PLATO,

CHAPTER XXVII.

PARMENIDES.

Character of dialogues immediately preceding — much transcendental assertion. Opposite character of the Parmenides.

In the dialogues immediately preceding — Phædon, Phædrus, Symposion — we have seen Sokrates manifesting his usual dialectic, which never fails him: but we have also seen him indulging in a very unusual vein of positive affirmation and declaration. He has unfolded many novelties about the states of pre-existence and post-existence: he has familiarised us with Ideas, Forms, Essences, eternal and unchangeable, as the causes of all the facts and particularities of nature: he has recognised the inspired variety of madness, as being more worthy of trust than sober, uninspired, intelligence: he has recounted, with the faith of a communicant fresh from the mysteries, revelations made to him by the prophetess Diotima, — respecting the successive stages of exaltation whereby gifted intelligences, under the stimulus of Eros Philosophus, ascend into communion with the great sea of Beauty. All this is set forth with as much charm as Plato’s eloquence can bestow. But after all, it is not the true character of Sokrates:— I mean, the Sokrates of the Apology, whose mission it is to make war against the chronic malady of the human mind — false persuasion of knowledge, without the reality. It is, on the contrary, Sokrates himself infected with the same chronic malady which he combats in others, and requiring medicine against it as much as others. Such is the exact character in which Sokrates appears in the Parmenides: which dialogue I shall now proceed to review.

Sokrates is the juvenile defendant — Parmenides the veteran censor and cross-examiner. Parmenides gives a specimen of exercises to be performed by the philosophical aspirant.

The Parmenides announces its own purpose as intended to 57repress premature forwardness of affirmation, in a young philosophical aspirant: who, with meritorious eagerness in the search for truth, and with his eyes turned in the right direction to look for it — has nevertheless not fully estimated the obstructions besetting his path, nor exercised himself in the efforts necessary to overcome them. By a curious transposition, or perhaps from deference on Plato’s part to the Hellenic sentiment of Nemesis, — Sokrates, who in most Platonic dialogues stands forward as the privileged censor and victorious opponent, is here the juvenile defendant under censorship by a superior. It is the veteran Parmenides of Elea who, while commending the speculative impulse and promise of Sokrates, impresses upon him at the same time that the theory which he had advanced — the self-existence, the separate and substantive nature, of Ideas — stands exposed to many grave objections, which he (Sokrates) has not considered and cannot meet. So far, Parmenides performs towards Sokrates the same process of cross-examining refutation as Sokrates himself applies to Theætêtus and other young men elsewhere. But we find in this dialogue something ulterior and even peculiar. Having warned Sokrates that his intellectual training has not yet been carried to a point commensurate with the earnestness of his aspirations — Parmenides proceeds to describe to him what exercises he ought to go through, in order to guard himself against premature assertion or hasty partiality. Moreover, Parmenides not only indicates in general terms what ought to be done, but illustrates it by giving a specimen of such exercise, on a topic chosen by himself.

Circumstances and persons of the Parmenides.

Passing over the dramatic introduction1 whereby the personages58 discoursing are brought together, we find Sokrates, Parmenides, and the Eleatic Zeno (the disciple of Parmenides), engaged in the main dialogue. When Parmenides begins his illustrative exercise, a person named Aristotle (afterwards one of the Thirty oligarchs at Athens), still younger than Sokrates, is made to serve as respondent.

Sokrates is one among various auditors, who are assembled to hear Zeno reading aloud a treatise of his own composition, intended to answer and retort upon the opponents of his preceptor Parmenides.

Manner in which the doctrine of Parmenides was impugned. Manner in which his partisan Zeno defended him.

The main doctrine of the real Parmenides was, “That Ens, the absolute, real, self-existent, was One and not many”: which doctrine was impugned and derided by various opponents, deducing from it absurd conclusions. Zeno defended his master by showing that the opposite doctrine ( — “That Ens, the absolute, self-existent universe, is Many — ”) led to conclusions absurd in an equal or greater degree. If the Absolute were Many, the many would be both like and unlike: but they cannot have incompatible and contradictory attributes: therefore Absolute Ens is not Many. Ens, as Parmenides conceived it, was essentially homogeneous and unchangeable: even assuming it to be Many, all its parts must be homogeneous, so that what was predicable of one must be predicable of all; it might be all alike, or all unlike: but it could not be both. Those who maintained the plurality of Ens, did so on the ground of apparent severalty, likeness, and unlikeness, in the sensible world. But Zeno, while admitting these phenomena in the sensible world, as relative to us, apparent, and subject to the varieties of individual estimation — denied their applicability to absolute and self-existent Ens.2 Since absolute Ens or Entia are Many (said the opponents of Parmenides), they will be both like and unlike: and thus we can explain the phenomena of the sensible world. The absolute (replied Zeno) cannot be both like and unlike; therefore it cannot be many. We must recollect 59that both Parmenides and Zeno renounced all attempt to explain the sensible world by the absolute and purely intelligible Ens. They treated the two as radically distinct and unconnected. The one was absolute, eternal, unchangeable, homogeneous, apprehended only by reason. The other was relative, temporary, variable, heterogeneous; a world of individual and subjective opinion, upon which no absolute truth, no pure objectivity, could be reached.

Sokrates here impugns the doctrine of Zeno. He affirms the Platonic theory of ideas separate from sensible objects, yet participable by them.

Sokrates, depicted here as a young man, impugns this doctrine of Zeno: and maintains that the two worlds, though naturally disjoined, were not incommunicable. He advances the Platonic theory of Ideas: that is, an intelligible world of many separate self-existent Forms or Ideas, apprehended by reason only — and a sensible world of particular objects, each participating in one or more of these Forms or Ideas. “What you say (he remarks to Zeno), is true of the world of Forms or Ideas: the Form of Likeness per se can never be unlike, nor can the Form of Unlikeness be ever like. But in regard to the sensible world, there is nothing to hinder you and me, and other objects which rank and are numbered as separate individuals, from participating both in the Form of likeness and in the Form of unlikeness.3 In so far as I, an individual object, participate in the Form of Likeness, I am properly called like; in so far as I participate in the Form of Unlikeness, I am called unlike. So about One and Many, Great and Little, and so forth: I, the same individual, may participate in many different and opposite Forms, and may derive from them different and opposite denominations. I am one and many — like and unlike — great and little — all at the same time. But no such combination is possible between the Forms themselves, self-existent and opposite: the Form of Likeness cannot become unlike, nor vice versâ. The Forms themselves stand permanently apart, incapable of fusion or coalescence with each other: but different and even opposite Forms may lend 60themselves to participation and partnership in the same sensible individual object.”4

Parmenides and Zeno admire the philosophical ardour of Sokrates. Parmenides advances objections against the Platonic theory of Ideas.

Parmenides and Zeno are represented as listening with surprise and interest to this language of Sokrates, recognising two distinct worlds: one, of invisible but intelligible Forms, — the other that of sensible objects, participating in these Forms. “Your ardour for philosophy” (observes Parmenides to Sokrates), “is admirable. Is this distinction your own?”5

Plato now puts into the mouth of Parmenides — the advocate of One absolute and unchangeable Ens, separated by an impassable gulf from the sensible world of transitory and variable appearances or phenomena — objections against what is called the Platonic theory of Ideas: that is, the theory of an intelligible world, comprising an indefinite number of distinct intelligible and unchangeable Forms — in partial relation and communication with another world of sensible objects, each of which participates in one or more of these Forms. We thus have the Absolute One pitted against the Absolute Many.

What Ideas does Sokrates recognise? Of the Just and Good? Yes. Of Man, Horse, &c.? Doubtful. Of Hair, Mud, &c.? No.

