THEAETETUS: Clearly. 

STRANGER: And in using the singular verb, did I not speak of not-beingas one?

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: And when I spoke of not-being as indescribable and unspeakableand unutterable, in using each of these words in the singular, did I notrefer to not-being as one?

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: And yet we say that, strictly speaking, it should not bedefined as one or many, and should not even be called 'it, ' for the useof the word 'it' would imply a form of unity. 

THEAETETUS: Quite true. 

STRANGER: How, then, can any one put any faith in me? For now, asalways, I am unequal to the refutation of not-being. And therefore, asI was saying, do not look to me for the right way of speaking aboutnot-being; but come, let us try the experiment with you. 

THEAETETUS: What do you mean?

STRANGER: Make a noble effort, as becomes youth, and endeavour with allyour might to speak of not-being in a right manner, without introducinginto it either existence or unity or plurality. 

THEAETETUS: It would be a strange boldness in me which would attempt thetask when I see you thus discomfited. 

STRANGER: Say no more of ourselves; but until we find some one or otherwho can speak of not-being without number, we must acknowledge that theSophist is a clever rogue who will not be got out of his hole. 

THEAETETUS: Most true. 

STRANGER: And if we say to him that he professes an art of makingappearances, he will grapple with us and retort our argument uponourselves; and when we call him an image-maker he will say, 'Pray whatdo you mean at all by an image?'--and I should like to know, Theaetetus, how we can possibly answer the younker's question?

THEAETETUS: We shall doubtless tell him of the images which arereflected in water or in mirrors; also of sculptures, pictures, andother duplicates. 

STRANGER: I see, Theaetetus, that you have never made the acquaintanceof the Sophist. 

THEAETETUS: Why do you think so?

STRANGER: He will make believe to have his eyes shut, or to have none. 

THEAETETUS: What do you mean?

STRANGER: When you tell him of something existing in a mirror, or insculpture, and address him as though he had eyes, he will laugh you toscorn, and will pretend that he knows nothing of mirrors and streams, orof sight at all; he will say that he is asking about an idea. 

THEAETETUS: What can he mean?

STRANGER: The common notion pervading all these objects, which you speakof as many, and yet call by the single name of image, as though it werethe unity under which they were all included. How will you maintain yourground against him?

THEAETETUS: How, Stranger, can I describe an image except as somethingfashioned in the likeness of the true?

STRANGER: And do you mean this something to be some other true thing, orwhat do you mean?

THEAETETUS: Certainly not another true thing, but only a resemblance. 

STRANGER: And you mean by true that which really is?

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: And the not true is that which is the opposite of the true?

THEAETETUS: Exactly. 

STRANGER: A resemblance, then, is not really real, if, as you say, nottrue?

THEAETETUS: Nay, but it is in a certain sense. 

STRANGER: You mean to say, not in a true sense?

THEAETETUS: Yes; it is in reality only an image. 

STRANGER: Then what we call an image is in reality really unreal. 

THEAETETUS: In what a strange complication of being and not-being we areinvolved!

STRANGER: Strange! I should think so. See how, by his reciprocation ofopposites, the many-headed Sophist has compelled us, quite against ourwill, to admit the existence of not-being. 

THEAETETUS: Yes, indeed, I see. 

STRANGER: The difficulty is how to define his art without falling into acontradiction. 

THEAETETUS: How do you mean? And where does the danger lie?

STRANGER: When we say that he deceives us with an illusion, and thathis art is illusory, do we mean that our soul is led by his art to thinkfalsely, or what do we mean?

THEAETETUS: There is nothing else to be said. 

STRANGER: Again, false opinion is that form of opinion which thinks theopposite of the truth:--You would assent?

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: You mean to say that false opinion thinks what is not?

THEAETETUS: Of course. 

STRANGER: Does false opinion think that things which are not are not, orthat in a certain sense they are?

THEAETETUS: Things that are not must be imagined to exist in a certainsense, if any degree of falsehood is to be possible. 

STRANGER: And does not false opinion also think that things which mostcertainly exist do not exist at all?

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: And here, again, is falsehood?

THEAETETUS: Falsehood--yes. 

STRANGER: And in like manner, a false proposition will be deemed tobe one which asserts the non-existence of things which are, and theexistence of things which are not. 

THEAETETUS: There is no other way in which a false proposition canarise. 

STRANGER: There is not; but the Sophist will deny these statements. And indeed how can any rational man assent to them, when the veryexpressions which we have just used were before acknowledged by us tobe unutterable, unspeakable, indescribable, unthinkable? Do you see hispoint, Theaetetus?

THEAETETUS: Of course he will say that we are contradicting ourselveswhen we hazard the assertion, that falsehood exists in opinion and inwords; for in maintaining this, we are compelled over and over againto assert being of not-being, which we admitted just now to be an utterimpossibility. 

STRANGER: How well you remember! And now it is high time to hold aconsultation as to what we ought to do about the Sophist; for if wepersist in looking for him in the class of false workers and magicians, you see that the handles for objection and the difficulties which willarise are very numerous and obvious. 

THEAETETUS: They are indeed. 

STRANGER: We have gone through but a very small portion of them, andthey are really infinite. 

THEAETETUS: If that is the case, we cannot possibly catch the Sophist. 

STRANGER: Shall we then be so faint-hearted as to give him up?

THEAETETUS: Certainly not, I should say, if we can get the slightesthold upon him. 

STRANGER: Will you then forgive me, and, as your words imply, not bealtogether displeased if I flinch a little from the grasp of such asturdy argument?

THEAETETUS: To be sure I will. 

STRANGER: I have a yet more urgent request to make. 

THEAETETUS: Which is--?

STRANGER: That you will promise not to regard me as a parricide. 

THEAETETUS: And why?

STRANGER: Because, in self-defence, I must test the philosophy of myfather Parmenides, and try to prove by main force that in a certainsense not-being is, and that being, on the other hand, is not. 

THEAETETUS: Some attempt of the kind is clearly needed. 

STRANGER: Yes, a blind man, as they say, might see that, and, unlessthese questions are decided in one way or another, no one when he speaksof false words, or false opinion, or idols, or images, or imitations, orappearances, or about the arts which are concerned with them; can avoidfalling into ridiculous contradictions. 

THEAETETUS: Most true. 

STRANGER: And therefore I must venture to lay hands on my father'sargument; for if I am to be over-scrupulous, I shall have to give thematter up. 

THEAETETUS: Nothing in the world should ever induce us to do so. 

STRANGER: I have a third little request which I wish to make. 

THEAETETUS: What is it?

STRANGER: You heard me say what I have always felt and still feel--thatI have no heart for this argument?

THEAETETUS: I did. 

STRANGER: I tremble at the thought of what I have said, and expect thatyou will deem me mad, when you hear of my sudden changes and shiftings;let me therefore observe, that I am examining the question entirely outof regard for you. 

THEAETETUS: There is no reason for you to fear that I shall imputeany impropriety to you, if you attempt this refutation and proof; takeheart, therefore, and proceed. 

STRANGER: And where shall I begin the perilous enterprise? I think thatthe road which I must take is--

THEAETETUS: Which?--Let me hear. 

STRANGER: I think that we had better, first of all, consider the pointswhich at present are regarded as self-evident, lest we may have falleninto some confusion, and be too ready to assent to one another, fancyingthat we are quite clear about them. 

THEAETETUS: Say more distinctly what you mean. 

STRANGER: I think that Parmenides, and all ever yet undertook todetermine the number and nature of existences, talked to us in rather alight and easy strain. 

THEAETETUS: How?

