Sophist Part 15

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 to the same thing?

THEAETETUS: What will be their answer, Stranger?

STRANGER: It is clear, Theaetetus, that he who a.s.serts the unity of being 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 but unity, 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 be compelled to say that it is the name of nothing, or if he says that it is the name of something, even then the name will only be the name of a name, and of nothing else.

THEAETETUS: True.

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

THEAETETUS: Certainly.

STRANGER: And would they say that the whole is other than the one that is, 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, Evenly balanced from the centre on every side, And must needs be neither greater nor less in any way, Neither on this side nor on that--'

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

THEAETETUS: True.

STRANGER: Yet that which has parts may have the attribute of unity in all 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 absolute unity?

THEAETETUS: Why not?

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

THEAETETUS: Certainly.

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

THEAETETUS: I understand.

STRANGER: Shall we say that being is one and a whole, because it has the attribute 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 attribute of one, is yet proved not to be the same as one, and the all is therefore more than one.

THEAETETUS: Yes.

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

THEAETETUS: Certainly.

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

THEAETETUS: True.

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

THEAETETUS: Yes.

STRANGER: But if the whole does not exist at all, all the previous difficulties 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 as a whole, so that he who does not give whole a place among beings, cannot speak 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 quant.i.ty?

For that which is of a certain quant.i.ty must necessarily be the whole of that quant.i.ty.

THEAETETUS: Exactly.

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