What number and variety of these intelligible Forms do you recognise — (asks Parmenides)? Likeness and Unlikeness — One and Many — Just, Beautiful, Good, &c. — are all these Forms absolute and existent per se? Sokr. — Certainly they are. Parm. — Do you farther recognise an absolute and self-existent Form of Man, apart from us and all other individuals? — or a Form of fire, water, and the like? Sokr. — I do not well know how to answer:— I have often been embarrassed with the question. Parm. — Farther, do there exist distinct intelligible Forms of hair, mud, dirt, and all the other mean and contemptible objects of sense which we see around? Sokr. — No — certainly — no such Forms as these exist. Such objects are as we see them, and nothing beyond: it would be too absurd to suppose Forms of such like things.6 Nevertheless there are 61times when I have misgivings on the point; and when I suspect that there must be Forms of them as well as of the others. When such reflections cross my mind, I shrink from the absurdity of the doctrine, and try to confine my attention to Forms like those which you mentioned first.

Parmenides declares that no object in nature is mean to the philosopher.

Parm. — You are still young, Sokrates:— you still defer to the common sentiments of mankind. But the time will come when philosophy will take stronger hold of you, and will teach you that no object in nature is mean or contemptible in her view.7

Remarks upon this — Contrast between emotional and scientific classification.

This remark deserves attention. Plato points out the radical distinction, and frequent antipathy between classifications constructed by science, and those which grow up spontaneously under the associating influence of a common emotion. What he calls “the opinions of men,” — in other words, the associations naturally working in an untaught and unlettered mind — bring together the ideas of objects according as they suggest a like emotion — veneration, love, fear, antipathy, contempt, laughter, &c.8 As things which inspire like emotions are thrown into the same category and receive the same denomination, so the opposite proceeding inspires great repugnance, when things creating antipathetic emotions are forced into the same category. A large proportion of objects in nature come to be regarded as unworthy of any serious attention, and fit only to serve for discharging on them our laughter, contempt, or antipathy. The investigation of the structure and manifestations of insects is one of the marked features which Aristophanes ridicules in Sokrates: moreover the same poet also brings odium on the philosopher for alleged study of astronomy and meteorology — the heavenly bodies being as it were at the opposite emotional pole, objects of such reverential admiration and worship, 62that it was impious to watch or investigate them, or calculate their proceedings beforehand.9 The extent to which anatomy and physiology were shut out from study in antiquity, and have continued to be partially so even in modern times, is well known. And the proportion of phenomena is both great and important, connected with the social relations, which are excluded both from formal registration and from scientific review; kept away from all rational analysis either of causes or remedies, because of the strong repugnances connected with them. This emotional view of nature is here noted by Plato as conflicting with the scientific. No object (he says) is mean in the eyes of philosophy. He remarks to the same effect in the Sophistês and Politikus, and the remark is illustrated by the classifying processes there exhibited:10 mean objects and esteemed objects being placed side by side.

Parmenides now produces various objections against the Platonic variety of dualism: the two distinct but partially inter-communicating worlds — one, of separate, permanent, unchangeable, Forms or Ideas — the other, of individual objects, transient and variable; participating in, and receiving denomination from, these Forms.

Objections of Parmenides — How can objects participate in the Ideas. Each cannot have the whole Idea, nor a part thereof.

1. How (asks Parmenides) can such participation take place? 63Is the entire Form in each individual object? No: for one and the same Form cannot be at the same time in many distant objects. A part of it therefore must be in one object; another part in another. But this assumes that the Form is divisible — or is not essentially One. Equality is in all equal objects: but how can a part of the Form equality, less than the whole, make objects equal? Again, littleness is in all little objects: that is, a part of the Form littleness is in each. But the Form littleness cannot have parts; because, if it had, the entire Form would be greater than any of its parts, — and the Form littleness cannot be greater than any thing. Moreover, if one part of littleness were added to other parts, the sum of the two would be less, and not greater, than either of the factors. It is plain that none of these Forms can be divisible, or can have parts. Objects therefore cannot participate in the Form by parts or piecemeal. But neither can each object possess the entire Form. Accordingly, since there remains no third possibility, objects cannot participate in the Forms at all.11

Comparing the Idea with the sensible objects partaking in the Idea, there is a likeness between them which must be represented by a higher Idea — and so on ad infinitum.

2. Parmenides now passes to a second argument. The reason why you assume that each one of these Forms exists, is — That when you contemplate many similar objects, one and the same ideal phantom or Concept is suggested by all.12 Thus, when you see many great objects, one common impression of greatness arises from all. Hence you conclude that The Great, or the Form of Greatness, exists as One. But if you take this Form of Greatness, and consider it in comparison with each or all the great individual objects, it will have in common with them something that makes it great. You must therefore search for some higher Form, which represents what belongs in common both to the Form of Greatness and to individual great objects. And this higher Form again, when compared with the rest, will have 64something in common which must be represented by a Form yet higher: so that there will be an infinite series of Forms, ascending higher and higher, of which you will never reach the topmost.13

Are the Ideas conceptions of the mind, and nothing more? Impossible.

3. Perhaps (suggests Sokrates) each of these Forms is a Conception of the mind and nothing beyond: the Form is not competent to exist out of the mind.14 How? (replies Parmenides.) There cannot be in the mind any Conception, which is a Conception of nothing. Every Conception must be of something really existing: in this case, it is a Conception of some one thing, which you conceive as belonging in common to each and all the objects considered. The Something thus conceived as perpetually One and the same in all, is, the Form. Besides, if you think that individual objects participate in the Forms, and that these Forms are Conceptions of the mind, — you must suppose, either that all 65objects are made up of Conceptions, and are therefore themselves Concipients: or else that these Forms, though Conceptions, are incapable of conceiving. Neither one nor the other is admissible.15

The Ideas are types or exemplars, and objects partake of them by being likened to them. Impossible.

4. Probably the case stands thus (says Sokrates). These Forms are constants and fixtures in nature, as models or patterns. Particular objects are copies or likenesses of them: and the participation of such objects in the Form consists in being made like to it.16 In that case (replies Parmenides), the Form must itself be like to the objects which have been made like to it. Comparing the Form with the objects, that in which they resemble must itself be a Form: and thus you will have a higher Form above the first Form — and so upwards in the ascending line. This follows necessarily from the hypothesis that the Form is like the objects. The participation of objects in the Form, therefore, cannot consist in being likened to it.17

If Ideas exist, they cannot be knowable by us. We can know only what is relative to ourselves. Individuals are relative to individuals: Ideas relative to Ideas.

5. Here are grave difficulties (continues Parmenides) opposed to this doctrine of yours, affirming the existence of self-existent, substantive, unchangeable, yet participated, Forms. But difficulties still graver remain behind. Such Forms as you describe cannot be cognizable by us: at least it is hard to show how they can be cognizable. Being self-existent and substantive, they are not in us: such of them as are relative, have their relation with each other, not with those particular objects among us, which are called great, little, and so forth, from being supposed to be similar to or participant in the forms, and bearing names the same as those of the Forms. Thus, for example, if I, an individual man, am in the relation of master, I bear that relation to another individual66 man who is my servant, not to servantship in general (i.e. the Form of servantship, the Servus per se). My servant, again, bears the relation of servant to me, an individual man as master, — not to mastership in general (i.e. to the Form of mastership, the Dominus per se). Both terms of the relation are individual objects. On the other hand, the Forms also bear relation to each other. The Form of servantship (Servus per se) stands in relation to the Form of mastership (Dominus per se). Neither of them correlates with an individual object. The two terms of the relation must be homogeneous, each of them a Form.18

Forms can be known only through the Form of Cognition, which we do not possess.

Now apply this to the case of cognition. The Form of Cognition correlates exclusively with the Form of Truth: the Form of each special Cognition, geometrical or medical, or other, correlates with the Form of Geometry or Medicine. But Cognition as we possess it, correlates only with Truth relatively to us: also, each special Cognition of ours has its special correlating Truth, relatively to us.19 Now the Forms are not in or with us, but apart from us: the Form of Cognition is not our Cognition, the Form of Truth is not our Truth. Forms can be known only through the Form of Cognition, which we do not possess: we cannot therefore know Forms. We have our own cognition, whereby we know what is relative to us; but we know nothing more. Forms, which are not relative to us, lie out of our knowledge. Bonum per se, Pulchrum per se, and the other self-existent Forms or Ideas, are to us altogether unknowable.20

Form of cognition, superior to our Cognition, belongs to the Gods. We cannot know them, nor can they know us.