STRANGER: As if we had been children, to whom they repeated each his ownmythus or story;--one said that there were three principles, and that atone time there was war between certain of them; and then again there waspeace, and they were married and begat children, and brought them up;and another spoke of two principles, --a moist and a dry, or a hot anda cold, and made them marry and cohabit. The Eleatics, however, in ourpart of the world, say that all things are many in name, but in natureone; this is their mythus, which goes back to Xenophanes, and is evenolder. Then there are Ionian, and in more recent times Sicilian muses, who have arrived at the conclusion that to unite the two principles issafer, and to say that being is one and many, and that these are heldtogether by enmity and friendship, ever parting, ever meeting, asthe severer Muses assert, while the gentler ones do not insist on theperpetual strife and peace, but admit a relaxation and alternation ofthem; peace and unity sometimes prevailing under the sway of Aphrodite, and then again plurality and war, by reason of a principle of strife. Whether any of them spoke the truth in all this is hard to determine;besides, antiquity and famous men should have reverence, and not beliable to accusations so serious. Yet one thing may be said of themwithout offence--

THEAETETUS: What thing?

STRANGER: That they went on their several ways disdaining to noticepeople like ourselves; they did not care whether they took us with them, or left us behind them. 

THEAETETUS: How do you mean?

STRANGER: I mean to say, that when they talk of one, two, or moreelements, which are or have become or are becoming, or again ofheat mingling with cold, assuming in some other part of their worksseparations and mixtures, --tell me, Theaetetus, do you understand whatthey mean by these expressions? When I was a younger man, I usedto fancy that I understood quite well what was meant by the term'not-being, ' which is our present subject of dispute; and now you see inwhat a fix we are about it. 

THEAETETUS: I see. 

STRANGER: And very likely we have been getting into the same perplexityabout 'being, ' and yet may fancy that when anybody utters the word, weunderstand him quite easily, although we do not know about not-being. But we may be; equally ignorant of both. 

THEAETETUS: I dare say. 

STRANGER: And the same may be said of all the terms just mentioned. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: The consideration of most of them may be deferred; but we hadbetter now discuss the chief captain and leader of them. 

THEAETETUS: Of what are you speaking? You clearly think that we mustfirst investigate what people mean by the word 'being. '

STRANGER: You follow close at my heels, Theaetetus. For the rightmethod, I conceive, will be to call into our presence the dualisticphilosophers and to interrogate them. 'Come, ' we will say, 'Ye, whoaffirm that hot and cold or any other two principles are the universe, what is this term which you apply to both of them, and what do you meanwhen you say that both and each of them "are"? How are we to understandthe word "are"? Upon your view, are we to suppose that there is a thirdprinciple over and above the other two, --three in all, and not two? Forclearly you cannot say that one of the two principles is being, and yetattribute being equally to both of them; for, if you did, whichever ofthe two is identified with being, will comprehend the other; and so theywill be one and not two. '

THEAETETUS: Very true. 

STRANGER: But perhaps you mean to give the name of 'being' to both ofthem together?

THEAETETUS: Quite likely. 

STRANGER: 'Then, friends, ' we shall reply to them, 'the answer isplainly that the two will still be resolved into one. '

THEAETETUS: Most true. 

STRANGER: 'Since, then, we are in a difficulty, please to tell us whatyou mean, when you speak of being; for there can be no doubt that youalways from the first understood your own meaning, whereas we oncethought that we understood you, but now we are in a great strait. Pleaseto begin by explaining this matter to us, and let us no longer fancythat we understand you, when we entirely misunderstand you. ' There willbe no impropriety in our demanding an answer to this question, either ofthe dualists or of the pluralists?

THEAETETUS: Certainly not. 

STRANGER: And what about the assertors of the oneness of the all--mustwe not endeavour to ascertain from them what they mean by 'being'?

THEAETETUS: By all means. 

STRANGER: Then let them answer this question: One, you say, alone is?'Yes, ' they will reply. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And there is something which you call 'being'?

THEAETETUS: 'Yes. '

STRANGER: And is being the same as one, and do you apply two names tothe same thing?

THEAETETUS: What will be their answer, Stranger?

STRANGER: It is clear, Theaetetus, that he who asserts the unity ofbeing will find a difficulty in answering this or any other question. 

THEAETETUS: Why so?

STRANGER: To admit of two names, and to affirm that there is nothing butunity, is surely ridiculous?

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: And equally irrational to admit that a name is anything?

THEAETETUS: How so?

STRANGER: To distinguish the name from the thing, implies duality. 

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: And yet he who identifies the name with the thing will becompelled to say that it is the name of nothing, or if he says that itis the name of something, even then the name will only be the name of aname, and of nothing else. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And the one will turn out to be only one of one, and beingabsolute unity, will represent a mere name. 

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: And would they say that the whole is other than the one thatis, or the same with it?

THEAETETUS: To be sure they would, and they actually say so. 

STRANGER: If being is a whole, as Parmenides sings, --

'Every way like unto the fullness of a well-rounded sphere, Evenlybalanced from the centre on every side, And must needs be neithergreater nor less in any way, Neither on this side nor on that--'

then being has a centre and extremes, and, having these, must alsohave parts. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: Yet that which has parts may have the attribute of unity inall the parts, and in this way being all and a whole, may be one?

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: But that of which this is the condition cannot be absoluteunity?

THEAETETUS: Why not?

STRANGER: Because, according to right reason, that which is truly onemust be affirmed to be absolutely indivisible. 

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: But this indivisible, if made up of many parts, willcontradict reason. 

THEAETETUS: I understand. 

STRANGER: Shall we say that being is one and a whole, because it has theattribute of unity? Or shall we say that being is not a whole at all?

THEAETETUS: That is a hard alternative to offer. 

STRANGER: Most true; for being, having in a certain sense the attributeof one, is yet proved not to be the same as one, and the all istherefore more than one. 

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: And yet if being be not a whole, through having the attributeof unity, and there be such a thing as an absolute whole, being lackssomething of its own nature?

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: Upon this view, again, being, having a defect of being, willbecome not-being?

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And, again, the all becomes more than one, for being and thewhole will each have their separate nature. 

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: But if the whole does not exist at all, all the previousdifficulties remain the same, and there will be the further difficulty, that besides having no being, being can never have come into being. 

THEAETETUS: Why so?

STRANGER: Because that which comes into being always comes into being asa whole, so that he who does not give whole a place among beings, cannotspeak either of essence or generation as existing. 

THEAETETUS: Yes, that certainly appears to be true. 

STRANGER: Again; how can that which is not a whole have any quantity?For that which is of a certain quantity must necessarily be the whole ofthat quantity. 

THEAETETUS: Exactly. 

STRANGER: And there will be innumerable other points, each of themcausing infinite trouble to him who says that being is either one ortwo. 

THEAETETUS: The difficulties which are dawning upon us prove this; forone objection connects with another, and they are always involving whathas preceded in a greater and worse perplexity. 

STRANGER: We are far from having exhausted the more exact thinkers whotreat of being and not-being. But let us be content to leave them, andproceed to view those who speak less precisely; and we shall find asthe result of all, that the nature of being is quite as difficult tocomprehend as that of not-being. 

THEAETETUS: Then now we will go to the others. 

STRANGER: There appears to be a sort of war of Giants and Gods goingon amongst them; they are fighting with one another about the nature ofessence. 

THEAETETUS: How is that?

STRANGER: Some of them are dragging down all things from heaven and fromthe unseen to earth, and they literally grasp in their hands rocks andoaks; of these they lay hold, and obstinately maintain, that the thingsonly which can be touched or handled have being or essence, because theydefine being and body as one, and if any one else says that what is nota body exists they altogether despise him, and will hear of nothing butbody. 

THEAETETUS: I have often met with such men, and terrible fellows theyare. 

STRANGER: And that is the reason why their opponents cautiously defendthemselves from above, out of an unseen world, mightily contending thattrue essence consists of certain intelligible and incorporeal ideas; thebodies of the materialists, which by them are maintained to be the verytruth, they break up into little bits by their arguments, and affirmthem to be, not essence, but generation and motion. Between thetwo armies, Theaetetus, there is always an endless conflict ragingconcerning these matters. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: Let us ask each party in turn, to give an account of thatwhich they call essence. 