6. Again, if there be a real self-existent Form of Cognition, apart from that which we or others possess — it must doubtless be far superior in accuracy and perfection 67to that which we possess.21 The Form of Beauty and the other Forms, must be in like manner superior to that which is found under the same name in individual objects. This perfect Form of Cognition must therefore belong to the Gods, if it belong to any one. But if so, the Gods must have a Form of Truth, the proper object of their Form of Cognition. They cannot know the truth relatively to us, which belongs to our cognition — any more than we can know the more perfect truth belonging to them. So too about other Forms. The perfect Form of mastership belongs to the Gods, correlating with its proper Form of servantship. Their mastership does not correlate with individual objects like us: in other words, they are not our masters, nor are we their servants. Their cognition, again, does not correlate with individual objects like us: in other words, they do not know us, nor do we know them. In like manner, we in our capacity of masters are not masters of them — we as cognizant beings know nothing of them or of that which they know. They can in no way correlate with us, nor can we correlate with them.22

Sum total of objections against the Ideas is grave. But if we do not admit that Ideas exist, and that they are knowable, there can be no dialectic discussion.

Here are some of the objections, Sokrates (concludes Parmenides), which beset your doctrine, that there exist substantive, self-standing, Forms of Ideas, each respectively definable. Many farther objections might also be urged.23 So that a man may reasonably maintain, either that none such exist — or that, granting their existence, they are essentially unknowable by us. He must put forth great ingenuity to satisfy himself of the affirmative; and still more wonderful ingenuity to find arguments for the satisfaction of others, respecting this question.

68Nevertheless, on the other side (continues Parmenides), unless we admit the existence of such Forms or Ideas — substantive, eternal, unchangeable, definable — philosophy and dialectic discussion are impossible.24

Dilemma put by Parmenides — Acuteness of his objections.

Here then, Parmenides entangles himself and his auditors in the perplexing dilemma, that philosophical and dialectic speculation is impossible, unless these Forms or Ideas, together with the participation of sensible objects in them, be granted; while at the same time this cannot be granted, until objections, which appear at first sight unanswerable, have been disposed of.

The acuteness with which these objections are enforced, is remarkable. I know nothing superior to it in all the Platonic writings. Moreover the objections point directly against that doctrine which Plato in other dialogues most emphatically insists upon, and which Aristotle both announces and combats as characteristic of Plato — the doctrine of separate, self-existent, absolute, Forms or Ideas. They are addressed moreover to Sokrates, the chief exponent of that doctrine here as well as in other dialogues. And he is depicted as unable to meet them.

The doctrine which Parmenides attacks is the genuine Platonic theory of Ideas. His objections are never answered in any part of the Platonic dialogues.

It is true that Sokrates is here introduced as juvenile and untrained; or at least as imperfectly trained. And accordingly, Stallbaum with others think, that this is the reason of his inability to meet the objections: which (they tell us), though ingenious and plausible, yet having no application to the genuine Platonic doctrine about Ideas, might easily have been answered if Plato had thought fit, and are answered in other 69dialogues.25 But to me it appears, that the doctrine which is challenged in the Parmenidês is the genuine Platonic doctrine about Ideas, as enunciated by Plato in the Republic, Phædon, Philêbus, Timæus, and elsewhere — though a very different doctrine is announced in the Sophistês. Objections are here made against it in the Parmenidês. In what other dialogue has Plato answered them? and what proof can be furnished that he was able to answer them? There are indeed many other dialogues in which a real world of Ideas absolute and unchangeable, is affirmed strenuously and eloquently, with various consequences and accompaniments traced to it: but there are none in which the Parmenidean objections are elucidated, or even recited. In the Phædon, Phædrus, Timæus, Symposion, &c., and elsewhere, Sokrates is made to talk confidently about the existence and even about the cognoscibility of these Ideas; just as if no such objections as those which we read in the Parmenidês could be produced.26 In these other dialogues, Plato accepts implicitly one horn of the Parmenidean dilemma; but without explaining to us upon what grounds he allows himself to neglect the other.

Views of Stallbaum and Socher. The latter maintains that Plato would never make such objections against his own theory, and denies the authenticity of the Parmenidês.

Socher has so much difficulty in conceiving that Plato can have advanced such forcible objections against a doctrine, which nevertheless in other Platonic dialogues is proclaimed as true and important, — that he declares the Parmenidês (together with the Sophistês and Politikus) not to be genuine, but to have been composed by some unknown Megaric contemporary. To pass over the improbability that any unknown author should have been capable of composing works of so much ability as these — Socher’s decision about spuriousness is founded upon an estimate of Plato’s philosophical character, which I think incorrect. Socher 70expects (or at least reasons as if he expected) to find in Plato a preconceived system and a scheme of conclusions to which every thing is made subservient.

Philosophers are usually advocates, each of a positive system of his own.

In most philosophers, doubtless, this is what we do find. Each starts with some favourite conclusions, which he believes to be true, and which he supports by all the arguments in their favour, as far as his power goes. If he mentions the arguments against them, he usually answers the weak, slurs over or sneers at the strong: at any rate, he takes every precaution that these counter arguments shall appear unimportant in the eyes of his readers. His purpose is, like that of a speaker in the public assembly, to obtain assent and belief: whether the hearers understand the question or not, is a matter of comparative indifference: at any rate, they must be induced to embrace his conclusion. Unless he thus foregoes the character of an impartial judge, to take up that of an earnest advocate; unless he bends the whole force of his mind to the establishment of the given conclusion — he becomes suspected as deficient in faith or sincerity, and loses much in persuasive power. For an earnest belief, expressed with eloquence and feeling, is commonly more persuasive than any logic.

Different spirit of Plato in his Dialogues of Search.

Now whether this exclusive devotion to the affirmative side of certain questions be the true spirit of philosophy or not, it is certainly not the spirit of Plato in his Dialogues of Search; wherein he conceives the work of philosophy in a totally different manner. He does not begin by stating, even to himself a certain conclusion at which he has arrived, and then proceed to prove that conclusion to others. The search or debate (as I have observed in a preceding chapter) has greater importance in his eyes than the conclusion: nay, in a large proportion of his dialogues, there is no conclusion at all: we see something disproved, but nothing proved. The negative element has with him a value and importance of its own, apart from the affirmative. He is anxious to set forth what can be said against a given conclusion; even though not prepared to establish any thing in its place.

71The Parmenidês is the extreme manifestation of the negative element. That Plato should employ one dialogue in setting forth the negative case against the Theory of Ideas is not unnatural.

Such negative element, manifested as it is in so many of the Platonic dialogues, has its extreme manifestation in the Parmenidês. When we see it here applied to a doctrine which Plato in other dialogues insists upon as truth, we must call to mind (what sincere believers are apt to forget) that a case may always be made out against truth as well as in its favour: and that its privilege as a certified portion of “reasoned truth,” rests upon no better title than the superiority of the latter case over the former. It is for testing the two cases — for determining where the superiority lies — and for graduating its amount — that the process of philosophising is called for, and that improvements in the method thereof become desirable. That Plato should, in one of his many diversified dialogues, apply this test to a doctrine which, in other dialogues, he holds out as true — is noway inconsistent with the general spirit of these compositions. Each of his dialogues has its own point of view, worked out on that particular occasion; what is common to them all, is the process of philosophising applied in various ways to the same general topics.

Those who, like Socher, deny Plato’s authorship of the Parmenidês, on the ground of what is urged therein against the theory of Ideas, must suppose, either that he did not know that a negative case could be made out against that theory; or that knowing it, he refrained from undertaking the duty.27 Neither supposition is consistent with what we know both of his negative ingenuity, and of his multifarious manner of handling.

Force of the negative case in the Parmenidês. Difficulties about participation of sensible objects in the world of Ideas.

The negative case, made out in the Parmenidês against the 72theory of Ideas, is indeed most powerful. The hypothesis of the Ideal World is unequivocally affirmed by Sokrates, with its four principal characteristics. 1. Complete essential separation from the world of sense. 2. Absolute self-existence. 3. Plurality of constituent items, several contrary to each other. 4. Unchangeable sameness and unity of each and all of them. — Here we have full satisfaction given to the Platonic sentiment, which often delights in soaring above the world of sense, and sometimes (see Phædon) in heaping contemptuous metaphors upon it. But unfortunately Sokrates cannot disengage himself from this world of sense: he is obliged to maintain that it partakes of, or is determined by, these extra-sensible Forms or Ideas. Here commence the series of difficulties and contradictions brought out by the Elenchus of Parmenides. Are all sensible objects, even such as are vulgar, repulsive, and contemptible, represented in this higher world? The Platonic sentiment shrinks from the admission: the Platonic sense of analogy hesitates to deny it. Then again, how can both assertions be true — first that the two worlds are essentially separate, next, that the one participates in, and derives its essence from, the other? How (to use Aristotelian language28) can the essence be separated from that of which it is the essence? How can the Form, essentially One, belong at once to a multitude of particulars?

Two points deserve notice in this debate respecting the doctrine of Ideas:—

Difficulties about the Cognizability of Ideas. If Ideas are absolute, they cannot be cognizable: if they are cognizable, they must be relative. Doctrine of Homo Mensura.

1. Parmenides shows, and Sokrates does not deny, that these Forms or Ideas described as absolute, self-existent, unchangeable, must of necessity be unknown and unknowable to us.29 Whatever we do know, or can know, is relative to us; — to our actual cognition, or to our cognitive power. If you declare an object to 73be absolute, you declare it to be neither known nor knowable by us: if it be announced as known or knowable by us, it is thereby implied at the same time not to be absolute. If these Forms or Objects called absolute are known, they can be known only by an absolute Subject, or the Form of a cognizant Subject: that is, by God or the Gods. Even thus, to call them absolute is a misnomer: they are relative to the Subject, and the Subject is relative to them.

The opinion here advanced by the Platonic Parmenides asserts, in other words, what is equivalent to the memorable dictum of Protagoras — “Man is the measure of all things — of things existent, that they do exist — and of things non-existent, that they do not exist”. This dictum affirms universal relativity, and nothing else: though Plato, as we shall see in the elaborate argument against it delivered by Sokrates in the Theætêtus, mixed it up with another doctrine altogether distinct and independent — the doctrine that knowledge is sensible perception.30 Parmenides here argues that if these Forms or Ideas are known by us, they can be known only as relative to us: and that if they be not relative to us, they cannot be known by us at all. Such relativity belongs as much to the world of Conception, as to the world of Perception. And it is remarkable that Plato admits this essential relativity not merely here, but also in the Sophistês: in which latter dialogue he denies the Forms or Ideas to be absolute existences, on the special ground that they are known:— and on the farther ground that what is known must act upon the knowing mind, and must be acted upon thereby, i.e., must be relative. He there defines the existent to be, that which has power to act upon something else, or to be acted upon by something else. Such relativeness he declares to constitute existence:31 defining existence to mean potentiality.

Answer of Sokrates — That Ideas are mere conceptions of the mind. Objection of Parmenides correct, though undeveloped.

2. The second point which deserves notice in this portion of the Parmenidês, is the answer of Sokrates (when embarrassed by some of the questions of the Eleatic 74veteran) — “That these Forms or Ideas are conceptions of the mind, and have no existence out of the mind”. This answer gives us the purely Subjective, or negation of Object: instead of the purely Objective (Absolute), or negation of Subject.32 Here we have what Porphyry calls the deepest question of philosophy33 explicitly raised: and, as far as we know, for the first time. Are the Forms or Ideas mere conceptions of the mind and nothing more? Or are they external, separate, self-existent realities? The opinion which Sokrates had first given declared the latter: that which he now gives declares the former. He passes from the pure Objective (i.e., without Subject) to the pure Subjective (i.e., without Object). Parmenides, in his reply, points out that there cannot be a conception of nothing: that if there be Conceptio, there must be Conceptum aliquid:34 and that this Conceptum or Concept is what is common to a great many distinct similar Percepta.

75This reply, though scanty and undeveloped, is in my judgment both valid, as it negatives the Subject pure and simple, and affirms that to every conception in the mind, there must correspond a Concept out of (or rather along with) the mind (the one correlating with or implying the other) — and correct as far as it goes, in declaring what that Concept is. Such Concept is, or may be, the Form. Parmenides does not show that it is not so. He proceeds to impugn, by a second argument, the assertion of Sokrates — that the form is a Conception wholly within the mind: he goes on to argue that individual things (which are out of the mind) cannot participate in these Forms (which are asserted to be altogether in the mind): because, if that were admitted, either every such thing must be a Concipient, or must run into the contradiction of being a Conceptio non concipiens.35 Now this argument may refute the affirmation of Sokrates literally taken, that the Form is a Conception entirely belonging to the mind, and having nothing Objective corresponding to it — but does not refute the doctrine that the Form is a Concept correlating with the mind — or out of the mind as well as in it. In this as in other Concepts, the subjective point of view preponderates over the objective, though Object is not altogether eliminated: just as, in the particular external things, the objective point of view predominates, though Subject cannot be altogether dismissed. Neither Subject nor Object can ever entirely disappear: the one is the inseparable correlative and complement of the other: but sometimes the subjective point of view may preponderate, sometimes76 the objective. Such preponderance (or logical priority), either of the one or the other, may be implied or connoted by the denomination given. Though the special connotation of the name creates an illusion which makes the preponderant point of view seem to be all, and magnifies the Relatum so as to eclipse and extinguish the Correlatum — yet such preponderance, or logical priority, is all that is really meant when the Concepts are said to be “in the mind” — and the Percepts (Percepta, things perceived) to be “out of the mind”: for both Concepts and Percepts are “of the mind, or relative to the mind”.36

Meaning of Abstract and General Terms, debated from ancient times to the present day — Different views of Plato and Aristotle upon it.

The question — What is the real and precise meaning attached to abstract and general words? — has been debated down to this day, and is still under debate. It seems to have first derived its importance, if not its origin, from Sokrates, who began the practice of inviting persons to define the familiar generalities of ethics and politics, and then tested by cross-examination the definitions given by men who thought that common sense would enable any one to define.37 But I see no ground for believing that Sokrates ever put to himself the question — Whether that which an abstract term denotes is a mental conception, or a separate and self-existent reality. That question was raised by Plato, and first stands clearly brought to view here in the Parmenidês.

If we follow up the opinion here delivered by the Platonic Sokrates, together with the first correction added to it by Parmenides, amounting to this — That the Form is a Conception of the mind with its corresponding Concept: if, besides, we dismiss the doctrine held by Plato, that the Form is a separate self-existent77 unchangeable Ens (ἓν παρὰ τὰ πολλὰ): there will then be no greater difficulty in understanding how it can be partaken by, or be at once in, many distinct particulars, than in understanding (what is at bottom the same question) how one and the same attribute can belong at once to many different objects: how hardness or smoothness can be at once in an indefinite number of hard and smooth bodies dispersed everywhere.38 The object and the attribute are both of them relative to the same percipient and concipient mind: we may perceive or conceive many objects as distinct individuals — we may also conceive them all as resembling in a particular manner, making abstraction of the individuality of each: both these are psychological facts, and the latter of the two is what we mean when we say, that all of them possess or participate in one and the same attribute. The concrete term, and its corresponding abstract, stand for the same facts of sense differently conceived. Now the word one, when applied to the attribute, has a different meaning from one when applied to an individual object. Plato speaks sometimes elsewhere as if he felt this diversity of meaning: not however in the Parmenidês, though there is great demand for it. But Aristotle (in this respect far superior) takes much pains to point out that 78Unum Ens — and the preposition In (to be in any thing) — are among the πολλαχῶς λεγόμενα, having several different meanings derived from one primary or radical by diverse and distant ramifications.39 The important logical distinction between Unum numero and Unum specie (or genere, &c.) belongs first to Aristotle.40

Plato never expected to make his Ideas fit on to the facts of sense: Aristotle tried to do it and partly succeeded.