THEAETETUS: How shall we get it out of them?

STRANGER: With those who make being to consist in ideas, there will beless difficulty, for they are civil people enough; but there will bevery great difficulty, or rather an absolute impossibility, in gettingan opinion out of those who drag everything down to matter. Shall I tellyou what we must do?

THEAETETUS: What?

STRANGER: Let us, if we can, really improve them; but if this is notpossible, let us imagine them to be better than they are, and morewilling to answer in accordance with the rules of argument, and thentheir opinion will be more worth having; for that which better menacknowledge has more weight than that which is acknowledged by inferiormen. Moreover we are no respecters of persons, but seekers after truth. 

THEAETETUS: Very good. 

STRANGER: Then now, on the supposition that they are improved, let usask them to state their views, and do you interpret them. 

THEAETETUS: Agreed. 

STRANGER: Let them say whether they would admit that there is such athing as a mortal animal. 

THEAETETUS: Of course they would. 

STRANGER: And do they not acknowledge this to be a body having a soul?

THEAETETUS: Certainly they do. 

STRANGER: Meaning to say that the soul is something which exists?

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And do they not say that one soul is just, and another unjust, and that one soul is wise, and another foolish?

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: And that the just and wise soul becomes just and wise bythe possession of justice and wisdom, and the opposite under oppositecircumstances?

THEAETETUS: Yes, they do. 

STRANGER: But surely that which may be present or may be absent will beadmitted by them to exist?

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: And, allowing that justice, wisdom, the other virtues, andtheir opposites exist, as well as a soul in which they inhere, dothey affirm any of them to be visible and tangible, or are they allinvisible?

THEAETETUS: They would say that hardly any of them are visible. 

STRANGER: And would they say that they are corporeal?

THEAETETUS: They would distinguish: the soul would be said by them tohave a body; but as to the other qualities of justice, wisdom, and thelike, about which you asked, they would not venture either to deny theirexistence, or to maintain that they were all corporeal. 

STRANGER: Verily, Theaetetus, I perceive a great improvement in them;the real aborigines, children of the dragon's teeth, would have beendeterred by no shame at all, but would have obstinately asserted thatnothing is which they are not able to squeeze in their hands. 

THEAETETUS: That is pretty much their notion. 

STRANGER: Let us push the question; for if they will admit that any, even the smallest particle of being, is incorporeal, it is enough; theymust then say what that nature is which is common to both the corporealand incorporeal, and which they have in their mind's eye when they sayof both of them that they 'are. ' Perhaps they may be in a difficulty;and if this is the case, there is a possibility that they may accept anotion of ours respecting the nature of being, having nothing of theirown to offer. 

THEAETETUS: What is the notion? Tell me, and we shall soon see. 

STRANGER: My notion would be, that anything which possesses any sortof power to affect another, or to be affected by another, if only for asingle moment, however trifling the cause and however slight the effect, has real existence; and I hold that the definition of being is simplypower. 

THEAETETUS: They accept your suggestion, having nothing better of theirown to offer. 

STRANGER: Very good; perhaps we, as well as they, may one day change ourminds; but, for the present, this may be regarded as the understandingwhich is established with them. 

THEAETETUS: Agreed. 

STRANGER: Let us now go to the friends of ideas; of their opinions, too, you shall be the interpreter. 

THEAETETUS: I will. 

STRANGER: To them we say--You would distinguish essence from generation?

THEAETETUS: 'Yes, ' they reply. 

STRANGER: And you would allow that we participate in generation with thebody, and through perception, but we participate with the soul throughthought in true essence; and essence you would affirm to be always thesame and immutable, whereas generation or becoming varies?

THEAETETUS: Yes; that is what we should affirm. 

STRANGER: Well, fair sirs, we say to them, what is this participation, which you assert of both? Do you agree with our recent definition?

THEAETETUS: What definition?

STRANGER: We said that being was an active or passive energy, arisingout of a certain power which proceeds from elements meeting with oneanother. Perhaps your ears, Theaetetus, may fail to catch their answer, which I recognize because I have been accustomed to hear it. 

THEAETETUS: And what is their answer?

STRANGER: They deny the truth of what we were just now saying to theaborigines about existence. 

THEAETETUS: What was that?

STRANGER: Any power of doing or suffering in a degree however slight washeld by us to be a sufficient definition of being?

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: They deny this, and say that the power of doing or sufferingis confined to becoming, and that neither power is applicable to being. 

THEAETETUS: And is there not some truth in what they say?

STRANGER: Yes; but our reply will be, that we want to ascertain fromthem more distinctly, whether they further admit that the soul knows, and that being or essence is known. 

THEAETETUS: There can be no doubt that they say so. 

STRANGER: And is knowing and being known doing or suffering, or both, or is the one doing and the other suffering, or has neither any share ineither?

THEAETETUS: Clearly, neither has any share in either; for if they sayanything else, they will contradict themselves. 

STRANGER: I understand; but they will allow that if to know is active, then, of course, to be known is passive. And on this view being, inso far as it is known, is acted upon by knowledge, and is therefore inmotion; for that which is in a state of rest cannot be acted upon, as weaffirm. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And, O heavens, can we ever be made to believe that motionand life and soul and mind are not present with perfect being? Canwe imagine that being is devoid of life and mind, and exists in awfulunmeaningness an everlasting fixture?

THEAETETUS: That would be a dreadful thing to admit, Stranger. 

STRANGER: But shall we say that has mind and not life?

THEAETETUS: How is that possible?

STRANGER: Or shall we say that both inhere in perfect being, but that ithas no soul which contains them?

THEAETETUS: And in what other way can it contain them?

STRANGER: Or that being has mind and life and soul, but although endowedwith soul remains absolutely unmoved?

THEAETETUS: All three suppositions appear to me to be irrational. 

STRANGER: Under being, then, we must include motion, and that which ismoved. 

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: Then, Theaetetus, our inference is, that if there is nomotion, neither is there any mind anywhere, or about anything orbelonging to any one. 

THEAETETUS: Quite true. 

STRANGER: And yet this equally follows, if we grant that all things arein motion--upon this view too mind has no existence. 

THEAETETUS: How so?

STRANGER: Do you think that sameness of condition and mode and subjectcould ever exist without a principle of rest?

THEAETETUS: Certainly not. 

STRANGER: Can you see how without them mind could exist, or come intoexistence anywhere?

THEAETETUS: No. 

STRANGER: And surely contend we must in every possible way against himwho would annihilate knowledge and reason and mind, and yet ventures tospeak confidently about anything. 

THEAETETUS: Yes, with all our might. 

STRANGER: Then the philosopher, who has the truest reverence for thesequalities, cannot possibly accept the notion of those who say thatthe whole is at rest, either as unity or in many forms: and he willbe utterly deaf to those who assert universal motion. As children sayentreatingly 'Give us both, ' so he will include both the moveable andimmoveable in his definition of being and all. 

THEAETETUS: Most true. 

STRANGER: And now, do we seem to have gained a fair notion of being?

THEAETETUS: Yes truly. 

STRANGER: Alas, Theaetetus, methinks that we are now only beginning tosee the real difficulty of the enquiry into the nature of it. 

THEAETETUS: What do you mean?

STRANGER: O my friend, do you not see that nothing can exceed ourignorance, and yet we fancy that we are saying something good?

THEAETETUS: I certainly thought that we were; and I do not at allunderstand how we never found out our desperate case. 

STRANGER: Reflect: after having made these admissions, may we not bejustly asked the same questions which we ourselves were asking of thosewho said that all was hot and cold?

THEAETETUS: What were they? Will you recall them to my mind?