Plato has not followed out the hint which he has here put into the mouth of Sokrates in the Parmenidês — That the Ideas or Forms are conceptions existing only in the mind. Though the opinion thus stated is not strictly correct (and is so pointed out by himself), as falling back too exclusively on the subjective — yet if followed out, it might have served to modify the too objective and absolute character which in most dialogues (though not in the Sophistês) he ascribes to his Forms or Ideas: laying stress upon them as objects — and as objects not of sensible perception — but overlooking or disallowing the fact of their being relative to the concipient mind. The bent of Plato’s philosophy was to dwell upon these Forms, and to bring them into harmonious conjunction with each other: he neither took pains, nor expected, to make them fit on to the world of sense. With Aristotle, on the contrary, this last-mentioned purpose is kept very generally in view. Amidst all the extreme abstractions 79which he handles, he reverts often to the comparison of them with sensible particulars: indeed Substantia Prima was by him, for the first time in the history of philosophy, brought down to designate the concrete particular object of sense: in Plato’s Phædon, Republic, &c, the only Substances are the Forms or Ideas.

Continuation of the Dialogue — Parmenides admonishes Sokrates that he has been premature in delivering a doctrine, without sufficient preliminary exercise.

Parmenides now continues the debate. He has already fastened upon Sokrates several difficult problems: he now proposes a new one, different and worse. Which way are we to turn then, if these Forms be beyond our knowledge? I do not see my way (says Sokrates) out of the perplexity. The fact is, Sokrates (replies Parmenides), you have been too forward in producing your doctrine of Ideas, without a sufficient preliminary exercise and enquiry. Your love of philosophical research is highly praiseworthy: but you must employ your youth in exercising and improving yourself, through that continued philosophical discourse which the vulgar call useless prosing: otherwise you will never attain truth.41 You are however right in bestowing your attention, not on the objects of sense, but on those objects which we can best grasp in discussion, and which we presume to exist as Forms.42

What sort of exercise? Parmenides describes: To assume provisionally both the affirmative and the negative of many hypotheses about the most general terms, and to trace the consequences of each.

What sort of exercise must I go through? asks Sokrates. Zeno (replies Parmenides) has already given you a good specimen of it in his treatise, when he followed out the consequences flowing from the assumption — “That the self-existent and absolute Ens is plural”. When you are trying to find out the truth on any question, you must assume provisionally, first the affirmative and then the negative, and you must then follow out patiently the consequences deducible from one hypothesis as well as from the other. If you are enquiring about the Form of Likeness, whether it exists or does not exist, you must assume successively 80both one and the other;43 marking the deductions which follow, both with reference to the thing directly assumed, and with reference to other things also. You must do the like if you are investigating other Forms — Unlikeness, Motion, and Rest, or even Existence and Non-Existence. But you must not be content with following out only one side of the hypothesis: you must examine both sides with equal care and impartiality. This is the only sort of preparatory exercise which will qualify you for completely seeing through the truth.44

Impossible to do this before a numerous audience — Parmenides is entreated to give a specimen — After much solicitation he agrees.

You propose to me, Parmenides (remarks Sokrates), a work of awful magnitude. At any rate, show me an example of it yourself, that I may know better how to begin. — Parmenides at first declines, on the ground of his old age: but Zeno and the others urge him, so that he at length consents. — The process will be tedious (observes Zeno); and I would not ask it from Parmenides unless among an audience small and select as we are here. Before any numerous audience, it would be an unseemly performance for a veteran like him. For most people are not aware that, without such discursive survey and travelling over the whole field, we cannot possibly attain truth or acquire intelligence.45

Parmenides elects his own theory of the Unum, as the topic for exhibition — Aristoteles becomes respondent.

It is especially on this ground — the small number and select character of the auditors — that Parmenides suffers himself to be persuaded to undertake what he calls “amusing ourselves with a laborious pastime”.46 He selects, as the subject of his dialectical exhibition, his own doctrine respecting the One. He proceeds to 81trace out the consequences which flow, first, from assuming the affirmative thesis, Unum Est: next, from assuming the negative thesis, or the Antithesis, Unum non Est. The consequences are to be deduced from each hypothesis, not only as regards Unum itself, but as regards Cætera, or other things besides Unum. The youngest man of the party, Aristoteles, undertakes the duty of respondent.

Exhibition of Parmenides — Nine distinct deductions or Demonstrations, first from Unum Est — next from Unum non Est.

The remaining portion of the dialogue, half of the whole, is occupied with nine distinct deductions or demonstrations given by Parmenides. The first five start from the assumption, Unum Est: the last four from the assumption, Unum non Est. The three first draw out the deductions from Unum Est, in reference to Unum: the fourth and fifth draw out the consequences from the same premiss, in reference to Cætera. Again, the sixth and seventh start from Unum non Est, to trace what follows in regard to Unum: the eighth and ninth adopt the same hypothesis, and reason it out in reference to Cætera.

The Demonstrations in antagonising pairs, or Antinomies. Perplexing entanglement of conclusions given without any explanation.

Of these demonstrations, one characteristic feature is, that they are presented in antagonising pairs or Antinomies: except the third, which professes to mediate between the first and second, though only by introducing new difficulties. We have four distinct Antinomies: the first and second, the fourth and fifth, the sixth and seventh, the eighth and ninth, stand respectively in emphatic contradiction with each other. Moreover, to take the demonstrations separately — the first, fifth, seventh, ninth, end in conclusions purely negative: the other four end in double and contradictory conclusions. The purpose is formally proclaimed, of showing that the same premisses, ingeniously handled, can be made to yield these contradictory results.47 No attempt is made to reconcile the contradictions, except partially by means of the third, in reference to the two preceding. In regard to the fourth and fifth, sixth and seventh, eighth and ninth, no hint is given that they 82can be, or afterwards will be, reconciled. The dialogue concludes abruptly at the end of the ninth demonstration, with these words: “We thus see that — whether Unum exists or does not exist — Unum and Cætera both are, and are not, all things in every way — both appear, and do not appear, all things in every way — each in relation to itself, and each in relation to the other”.48 Here is an unqualified and even startling announcement of double and contradictory conclusions, obtained from the same premisses both affirmative and negative: an announcement delivered too as the fulfilment of the purpose of Parmenides. Nothing is said at the end to intimate how the demonstrations are received by Sokrates, nor what lesson they are expected to administer to him: not a word of assent, or dissent, or surprise, or acknowledgment in any way, from the assembled company, though all of them had joined in entreating Parmenides, and had expressed the greatest anxiety to hear his dialectic exhibition. Those who think that an abrupt close, or an abrupt exordium, is sufficient reason for declaring a dialogue not to be the work of Plato (as Platonic critics often argue), are of course consistent in disallowing the Parmenides. For my part, I do not agree in the opinion. I take Plato as I find him, and I perceive both here and in the Protagoras and elsewhere, that he did not always think it incumbent upon him to adapt the end of his dialogues to the beginning. This may be called a defect, but I do not feel called upon to make out that Plato’s writings are free from defects; and to acknowledge nothing as his work unless I can show it to be faultless.

Different judgments of Platonic critics respecting the Antinomies and the dialogue generally.