STRANGER: To be sure I will, and I will remind you of them, by puttingthe same questions to you which I did to them, and then we shall get on. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: Would you not say that rest and motion are in the most entireopposition to one another?

THEAETETUS: Of course. 

STRANGER: And yet you would say that both and either of them equallyare?

THEAETETUS: I should. 

STRANGER: And when you admit that both or either of them are, do youmean to say that both or either of them are in motion?

THEAETETUS: Certainly not. 

STRANGER: Or do you wish to imply that they are both at rest, when yousay that they are?

THEAETETUS: Of course not. 

STRANGER: Then you conceive of being as some third and distinct nature, under which rest and motion are alike included; and, observing that theyboth participate in being, you declare that they are. 

THEAETETUS: Truly we seem to have an intimation that being is some thirdthing, when we say that rest and motion are. 

STRANGER: Then being is not the combination of rest and motion, butsomething different from them. 

THEAETETUS: So it would appear. 

STRANGER: Being, then, according to its own nature, is neither in motionnor at rest. 

THEAETETUS: That is very much the truth. 

STRANGER: Where, then, is a man to look for help who would have anyclear or fixed notion of being in his mind?

THEAETETUS: Where, indeed?

STRANGER: I scarcely think that he can look anywhere; for that which isnot in motion must be at rest, and again, that which is not at rest mustbe in motion; but being is placed outside of both these classes. Is thispossible?

THEAETETUS: Utterly impossible. 

STRANGER: Here, then, is another thing which we ought to bear in mind. 

THEAETETUS: What?

STRANGER: When we were asked to what we were to assign the appellationof not-being, we were in the greatest difficulty:--do you remember?

THEAETETUS: To be sure. 

STRANGER: And are we not now in as great a difficulty about being?

THEAETETUS: I should say, Stranger, that we are in one which is, ifpossible, even greater. 

STRANGER: Then let us acknowledge the difficulty; and as being andnot-being are involved in the same perplexity, there is hope that whenthe one appears more or less distinctly, the other will equally appear;and if we are able to see neither, there may still be a chance ofsteering our way in between them, without any great discredit. 

THEAETETUS: Very good. 

STRANGER: Let us enquire, then, how we come to predicate many names ofthe same thing. 

THEAETETUS: Give an example. 

STRANGER: I mean that we speak of man, for example, under manynames--that we attribute to him colours and forms and magnitudes andvirtues and vices, in all of which instances and in ten thousandothers we not only speak of him as a man, but also as good, and havingnumberless other attributes, and in the same way anything else which weoriginally supposed to be one is described by us as many, and under manynames. 

THEAETETUS: That is true. 

STRANGER: And thus we provide a rich feast for tyros, whether young orold; for there is nothing easier than to argue that the one cannot bemany, or the many one; and great is their delight in denying that a manis good; for man, they insist, is man and good is good. I dare say thatyou have met with persons who take an interest in such matters--they areoften elderly men, whose meagre sense is thrown into amazement by thesediscoveries of theirs, which they believe to be the height of wisdom. 

THEAETETUS: Certainly, I have. 

STRANGER: Then, not to exclude any one who has ever speculated at allupon the nature of being, let us put our questions to them as well as toour former friends. 

THEAETETUS: What questions?

STRANGER: Shall we refuse to attribute being to motion and rest, oranything to anything, and assume that they do not mingle, and areincapable of participating in one another? Or shall we gather all intoone class of things communicable with one another? Or are some thingscommunicable and others not?--Which of these alternatives, Theaetetus, will they prefer?

THEAETETUS: I have nothing to answer on their behalf. Suppose that youtake all these hypotheses in turn, and see what are the consequenceswhich follow from each of them. 

STRANGER: Very good, and first let us assume them to say that nothing iscapable of participating in anything else in any respect; in that caserest and motion cannot participate in being at all. 

THEAETETUS: They cannot. 

STRANGER: But would either of them be if not participating in being?

THEAETETUS: No. 

STRANGER: Then by this admission everything is instantly overturned, aswell the doctrine of universal motion as of universal rest, and also thedoctrine of those who distribute being into immutable and everlastingkinds; for all these add on a notion of being, some affirming thatthings 'are' truly in motion, and others that they 'are' truly at rest. 

THEAETETUS: Just so. 

STRANGER: Again, those who would at one time compound, and at anotherresolve all things, whether making them into one and out of one creatinginfinity, or dividing them into finite elements, and forming compoundsout of these; whether they suppose the processes of creation to besuccessive or continuous, would be talking nonsense in all this if therewere no admixture. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: Most ridiculous of all will the men themselves be who wantto carry out the argument and yet forbid us to call anything, becauseparticipating in some affection from another, by the name of that other. 

THEAETETUS: Why so?

STRANGER: Why, because they are compelled to use the words 'to be, ''apart, ' 'from others, ' 'in itself, ' and ten thousand more, which theycannot give up, but must make the connecting links of discourse; andtherefore they do not require to be refuted by others, but their enemy, as the saying is, inhabits the same house with them; they are alwayscarrying about with them an adversary, like the wonderful ventriloquist, Eurycles, who out of their own bellies audibly contradicts them. 

THEAETETUS: Precisely so; a very true and exact illustration. 

STRANGER: And now, if we suppose that all things have the power ofcommunion with one another--what will follow?

THEAETETUS: Even I can solve that riddle. 

STRANGER: How?

THEAETETUS: Why, because motion itself would be at rest, and rest againin motion, if they could be attributed to one another. 

STRANGER: But this is utterly impossible. 

THEAETETUS: Of course. 

STRANGER: Then only the third hypothesis remains. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: For, surely, either all things have communion with all; ornothing with any other thing; or some things communicate with somethings and others not. 

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: And two out of these three suppositions have been found to beimpossible. 

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: Every one then, who desires to answer truly, will adopt thethird and remaining hypothesis of the communion of some with some. 

THEAETETUS: Quite true. 

STRANGER: This communion of some with some may be illustrated by thecase of letters; for some letters do not fit each other, while othersdo. 

THEAETETUS: Of course. 

STRANGER: And the vowels, especially, are a sort of bond which pervadesall the other letters, so that without a vowel one consonant cannot bejoined to another. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: But does every one know what letters will unite with what? Oris art required in order to do so?

THEAETETUS: Art is required. 

STRANGER: What art?

THEAETETUS: The art of grammar. 

STRANGER: And is not this also true of sounds high and low?--Is not hewho has the art to know what sounds mingle, a musician, and he who isignorant, not a musician?

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: And we shall find this to be generally true of art or theabsence of art. 

THEAETETUS: Of course. 

STRANGER: And as classes are admitted by us in like manner to be some ofthem capable and others incapable of intermixture, must not he who wouldrightly show what kinds will unite and what will not, proceed by thehelp of science in the path of argument? And will he not ask if theconnecting links are universal, and so capable of intermixture with allthings; and again, in divisions, whether there are not other universalclasses, which make them possible?

THEAETETUS: To be sure he will require science, and, if I am notmistaken, the very greatest of all sciences. 

STRANGER: How are we to call it? By Zeus, have we not lightedunwittingly upon our free and noble science, and in looking for theSophist have we not entertained the philosopher unawares?

THEAETETUS: What do you mean?

STRANGER: Should we not say that the division according to classes, which neither makes the same other, nor makes other the same, is thebusiness of the dialectical science?

THEAETETUS: That is what we should say. 

STRANGER: Then, surely, he who can divide rightly is able to see clearlyone form pervading a scattered multitude, and many different formscontained under one higher form; and again, one form knit together intoa single whole and pervading many such wholes, and many forms, existingonly in separation and isolation. This is the knowledge of classes whichdetermines where they can have communion with one another and where not. 

THEAETETUS: Quite true. 

STRANGER: And the art of dialectic would be attributed by you only tothe philosopher pure and true?

THEAETETUS: Who but he can be worthy?

STRANGER: In this region we shall always discover the philosopher, if welook for him; like the Sophist, he is not easily discovered, but for adifferent reason. 

THEAETETUS: For what reason?

STRANGER: Because the Sophist runs away into the darkness of not-being, in which he has learned by habit to feel about, and cannot be discoveredbecause of the darkness of the place. Is not that true?

THEAETETUS: It seems to be so. 

STRANGER: And the philosopher, always holding converse through reasonwith the idea of being, is also dark from excess of light; for the soulsof the many have no eye which can endure the vision of the divine. 

THEAETETUS: Yes; that seems to be quite as true as the other. 

STRANGER: Well, the philosopher may hereafter be more fully consideredby us, if we are disposed; but the Sophist must clearly not be allowedto escape until we have had a good look at him. 

THEAETETUS: Very good. 

STRANGER: Since, then, we are agreed that some classes have a communionwith one another, and others not, and some have communion with a few andothers with many, and that there is no reason why some should not haveuniversal communion with all, let us now pursue the enquiry, as theargument suggests, not in relation to all ideas, lest the multitudeof them should confuse us, but let us select a few of those which arereckoned to be the principal ones, and consider their several naturesand their capacity of communion with one another, in order that if weare not able to apprehend with perfect clearness the notions of beingand not-being, we may at least not fall short in the consideration ofthem, so far as they come within the scope of the present enquiry, ifperadventure we may be allowed to assert the reality of not-being, andyet escape unscathed. 

THEAETETUS: We must do so. 

STRANGER: The most important of all the genera are those which we werejust now mentioning--being and rest and motion. 

THEAETETUS: Yes, by far. 

STRANGER: And two of these are, as we affirm, incapable of communionwith one another. 

THEAETETUS: Quite incapable. 

STRANGER: Whereas being surely has communion with both of them, for bothof them are?

THEAETETUS: Of course. 

STRANGER: That makes up three of them. 

THEAETETUS: To be sure. 

STRANGER: And each of them is other than the remaining two, but the samewith itself. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: But then, what is the meaning of these two words, 'same' and'other'? Are they two new kinds other than the three, and yet always ofnecessity intermingling with them, and are we to have five kinds insteadof three; or when we speak of the same and other, are we unconsciouslyspeaking of one of the three first kinds?

THEAETETUS: Very likely we are. 

STRANGER: But, surely, motion and rest are neither the other nor thesame. 

THEAETETUS: How is that?

STRANGER: Whatever we attribute to motion and rest in common, cannot beeither of them. 

THEAETETUS: Why not?

STRANGER: Because motion would be at rest and rest in motion, for eitherof them, being predicated of both, will compel the other to change intothe opposite of its own nature, because partaking of its opposite. 

THEAETETUS: Quite true. 

STRANGER: Yet they surely both partake of the same and of the other?

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: Then we must not assert that motion, any more than rest, iseither the same or the other. 

THEAETETUS: No; we must not. 

STRANGER: But are we to conceive that being and the same are identical?

THEAETETUS: Possibly. 

STRANGER: But if they are identical, then again in saying that motionand rest have being, we should also be saying that they are the same. 

THEAETETUS: Which surely cannot be. 

STRANGER: Then being and the same cannot be one. 

THEAETETUS: Scarcely. 

STRANGER: Then we may suppose the same to be a fourth class, which isnow to be added to the three others. 

THEAETETUS: Quite true. 

STRANGER: And shall we call the other a fifth class? Or should weconsider being and other to be two names of the same class?

THEAETETUS: Very likely. 

STRANGER: But you would agree, if I am not mistaken, that existences arerelative as well as absolute?

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: And the other is always relative to other?

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: But this would not be the case unless being and the otherentirely differed; for, if the other, like being, were absolute as wellas relative, then there would have been a kind of other which was notother than other. And now we find that what is other must of necessitybe what it is in relation to some other. 

THEAETETUS: That is the true state of the case. 

STRANGER: Then we must admit the other as the fifth of our selectedclasses. 

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: And the fifth class pervades all classes, for they all differfrom one another, not by reason of their own nature, but because theypartake of the idea of the other. 

THEAETETUS: Quite true. 

STRANGER: Then let us now put the case with reference to each of thefive. 

THEAETETUS: How?

STRANGER: First there is motion, which we affirm to be absolutely'other' than rest: what else can we say?

THEAETETUS: It is so. 

STRANGER: And therefore is not rest. 

THEAETETUS: Certainly not. 

STRANGER: And yet is, because partaking of being. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: Again, motion is other than the same?

THEAETETUS: Just so. 

STRANGER: And is therefore not the same. 

THEAETETUS: It is not. 

STRANGER: Yet, surely, motion is the same, because all things partake ofthe same. 

THEAETETUS: Very true. 

STRANGER: Then we must admit, and not object to say, that motion is thesame and is not the same, for we do not apply the terms 'same' and 'notthe same, ' in the same sense; but we call it the 'same, ' in relation toitself, because partaking of the same; and not the same, because havingcommunion with the other, it is thereby severed from the same, and hasbecome not that but other, and is therefore rightly spoken of as 'notthe same. '

THEAETETUS: To be sure. 

STRANGER: And if absolute motion in any point of view partook of rest, there would be no absurdity in calling motion stationary. 

THEAETETUS: Quite right, --that is, on the supposition that some classesmingle with one another, and others not. 

STRANGER: That such a communion of kinds is according to nature, we hadalready proved before we arrived at this part of our discussion. 

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: Let us proceed, then. May we not say that motion is other thanthe other, having been also proved by us to be other than the same andother than rest?

THEAETETUS: That is certain. 

STRANGER: Then, according to this view, motion is other and also notother?

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: What is the next step? Shall we say that motion is other thanthe three and not other than the fourth, --for we agreed that thereare five classes about and in the sphere of which we proposed to makeenquiry?

THEAETETUS: Surely we cannot admit that the number is less than itappeared to be just now. 

STRANGER: Then we may without fear contend that motion is other thanbeing?

THEAETETUS: Without the least fear. 

STRANGER: The plain result is that motion, since it partakes of being, really is and also is not?

THEAETETUS: Nothing can be plainer. 

STRANGER: Then not-being necessarily exists in the case of motion and ofevery class; for the nature of the other entering into them all, makeseach of them other than being, and so non-existent; and therefore of allof them, in like manner, we may truly say that they are not; and again, inasmuch as they partake of being, that they are and are existent. 

THEAETETUS: So we may assume. 

STRANGER: Every class, then, has plurality of being and infinity ofnot-being. 

THEAETETUS: So we must infer. 

STRANGER: And being itself may be said to be other than the other kinds. 

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: Then we may infer that being is not, in respect of as manyother things as there are; for not-being these it is itself one, and isnot the other things, which are infinite in number. 

THEAETETUS: That is not far from the truth. 

STRANGER: And we must not quarrel with this result, since it is of thenature of classes to have communion with one another; and if any onedenies our present statement [viz. , that being is not, etc. ], let himfirst argue with our former conclusion [i. E. , respecting the communionof ideas], and then he may proceed to argue with what follows. 

THEAETETUS: Nothing can be fairer. 

STRANGER: Let me ask you to consider a further question. 

THEAETETUS: What question?

STRANGER: When we speak of not-being, we speak, I suppose, not ofsomething opposed to being, but only different. 

THEAETETUS: What do you mean?

STRANGER: When we speak of something as not great, does the expressionseem to you to imply what is little any more than what is equal?

THEAETETUS: Certainly not. 

STRANGER: The negative particles, ou and me, when prefixed to words, do not imply opposition, but only difference from the words, or morecorrectly from the things represented by the words, which follow them. 

THEAETETUS: Quite true. 

STRANGER: There is another point to be considered, if you do not object. 

THEAETETUS: What is it?

STRANGER: The nature of the other appears to me to be divided intofractions like knowledge. 