The demonstrations or Antinomies in the last half of the Parmenides are characterised by K. F. Hermann and others as a masterpiece of speculative acuteness. Yet if these same demonstrations, constructed with care and labour for the purpose of proving that the same premisses will conduct to double and contradictory conclusions, had come down to us from antiquity under the name either of the Megaric Eukleides, or Protagoras, or Gorgias — many of the Platonic critics would probably have 83said of them (what is now said of the sceptical treatise remaining to us under the name of Gorgias) that they were poor productions worthy of such Sophists, who are declared to have made a trade of perverting truth. Certainly the conclusions of the demonstrations are specimens of that “Both and Neither,” which Plato (in the Euthydemus49) puts into the mouth of the Sophist Dionysodorus as an answer of slashing defiance — and of that intentional evolution of contradictions which Plato occasionally discountenances, both in the Euthydemus and elsewhere.50 And we know from Proklus51 that there were critics in ancient times, who depreciated various parts of the Parmenides as sophistical. Proklus himself denies the charge with some warmth. He as well as the principal Neo-Platonists between 200-530 A.D. (especially his predecessors and instructors at Athens, Jamblichus, Syrianus, and Plutarchus) admired the Parmenides as a splendid effort of philosophical genius in its most exalted range, inspired so as to become cognizant of superhuman persons and agencies. They all agreed so far as to discover in the dialogue a sublime vein of mystic theology and symbolism: but along with this general agreement, there was much discrepancy in their interpretation of particular parts and passages. The commentary of Proklus attests the existence of such debates, reporting his own dissent from the interpretations sanctioned by his venerated masters, Plutarchus and Syrianus. That commentary, in spite of its prolixity, is curious to read as a specimen of the fifth century, A.D., in one of its most eminent representatives. Proklus discovers a string of theological symbols and a mystical meaning throughout the whole dialogue: not merely in the acute argumentation which characterises its middle part, but also in the perplexing antinomies of its close, and even in the dramatic 84details of places, persons, and incidents, with which it begins.52

The various explanations of it given by more recent commentators may be seen enumerated in the learned Prolegomena of Stallbaum,53 who has also set forth his own views at considerable length. And the prodigious opposition between the views 85of Proklus (followed by Ficinus in the fifteenth century), who extols the Parmenides as including in mystic phraseology sublime religious truths — and those of the modern Tiedemann, who despises them as foolish subtleties and cannot read them with patience — is quite sufficient to inspire a reasonable Platonic critic with genuine diffidence.

No dogmatical solution or purpose is wrapped up in the dialogue. The purpose is negative, to make a theorist keenly feel all the difficulties of theorising.

In so far as these different expositions profess, each in its own way, to detect a positive dogmatical result or purpose in the Parmenides,54 none of them carry conviction to my mind, any more than the mystical interpretations 86which we read in Proklus. If Plato had any such purpose, he makes no intimation of it, directly or indirectly. On the contrary, he announces another purpose not only different, but contrary. The veteran Parmenides, while praising the ardour of speculative research displayed by Sokrates, at the same time reproves gently, but distinctly, the confident forwardness of two such immature youths as Sokrates and Aristotle in laying down positive doctrines without the preliminary exercise indispensable for testing them.55 Parmenides appears from the beginning to the end of the dialogue as a propounder of doubts and objections, not as a doctrinal teacher. He seeks to restrain the haste of Sokrates — to make him ashamed of premature affirmation87 and the false persuasion of knowledge — to force upon him a keen sense of real difficulties which have escaped his notice. To this end, a specimen is given of the exercise required. It is certainly well calculated to produce the effect intended — of hampering, perplexing, and putting to shame, the affirmative rashness of a novice in philosophy. It exhibits a tangled skein of ingenious contradiction which the novice must somehow bring into order, before he is in condition to proclaim any positive dogma. If it answers this purpose, it does all that Parmenides promises. Sokrates is warned against attaching himself exclusively to one side of an hypothesis, and neglecting the opposite: against surrendering himself to some pre-conception, traditional, or self-originated, and familiarising his mind with its consequences, while no pains are taken to study the consequences of the negative side, and bring them into comparison. It is this one-sided mental activity, and premature finality of assertion, which Parmenides seeks to correct. Whether the corrective exercises which he prescribes are the best for the purpose, may be contested: but assuredly the malady which he seeks to correct is deeply rooted in our human nature, and is combated by Sokrates himself, though by other means, in several of the Platonic dialogues. It is a rare mental endowment to study both sides of a question, and suspend decision until the consequences of each are fully known.

This negative purpose is expressly announced by Plato himself. All dogmatical purpose, extending farther, is purely hypothetical, and even inconsistent with what is declared.

Such, in my judgment, is the drift of the contradictory demonstrations here put into the mouth of Parmenides respecting Unum and Cætera. Thus far at least, we are perfectly safe: for we are conforming strictly to the language of Plato himself in the dialogue: we have no proof that he meant anything more. Those who presume that he must have had some ulterior dogmatical purpose, place themselves upon hypothetical ground: but when they go farther and attempt to set forth what this purpose was, they show their ingenuity only by bringing out what they themselves have dropped in. The number of discordant hypotheses attests56 the difficulty of the problem. I agree with those 88early Platonic commentators (mentioned and opposed by Proklus) who could see no other purpose in these demonstrations than that of dialectical exercise. In this view Schleiermacher, Ast, Strümpell, and others mainly concur: the two former however annexing to it a farther hypothesis — which I think improbable — that the dialogue has come to us incomplete; having once contained at the end (or having been originally destined to contain, though the intention may never have been realised) an appendix elucidating the perplexities of the demonstrations.57 This would have been inconsistent with the purpose declared by Parmenides: who, far from desiring to facilitate the onward march of Sokrates by clearing up difficulties, admonishes him that he is advancing too rapidly, and seeks to keep him back by giving him a heap of manifest contradictions to disentangle. Plato conceives the training for philosophy or for the highest exercise of intellectual force, to be not less laborious than that which was required for the bodily perfections of an Olympic athlete. The student must not be helped out of difficulties at once: he must work his own way slowly out of them.

The Demonstrations or Antinomies considered. They include much unwarranted assumption and subtlety. Collection of unexplained perplexities or ἀπορίαι.

That the demonstrations include assumption both unwarranted and contradictory, mingled with sophistical subtlety (in the modern sense of the words), is admitted by most of the commentators: and I think that the real 89amount of it is greater than they admit. How far Plato was himself aware of this, I will not undertake to say. Perhaps he was not. The reasonings which have passed for sublime and profound in the estimation of so many readers, may well have appeared the same to their author. I have already remarked that Plato’s ratiocinative force is much greater on the negative side than on the positive: more ingenious in suggesting logical difficulties than sagacious in solving them. Impressed, as Sokrates had been before him, with the duty of combating the false persuasion of knowledge, or premature and untested belief, — he undertook to set forth the pleadings of negation in the most forcible manner. Many of his dialogues manifest this tendency, but the Parmenides more than any other. That dialogue is a collection of unexplained ἀπορίαι (such as those enumerated in the second book of Aristotle’s Metaphysica) brought against a doctrine which yet Plato declares to be the indispensable condition of all reasoning. It concludes with a string of demonstrations by which contradictory conclusions (Both and Neither) are successively proved, and which appear like a reductio ad absurdum of all demonstration. But at the time when Plato composed the dialogue, I think it not improbable that these difficulties and contradictions appeared even to himself unanswerable: in other words, that he did not himself see any answers and explanations of them. He had tied a knot so complicated, that he could not himself untie it. I speak of the state of Plato’s mind when he wrote the Parmenides. At the dates of other dialogues (whether earlier or later), he wrote under different points of view; but no key to the Parmenides does he ever furnish.

Even if Plato himself saw through these subtleties, he might still choose to impose and to heap up difficulties in the way of a forward affirmative aspirant.

If however we suppose that Plato must have had the key present to his own mind, he might still think it right to employ, in such a dialogue, reasonings recognised by himself as defective. It is the task imposed upon Sokrates to find out and expose these defective links. There is no better way of illustrating how universal is the malady of human intelligence — unexamined belief and over-confident affirmation — as it stands proclaimed to be in the Platonic Apology. Sokrates is exhibited in the Parmenides as placed under the screw of the Elenchus, and no more able than others 90to extricate himself from it, when it is applied by Parmenides: though he bears up successfully against Zeno, and attracts to himself respectful compliments, even from the aged dialectician who tests him. After the Elenchus applied to himself, Sokrates receives a farther lesson from the “Neither and Both” demonstrations addressed by Parmenides to the still younger Aristotle. Sokrates will thus be driven, with his indefatigable ardour for speculative research, to work at the problem — to devote to it those seasons of concentrated meditation, which sometimes exhibited him fixed for hours in the same place and almost in the same attitude58 — until he can extricate himself from such difficulties and contradictions. But that he shall not extricate himself without arduous mental effort, is the express intention of Parmenides: just as the Xenophontic Sokrates proceeds with the youthful Euthydemus and the Platonic Sokrates with Lysis, Theætetus, and others. Plausible subtlety was not unsuitable for such a lesson.59 Moreover, in the Parmenides, Plato proclaims explicitly that the essential condition of the lesson is to be strictly private: that a process so roundabout and tortuous cannot be appreciated by ordinary persons, and would be unseemly before an audience.60 He selects as respondent the youngest person in the company, one still younger than Sokrates: because (he says) such a person will reply with artless simplicity, to each question as the question may strike him — not carrying his mind forward to the ulterior questions for which his reply may furnish the handle — not afraid of being entangled in puzzling inconsistencies — not solicitous to baffle the purpose of 91the interrogator.61 All this betokens the plan of the dialogue — to bring to light all those difficulties which do not present themselves except to a keen-sighted enquirer.