THEAETETUS: How so?

STRANGER: Knowledge, like the other, is one; and yet the various partsof knowledge have each of them their own particular name, and hencethere are many arts and kinds of knowledge. 

THEAETETUS: Quite true. 

STRANGER: And is not the case the same with the parts of the other, which is also one?

THEAETETUS: Very likely; but will you tell me how?

STRANGER: There is some part of the other which is opposed to thebeautiful?

THEAETETUS: There is. 

STRANGER: Shall we say that this has or has not a name?

THEAETETUS: It has; for whatever we call not-beautiful is other than thebeautiful, not than something else. 

STRANGER: And now tell me another thing. 

THEAETETUS: What?

STRANGER: Is the not-beautiful anything but this--an existence partedoff from a certain kind of existence, and again from another point ofview opposed to an existing something?

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: Then the not-beautiful turns out to be the opposition of beingto being?

THEAETETUS: Very true. 

STRANGER: But upon this view, is the beautiful a more real and thenot-beautiful a less real existence?

THEAETETUS: Not at all. 

STRANGER: And the not-great may be said to exist, equally with thegreat?

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: And, in the same way, the just must be placed in the samecategory with the not-just--the one cannot be said to have any moreexistence than the other. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: The same may be said of other things; seeing that the natureof the other has a real existence, the parts of this nature must equallybe supposed to exist. 

THEAETETUS: Of course. 

STRANGER: Then, as would appear, the opposition of a part of the other, and of a part of being, to one another, is, if I may venture to say so, as truly essence as being itself, and implies not the opposite of being, but only what is other than being. 

THEAETETUS: Beyond question. 

STRANGER: What then shall we call it?

THEAETETUS: Clearly, not-being; and this is the very nature for whichthe Sophist compelled us to search. 

STRANGER: And has not this, as you were saying, as real an existenceas any other class? May I not say with confidence that not-being has anassured existence, and a nature of its own? Just as the great was foundto be great and the beautiful beautiful, and the not-great not-great, and the not-beautiful not-beautiful, in the same manner not-being hasbeen found to be and is not-being, and is to be reckoned one among themany classes of being. Do you, Theaetetus, still feel any doubt of this?

THEAETETUS: None whatever. 

STRANGER: Do you observe that our scepticism has carried us beyond therange of Parmenides' prohibition?

THEAETETUS: In what?

STRANGER: We have advanced to a further point, and shown him more thanhe forbad us to investigate. 

THEAETETUS: How is that?

STRANGER: Why, because he says--

'Not-being never is, and do thou keep thy thoughts from this way ofenquiry. '

THEAETETUS: Yes, he says so. 

STRANGER: Whereas, we have not only proved that things which are notare, but we have shown what form of being not-being is; for we haveshown that the nature of the other is, and is distributed over allthings in their relations to one another, and whatever part of the otheris contrasted with being, this is precisely what we have ventured tocall not-being. 

THEAETETUS: And surely, Stranger, we were quite right. 

STRANGER: Let not any one say, then, that while affirming the oppositionof not-being to being, we still assert the being of not-being; for as towhether there is an opposite of being, to that enquiry we have longsaid good-bye--it may or may not be, and may or may not be capable ofdefinition. But as touching our present account of not-being, let a maneither convince us of error, or, so long as he cannot, he too must say, as we are saying, that there is a communion of classes, and thatbeing, and difference or other, traverse all things and mutuallyinterpenetrate, so that the other partakes of being, and by reason ofthis participation is, and yet is not that of which it partakes, butother, and being other than being, it is clearly a necessity thatnot-being should be. And again, being, through partaking of the other, becomes a class other than the remaining classes, and being other thanall of them, is not each one of them, and is not all the rest, so thatundoubtedly there are thousands upon thousands of cases in whichbeing is not, and all other things, whether regarded individually orcollectively, in many respects are, and in many respects are not. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And he who is sceptical of this contradiction, must think howhe can find something better to say; or if he sees a puzzle, and hispleasure is to drag words this way and that, the argument will prove tohim, that he is not making a worthy use of his faculties; for there isno charm in such puzzles, and there is no difficulty in detecting them;but we can tell him of something else the pursuit of which is noble andalso difficult. 

THEAETETUS: What is it?

STRANGER: A thing of which I have already spoken;--letting alone thesepuzzles as involving no difficulty, he should be able to follow andcriticize in detail every argument, and when a man says that the same isin a manner other, or that other is the same, to understand and refutehim from his own point of view, and in the same respect in which heasserts either of these affections. But to show that somehow and in somesense the same is other, or the other same, or the great small, orthe like unlike; and to delight in always bringing forward suchcontradictions, is no real refutation, but is clearly the new-born babeof some one who is only beginning to approach the problem of being. 

THEAETETUS: To be sure. 

STRANGER: For certainly, my friend, the attempt to separate allexistences from one another is a barbarism and utterly unworthy of aneducated or philosophical mind. 

THEAETETUS: Why so?

STRANGER: The attempt at universal separation is the final annihilationof all reasoning; for only by the union of conceptions with one anotherdo we attain to discourse of reason. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And, observe that we were only just in time in making aresistance to such separatists, and compelling them to admit that onething mingles with another. 

THEAETETUS: Why so?

STRANGER: Why, that we might be able to assert discourse to be a kind ofbeing; for if we could not, the worst of all consequences would follow;we should have no philosophy. Moreover, the necessity for determiningthe nature of discourse presses upon us at this moment; if utterlydeprived of it, we could no more hold discourse; and deprived of it weshould be if we admitted that there was no admixture of natures at all. 

THEAETETUS: Very true. But I do not understand why at this moment wemust determine the nature of discourse. 

STRANGER: Perhaps you will see more clearly by the help of the followingexplanation. 

THEAETETUS: What explanation?

STRANGER: Not-being has been acknowledged by us to be one among manyclasses diffused over all being. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And thence arises the question, whether not-being mingles withopinion and language. 

THEAETETUS: How so?

STRANGER: If not-being has no part in the proposition, then all thingsmust be true; but if not-being has a part, then false opinion and falsespeech are possible, for to think or to say what is not--is falsehood, which thus arises in the region of thought and in speech. 

THEAETETUS: That is quite true. 

STRANGER: And where there is falsehood surely there must be deceit. 

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: And if there is deceit, then all things must be full of idolsand images and fancies. 

THEAETETUS: To be sure. 

STRANGER: Into that region the Sophist, as we said, made his escape, and, when he had got there, denied the very possibility of falsehood;no one, he argued, either conceived or uttered falsehood, inasmuch asnot-being did not in any way partake of being. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And now, not-being has been shown to partake of being, andtherefore he will not continue fighting in this direction, but he willprobably say that some ideas partake of not-being, and some not, andthat language and opinion are of the non-partaking class; and he willstill fight to the death against the existence of the image-making andphantastic art, in which we have placed him, because, as he will say, opinion and language do not partake of not-being, and unless thisparticipation exists, there can be no such thing as falsehood. And, withthe view of meeting this evasion, we must begin by enquiring into thenature of language, opinion, and imagination, in order that when wefind them we may find also that they have communion with not-being, and, having made out the connexion of them, may thus prove that falsehoodexists; and therein we will imprison the Sophist, if he deserves it, or, if not, we will let him go again and look for him in another class. 

THEAETETUS: Certainly, Stranger, there appears to be truth in whatwas said about the Sophist at first, that he was of a class not easilycaught, for he seems to have abundance of defences, which he throws up, and which must every one of them be stormed before we can reach the manhimself. And even now, we have with difficulty got through his firstdefence, which is the not-being of not-being, and lo! here is another;for we have still to show that falsehood exists in the sphere oflanguage and opinion, and there will be another and another line ofdefence without end. 

STRANGER: Any one, Theaetetus, who is able to advance even a littleought to be of good cheer, for what would he who is dispirited at alittle progress do, if he were making none at all, or even undergoinga repulse? Such a faint heart, as the proverb says, will never take acity: but now that we have succeeded thus far, the citadel is ours, andwhat remains is easier. 

THEAETETUS: Very true. 

STRANGER: Then, as I was saying, let us first of all obtain a conceptionof language and opinion, in order that we may have clearer grounds fordetermining, whether not-being has any concern with them, or whetherthey are both always true, and neither of them ever false. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: Then, now, let us speak of names, as before we were speakingof ideas and letters; for that is the direction in which the answer maybe expected. 

THEAETETUS: And what is the question at issue about names?

STRANGER: The question at issue is whether all names may be connectedwith one another, or none, or only some of them. 

THEAETETUS: Clearly the last is true. 

STRANGER: I understand you to say that words which have a meaning whenin sequence may be connected, but that words which have no meaning whenin sequence cannot be connected?

THEAETETUS: What are you saying?

STRANGER: What I thought that you intended when you gave your assent;for there are two sorts of intimation of being which are given by thevoice. 

THEAETETUS: What are they?

STRANGER: One of them is called nouns, and the other verbs. 

THEAETETUS: Describe them. 

STRANGER: That which denotes action we call a verb. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And the other, which is an articulate mark set on those who dothe actions, we call a noun. 

THEAETETUS: Quite true. 

STRANGER: A succession of nouns only is not a sentence, any more than ofverbs without nouns. 

THEAETETUS: I do not understand you. 

STRANGER: I see that when you gave your assent you had something elsein your mind. But what I intended to say was, that a mere succession ofnouns or of verbs is not discourse. 

THEAETETUS: What do you mean?

STRANGER: I mean that words like 'walks, ' 'runs, ' 'sleeps, ' or any otherwords which denote action, however many of them you string together, donot make discourse. 

THEAETETUS: How can they?

STRANGER: Or, again, when you say 'lion, ' 'stag, ' 'horse, ' or anyother words which denote agents--neither in this way of stringing wordstogether do you attain to discourse; for there is no expression ofaction or inaction, or of the existence of existence or non-existenceindicated by the sounds, until verbs are mingled with nouns; then thewords fit, and the smallest combination of them forms language, and isthe simplest and least form of discourse. 

THEAETETUS: Again I ask, What do you mean?

STRANGER: When any one says 'A man learns, ' should you not call this thesimplest and least of sentences?

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: Yes, for he now arrives at the point of giving an intimationabout something which is, or is becoming, or has become, or will be. And he not only names, but he does something, by connecting verbs withnouns; and therefore we say that he discourses, and to this connexion ofwords we give the name of discourse. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And as there are some things which fit one another, and otherthings which do not fit, so there are some vocal signs which do, andothers which do not, combine and form discourse. 

THEAETETUS: Quite true. 

STRANGER: There is another small matter. 

THEAETETUS: What is it?

STRANGER: A sentence must and cannot help having a subject. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And must be of a certain quality. 

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: And now let us mind what we are about. 

THEAETETUS: We must do so. 

STRANGER: I will repeat a sentence to you in which a thing and an actionare combined, by the help of a noun and a verb; and you shall tell me ofwhom the sentence speaks. 

THEAETETUS: I will, to the best of my power. 

STRANGER: 'Theaetetus sits'--not a very long sentence. 

THEAETETUS: Not very. 

STRANGER: Of whom does the sentence speak, and who is the subject? thatis what you have to tell. 

THEAETETUS: Of me; I am the subject. 

STRANGER: Or this sentence, again--

THEAETETUS: What sentence?

STRANGER: 'Theaetetus, with whom I am now speaking, is flying. '

THEAETETUS: That also is a sentence which will be admitted by every oneto speak of me, and to apply to me. 

STRANGER: We agreed that every sentence must necessarily have a certainquality. 

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: And what is the quality of each of these two sentences?

THEAETETUS: The one, as I imagine, is false, and the other true. 

STRANGER: The true says what is true about you?

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: And the false says what is other than true?

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: And therefore speaks of things which are not as if they were?

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And say that things are real of you which are not; for, as wewere saying, in regard to each thing or person, there is much that isand much that is not. 

THEAETETUS: Quite true. 

STRANGER: The second of the two sentences which related to you was firstof all an example of the shortest form consistent with our definition. 

THEAETETUS: Yes, this was implied in recent admission. 

STRANGER: And, in the second place, it related to a subject?

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: Who must be you, and can be nobody else?

THEAETETUS: Unquestionably. 

STRANGER: And it would be no sentence at all if there were no subject, for, as we proved, a sentence which has no subject is impossible. 

THEAETETUS: Quite true. 

STRANGER: When other, then, is asserted of you as the same, andnot-being as being, such a combination of nouns and verbs is really andtruly false discourse. 

THEAETETUS: Most true. 

STRANGER: And therefore thought, opinion, and imagination are now provedto exist in our minds both as true and false. 

THEAETETUS: How so?

STRANGER: You will know better if you first gain a knowledge of whatthey are, and in what they severally differ from one another. 

THEAETETUS: Give me the knowledge which you would wish me to gain. 

STRANGER: Are not thought and speech the same, with this exception, thatwhat is called thought is the unuttered conversation of the soul withherself?

THEAETETUS: Quite true. 

STRANGER: But the stream of thought which flows through the lips and isaudible is called speech?

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And we know that there exists in speech. .. 

THEAETETUS: What exists?

STRANGER: Affirmation. 

THEAETETUS: Yes, we know it. 

STRANGER: When the affirmation or denial takes Place in silence and inthe mind only, have you any other name by which to call it but opinion?

THEAETETUS: There can be no other name. 

STRANGER: And when opinion is presented, not simply, but in some form ofsense, would you not call it imagination?

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: And seeing that language is true and false, and that thoughtis the conversation of the soul with herself, and opinion is the end ofthinking, and imagination or phantasy is the union of sense and opinion, the inference is that some of them, since they are akin to language, should have an element of falsehood as well as of truth?

THEAETETUS: Certainly. 

STRANGER: Do you perceive, then, that false opinion and speech havebeen discovered sooner than we expected?--For just now we seemed to beundertaking a task which would never be accomplished. 

THEAETETUS: I perceive. 

STRANGER: Then let us not be discouraged about the future; butnow having made this discovery, let us go back to our previousclassification. 

THEAETETUS: What classification?

STRANGER: We divided image-making into two sorts; the onelikeness-making, the other imaginative or phantastic. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And we said that we were uncertain in which we should placethe Sophist. 

THEAETETUS: We did say so. 

STRANGER: And our heads began to go round more and more when it wasasserted that there is no such thing as an image or idol or appearance, because in no manner or time or place can there ever be such a thing asfalsehood. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And now, since there has been shown to be false speech andfalse opinion, there may be imitations of real existences, and out ofthis condition of the mind an art of deception may arise. 

THEAETETUS: Quite possible. 

STRANGER: And we have already admitted, in what preceded, that theSophist was lurking in one of the divisions of the likeness-making art?

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: Let us, then, renew the attempt, and in dividing any class, always take the part to the right, holding fast to that which holds theSophist, until we have stripped him of all his common properties, andreached his difference or peculiar. Then we may exhibit him in his truenature, first to ourselves and then to kindred dialectical spirits. 

THEAETETUS: Very good. 

STRANGER: You may remember that all art was originally divided by usinto creative and acquisitive. 

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: And the Sophist was flitting before us in the acquisitiveclass, in the subdivisions of hunting, contests, merchandize, and thelike. 

THEAETETUS: Very true. 

STRANGER: But now that the imitative art has enclosed him, it is clearthat we must begin by dividing the art of creation; for imitation isa kind of creation--of images, however, as we affirm, and not of realthings. 

THEAETETUS: Quite true. 

STRANGER: In the first place, there are two kinds of creation. 