The exercises exhibited by Parmenides are exhibited only as illustrative specimens of a method enjoined to be applied to many other Antinomies.

We must remark farther, that the two hypotheses here handled at length by Parmenides are presented by him only as examples of a dialectical process which he enjoins the lover of truth to apply equally to many other hypotheses.62 As he shows that in the case of Unum, each of the two assumptions (Unum est — Unum non est) can be traced through different threads of deductive reasoning so as to bring out double and contradictory results — Both and Neither: so also in the case of those other assumptions which remain to be tested afterwards in like manner, antinomies of the same character may be expected: antinomies apparent at least, if not real — which must be formally propounded and dealt with, before we can trust ourselves as having attained reasoned truth. Hence we see that, negative and puzzling as the dialogue called Parmenides is, even now — it would be far more puzzling if all that it prescribes in general terms had been executed in detail. While it holds out, in the face of an aspirant in philosophy, the necessity of giving equal presumptive value to the affirmative and negative sides of each hypothesis, and deducing with equal care, the consequences of both — it warns him at the same time of the contradictions in which he will thereby become involved. These contradictions are presented in the most glaring manner: but we must recollect a striking passage in the Republic, where Plato declares that to confront the aspirant with manifest contradictions, is the best way of provoking him to intellectual effort in the higher regions of speculation.63

These Platonic Antinomies are more formidable than any of the sophisms or subtleties broached by the Megaric philosophers.

I have already had occasion, when I touched upon the other viri 92Socratici, contemporaneous with or subsequent to Plato, to give some account of the Zenonian and Megaric dialecticians, and of their sophisms or logical puzzles, which attracted so much attention from speculative men, in the fourth and third centuries B.C. These Megarics, like the Sophists, generally receive very harsh epithets from the historian of philosophy. They took the negative side, impugned affirmative dogmas, insisted on doubts and difficulties, and started problems troublesome to solve. I have tried to show, that such disputants, far from deserving all the censure which has been poured upon them, presented one indispensable condition to the formation of any tolerable logical theory.64 Their sophisms were challenges to the logician, indicating various forms of error and confusion, against which a theory of reasoning, in order to be sufficient, was required to guard. And the demonstrations given by Plato in the latter half of the Parmenides are challenges of the same kind: only more ingenious, elaborate, and effective, than any of those (so far as we know them) proposed by the Megarics — by Zeno, or Eukleides, or Diodorus Kronus. The Platonic Parmenides here shows, that in regard to a particular question, those who believe the affirmative, those who believe the negative, and those who believe neither — can all furnish good reasons for their respective conclusions. In each case he gives the proof confidently as being good: and whether unimpeachable or not, it is certainly very ingenious and subtle. Such demonstrations are in the spirit of Sextus Empiricus, who rests his theory of scepticism upon the general fact, that there are opposite and contradictory conclusions, both of them supported by evidence equally good: the affirmative no more worthy of belief than the negative.65 Zeno (or, as Plato calls him, the Eleatic 93Palamêdes66) did not profess any systematic theory of scepticism; but he could prove by ingenious and varied dialectic, both the thesis and the antithesis on several points of philosophy, by reasons which few, if any, among his hearers could answer. In like manner the Platonic Parmenides enunciates his contradictory demonstrations as real logical problems, which must exercise the sagacity and hold back the forward impulse of an eager philosophical aspirant. Even if this dilemma respecting Unum Est and Unum non Est, be solved, Parmenides intimates that he has others in reserve: so that either no tenable positive result will ever be attained — or at least it will not be attained until after such an amount of sagacity and patient exercise as Sokrates himself declares to be hardly practicable.67 Herein we may see the germ and premisses of that theory which was afterwards formally proclaimed by Ænesidemus and the professed Sceptics: the same holding back (ἐποχὴ), and protest against precipitation in dogmatising,68 which these latter converted into a formula and vindicated as a system.

In order to understand fully the Platonic Antinomies, we ought to have before us the problems of the Megarics and others. Uselessness of searching for a positive result.

Schleiermacher has justly observed,69 that in order to understand properly the dialectic manœuvres of the Parmenides, we ought to have had before us the works of that philosopher himself, of Zeno, Melissus, Gorgias, and other sceptical reasoners of the age immediately preceding — which have unfortunately perished. Some reference to these must probably have been present to Plato in the composition of this dialogue.70 At the same time, if we accept the dialogue as being (what it declares itself to be) a string of objections and dialectical problems, we shall take care not to look for 94any other sort of merit than what such a composition requires and admits. If the objections are forcible, the problems ingenious and perplexing, the purpose of the author is satisfied. To search in the dialogue for some positive result, not indeed directly enunciated but discoverable by groping and diving — would be to expect a species of fruit inconsistent with the nature of the tree. Ζητῶν εὑρήσεις οὐ ῥόδον ἀλλὰ βάτον.

Assumptions of Parmenides in his Demonstrations convey the minimum of determinate meaning. Views of Aristotle upon these indeterminate predicates, Ens, Unum, &c.

It may indeed be useful for the critic to perform for himself the process which Parmenides intended Sokrates to perform; and to analyse these subtleties with a view to measure their bearing upon the work of dogmatic theorising. We see double and contradictory conclusions elicited, in four separate Antinomies, from the same hypothesis, by distinct chains of interrogatory deduction; each question being sufficiently plausible to obtain the acquiescence of the respondent. The two assumptions successively laid down by Parmenides as principia for deduction — Si Unum est — Si Unum non est — convey the very minimum of determinate meaning. Indeed both words are essentially indeterminate. Both Unum and Ens are declared by Aristotle to be not univocal or generic words,71 though at the same time not absolutely equivocal: but words bearing several distinct transitional95 meanings, derived either from each other, or from some common root, by an analogy more or less remote. Aristotle characterises in like manner all the most indeterminate predicates, which are not included in any one distinct category among the ten, but are made available to predication sometimes in one category, sometimes in another: such as Ens, Unum, Idem, Diversum, Contrarium, &c. Now in the Platonic Parmenides, the two first among these words are taken to form the proposition assumed as fundamental datum, and the remaining three are much employed in the demonstration: yet Plato neither notices nor discriminates their multifarious and fluctuating significations. Such contrast will be understood when we recollect that the purpose of the Platonic Parmenides is, to propound difficulties; while that of Aristotle is, not merely to propound, but also to assist in clearing them up.

In the Platonic Demonstrations the same proposition in words is made to bear very different meanings.

Certainly, in Demonstrations 1 and 2 (as well as 4 and 5), the foundation assumed is in words the same proposition — Si Unum est: but we shall find this same proposition used in two very different senses. In the first Demonstration, the proposition is equivalent to Si Unum est Unum:72 in the second, to Si Unum est Ens, or Si Unum existit. In the first the proposition is identical and the verb est serves only as copula: in the second, the verb est is not merely a copula but implies Ens as a predicate, and affirms existence. We might have imagined that the identical proposition — Unum est Unum — since it really affirms nothing — would have been barren of all consequences: and so indeed it is barren of all affirmative consequences. But Plato obtains for it one first step in the way of negative predicates — Si Unum est Unum, Unum non est Multa: and from hence he proceeds, by a series of gentle transitions ingeniously managed, to many other negative predications respecting the subject Unum. Since it is not Multa, it can have no parts, nor can it be a whole: it has neither beginning, middle, nor end: it has no boundary, or it is boundless: it has no figure, it is neither straight nor circular: it has therefore no place, being 96neither in itself, nor in anything else: it is neither in motion nor at rest: it is neither the same with anything else, nor the same with itself:73 it is neither different from any thing else, nor different from itself: it is neither like, nor unlike, to itself, nor to anything else: it is neither equal, nor unequal, to itself nor to any thing else: it is neither older nor younger, nor of equal age, either with itself or with anything else: it exists therefore not in time, nor has it any participation with time: it neither has been nor will be, nor is: it does not exist in any way: it does not even exist so as to be Unum: you can neither name it, nor reason upon it, nor know it, nor perceive it, nor opine about it.