THEAETETUS: What are they?

STRANGER: One of them is human and the other divine. 

THEAETETUS: I do not follow. 

STRANGER: Every power, as you may remember our saying originally, whichcauses things to exist, not previously existing, was defined by us ascreative. 

THEAETETUS: I remember. 

STRANGER: Looking, now, at the world and all the animals and plants, at things which grow upon the earth from seeds and roots, as well asat inanimate substances which are formed within the earth, fusile ornon-fusile, shall we say that they come into existence--not havingexisted previously--by the creation of God, or shall we agree withvulgar opinion about them?

THEAETETUS: What is it?

STRANGER: The opinion that nature brings them into being from somespontaneous and unintelligent cause. Or shall we say that they arecreated by a divine reason and a knowledge which comes from God?

THEAETETUS: I dare say that, owing to my youth, I may often waver in myview, but now when I look at you and see that you incline to refer themto God, I defer to your authority. 

STRANGER: Nobly said, Theaetetus, and if I thought that you were one ofthose who would hereafter change your mind, I would have gently arguedwith you, and forced you to assent; but as I perceive that you will comeof yourself and without any argument of mine, to that belief which, asyou say, attracts you, I will not forestall the work of time. Let mesuppose, then, that things which are said to be made by nature are thework of divine art, and that things which are made by man out ofthese are works of human art. And so there are two kinds of making andproduction, the one human and the other divine. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: Then, now, subdivide each of the two sections which we havealready. 

THEAETETUS: How do you mean?

STRANGER: I mean to say that you should make a vertical division ofproduction or invention, as you have already made a lateral one. 

THEAETETUS: I have done so. 

STRANGER: Then, now, there are in all four parts or segments--two ofthem have reference to us and are human, and two of them have referenceto the gods and are divine. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And, again, in the division which was supposed to be made inthe other way, one part in each subdivision is the making of the thingsthemselves, but the two remaining parts may be called the making oflikenesses; and so the productive art is again divided into two parts. 

THEAETETUS: Tell me the divisions once more. 

STRANGER: I suppose that we, and the other animals, and the elements outof which things are made--fire, water, and the like--are known by us tobe each and all the creation and work of God. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: And there are images of them, which are not them, but whichcorrespond to them; and these are also the creation of a wonderfulskill. 

THEAETETUS: What are they?

STRANGER: The appearances which spring up of themselves in sleep or byday, such as a shadow when darkness arises in a fire, or the reflectionwhich is produced when the light in bright and smooth objects meetson their surface with an external light, and creates a perception theopposite of our ordinary sight. 

THEAETETUS: Yes; and the images as well as the creation are equally thework of a divine hand. 

STRANGER: And what shall we say of human art? Do we not make one houseby the art of building, and another by the art of drawing, which is asort of dream created by man for those who are awake?

THEAETETUS: Quite true. 

STRANGER: And other products of human creation are also twofold and goin pairs; there is the thing, with which the art of making the thing isconcerned, and the image, with which imitation is concerned. 

THEAETETUS: Now I begin to understand, and am ready to acknowledge thatthere are two kinds of production, and each of them twofold; in thelateral division there is both a divine and a human production; in thevertical there are realities and a creation of a kind of similitudes. 

STRANGER: And let us not forget that of the imitative class the one partwas to have been likeness-making, and the other phantastic, if it couldbe shown that falsehood is a reality and belongs to the class of realbeing. 

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: And this appeared to be the case; and therefore now, withouthesitation, we shall number the different kinds as two. 

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: Then, now, let us again divide the phantastic art. 

THEAETETUS: Where shall we make the division?

STRANGER: There is one kind which is produced by an instrument, and another in which the creator of the appearance is himself theinstrument. 

THEAETETUS: What do you mean?

STRANGER: When any one makes himself appear like another in his figureor his voice, imitation is the name for this part of the phantastic art. 

THEAETETUS: Yes. 

STRANGER: Let this, then, be named the art of mimicry, and this theprovince assigned to it; as for the other division, we are weary andwill give that up, leaving to some one else the duty of making the classand giving it a suitable name. 

THEAETETUS: Let us do as you say--assign a sphere to the one and leavethe other. 

STRANGER: There is a further distinction, Theaetetus, which is worthy ofour consideration, and for a reason which I will tell you. 

THEAETETUS: Let me hear. 

STRANGER: There are some who imitate, knowing what they imitate, andsome who do not know. And what line of distinction can there possibly begreater than that which divides ignorance from knowledge?

THEAETETUS: There can be no greater. 

STRANGER: Was not the sort of imitation of which we spoke just now theimitation of those who know? For he who would imitate you would surelyknow you and your figure?

THEAETETUS: Naturally. 

STRANGER: And what would you say of the figure or form of justice or ofvirtue in general? Are we not well aware that many, having no knowledgeof either, but only a sort of opinion, do their best to show that thisopinion is really entertained by them, by expressing it, as far as theycan, in word and deed?

THEAETETUS: Yes, that is very common. 

STRANGER: And do they always fail in their attempt to be thought just, when they are not? Or is not the very opposite true?

THEAETETUS: The very opposite. 

STRANGER: Such a one, then, should be described as an imitator--to bedistinguished from the other, as he who is ignorant is distinguishedfrom him who knows?

THEAETETUS: True. 

STRANGER: Can we find a suitable name for each of them? This is clearlynot an easy task; for among the ancients there was some confusionof ideas, which prevented them from attempting to divide genera intospecies; wherefore there is no great abundance of names. Yet, for thesake of distinctness, I will make bold to call the imitation whichcoexists with opinion, the imitation of appearance--that which coexistswith science, a scientific or learned imitation. 

THEAETETUS: Granted. 

STRANGER: The former is our present concern, for the Sophist was classedwith imitators indeed, but not among those who have knowledge. 

THEAETETUS: Very true. 

STRANGER: Let us, then, examine our imitator of appearance, and seewhether he is sound, like a piece of iron, or whether there is stillsome crack in him. 

THEAETETUS: Let us examine him. 

STRANGER: Indeed there is a very considerable crack; for if you look, you find that one of the two classes of imitators is a simple creature, who thinks that he knows that which he only fancies; the other sort hasknocked about among arguments, until he suspects and fears that he isignorant of that which to the many he pretends to know. 

THEAETETUS: There are certainly the two kinds which you describe. 

STRANGER: Shall we regard one as the simple imitator--the other as thedissembling or ironical imitator?

THEAETETUS: Very good. 

STRANGER: And shall we further speak of this latter class as having oneor two divisions?

THEAETETUS: Answer yourself. 

STRANGER: Upon consideration, then, there appear to me to be two; thereis the dissembler, who harangues a multitude in public in a long speech, and the dissembler, who in private and in short speeches compels theperson who is conversing with him to contradict himself. 

THEAETETUS: What you say is most true. 

STRANGER: And who is the maker of the longer speeches? Is he thestatesman or the popular orator?

THEAETETUS: The latter. 

STRANGER: And what shall we call the other? Is he the philosopher or theSophist?

THEAETETUS: The philosopher he cannot be, for upon our view he isignorant; but since he is an imitator of the wise he will have a namewhich is formed by an adaptation of the word sophos. What shall we namehim? I am pretty sure that I cannot be mistaken in terming him the trueand very Sophist. 

STRANGER: Shall we bind up his name as we did before, making a chainfrom one end of his genealogy to the other?

THEAETETUS: By all means. 

STRANGER: He, then, who traces the pedigree of his art as follows--who, belonging to the conscious or dissembling section of the art of causingself-contradiction, is an imitator of appearance, and is separated fromthe class of phantastic which is a branch of image-making into thatfurther division of creation, the juggling of words, a creation human, and not divine--any one who affirms the real Sophist to be of this bloodand lineage will say the very truth. 

THEAETETUS: Undoubtedly.