First demonstration ends in an assemblage of negative conclusions. Reductio ad Absurdum, of the assumption — Unum non Multa.

All these are impossibilities (concludes Plato). We must therefore go back upon the fundamental principle from which we took our departure, in order to see whether we shall not obtain, on a second trial, any different result.74

Here then is a piece of dialectic, put together with ingenuity, showing that everything can be denied, and that nothing can be affirmed of the subject — Unum. All this follows, if you concede the first step, that Unum is not Multa. If Unum be said to have any other attribute except that of being Unum, it would become at once Multa. It cannot even be declared to be either the same with itself, or different from any thing else; because Idem and Diversum are distinct natures from Unum, and if added to it would convert it into Multa.75 Nay it cannot even be affirmed to be itself: it cannot be named or enunciated: if all predicates are denied, the subject is denied along with them: the subject is nothing but the sum total of its predicates — and when they are all withdrawn, no subject remains. As far as I can understand the bearing of this self-contradictory demonstration, it appears a reductio ad absurdum of the proposition — Unum is not Multa. Now Unum which is not Multa designates the Αὐτὸ-Ἓν or Unum Ideale; which Plato himself affirmed, and which Aristotle impugned.76 If this be what is meant, the dialogue Parmenides 97would present here, as in other places, a statement of difficulties understood by Plato as attaching to his own doctrines.

Second Demonstration.

Parmenides now proceeds to his second demonstration: professing to take up again the same hypothesis — Si Unum est — from which he had started in the first77 — but in reality taking up a different hypothesis under the same words. In the first hypothesis, Si Unum est, was equivalent to, Si Unum est Unum: nothing besides Unum being taken into the reasoning, and est serving merely as copula. In the second, Si Unum est, is equivalent to, Si Unum est Ens, or exists: so that instead of the isolated Unum, we have now Unum Ens.78 Here is a duality consisting of Unum and Ens: which two are considered as separate or separable factors, coalescing to form the whole Unum Ens, each of them being a part thereof. But each of these parts is again dual, containing both Unum and Ens: so that each part may be again divided into lesser parts, each of them alike dual: and so on ad infinitum. Unum Ens thus contains an infinite number of parts, or is Multa.79 But even Unum 98itself (Parmenides argues), if we consider it separately from Ens in which it participates, is not Unum alone, but Multa also. For it is different from Ens, and Ens is different from it. Unum therefore is not merely Unum but also Diversum: Ens also is not merely Ens but Diversum. Now when we speak of Unum and Ens — of Unum and Diversum — or of Ens and Diversum — we in each case speak of two distinct things, each of which is Unum. Since each is Unum, the two things become three — Ens, Diversum, Unum — Unum, Diversum, Unum — Unum being here taken twice. We thus arrive at two and three — twice and thrice — odd and even — in short, number, with its full extension and properties. Unum therefore is both Unum and Multa — both Totum and Partes — both finite and infinite in multitude.80

It ends in demonstrating Both, of that which the first Demonstration had demonstrated Neither.

Parmenides proceeds to show that Unum has beginning, middle, and end — together with some figure, straight or curved: and that it is both in itself, and in other things: that it is always both in motion and at rest:81 that it is both the same with itself and different from itself — both the same with Cætera, and different from Cætera:82 both like to itself, and unlike to itself — both like to Cætera, and unlike to Cætera:83 that it both touches, and does not touch, both itself and Cætera:84 that it is both equal, greater, and less, in number, as compared with itself and as compared with Cætera:85 that it is both older than itself, younger than itself, and of the same age with itself — both older than Cætera, younger than Cætera, and of the same age as Cætera — also that it is not older nor younger either than itself or than Cætera:86 that it grows both older and younger than itself, and than Cætera.87 Lastly, Unum was, is, and will be; it has been, is, and will be generated: it has had, has now, and will have, attributes and predicates: it can be named, and can be the object of perception, conception, opinion, reasoning, and cognition.88

99Here Parmenides finishes the long Demonstratio Secunda, which completes the first Antinomy. The last conclusion of all, with which it winds up, is the antithesis of that with which the first Demonstration wound up: affirming (what the conclusion of the first had denied) that Unum is thinkable, perceivable, nameable, knowable. Comparing the second Demonstration with the first, we see — That the first, taking its initial step, with a negative proposition, carries us through a series of conclusions every one of which is negative (like those of the second figure of the Aristotelian syllogism):— That whereas the conclusions professedly established in the first Demonstration are all in Neither (Unum is neither in itself nor in any thing else — neither at rest nor in motion — neither the same with itself nor different from itself, &c.), the conclusions of the second Demonstration are all in Both (Unum is both in motion and at rest, both in itself and in other things, both the same with itself and different from itself):— That in this manner, while the first Demonstration denies both of two opposite propositions, the second affirms them both.

Startling paradox — Open offence against logical canon — No logical canon had then been laid down.

Such a result has an air of startling paradox. We find it shown, respecting various pairs of contradictory propositions, first, that both are false — next, that both are true. This offends doubly against the logical canon, which declares, that of two contradictory propositions, one must be true, the other must be false. We must remember, that in the Platonic age, there existed no systematic logic — no analysis or classification of propositions — no recognised distinction between such as were contrary, and such as were contradictory. The Platonic Parmenides deals with propositions which are, to appearance at least, contradictory: and we are brought, by two different roads, first to the rejection of both, next to the admission of both.89

100Demonstration third — Attempt to reconcile the contradiction of Demonstrations I. and II.

How can this be possible? How can these four propositions all be true — Unum est Unum — Unum est Multa — Unum non est Unum — Unum non est Multa? Plato suggests a way out of the difficulty, in that which he gives as Demonstration 3. It has been shown that Unum “partakes of time” — was, is, and will be. The propositions are all true, but true at different times: one at this time, another at that time.90 Unum acquires and loses existence, essence, and other attributes: now, it exists and is Unum — before, it did not exist and was not Unum: so too it is alternately like and unlike, in motion and at rest. But how is such alternation or change intelligible? At each time, whether present or past, it must be either in motion or at rest: at no time, neither present nor past, can it be neither in motion nor at rest. It cannot, while in motion, change to rest — nor, while at rest, change to motion. No time can be assigned for the change: neither the present, nor the past, nor the future: how then can the change occur at all?91

Plato’s imagination of the Sudden or Instantaneous — Breaches or momentary stoppages in the course of time.

To this question the Platonic Parmenides finds an answer in what he calls the Sudden or the Instantaneous: an anomalous nature which lies out of, or apart from, the course of time, being neither past, present, nor future. That which changes, changes at once and suddenly: at an instant when it is neither in motion nor at rest. This Suddenly is a halt or break in the flow of time:92 an extra-temporal condition, in which the subject has 101no existence, no attributes — though it revives again forthwith clothed with its new attributes: a point of total negation or annihilation, during which the subject with all its attributes disappears. At this interval (the Suddenly) all predicates may be truly denied, but none can be truly affirmed.93 Unum is neither at rest, nor in motion — neither like nor unlike — neither the same with itself nor different from itself — neither Unum nor Multa. Both predicates and Subject vanish. Thus all the negations of the first Demonstration are justified. Immediately before the Suddenly, or point of change, Unum was in motion — immediately after the change, it is at rest: immediately before, it was like — equal — the same with itself — Unum, &c. — immediately after, it is unlike — unequal — different from itself — Multa, &c. And thus the double and contradictory affirmative predications, of which the second Demonstration is composed, are in their turn made good, as successive in time. This discovery of the extra-temporal point Suddenly, enables Parmenides to uphold both the double negative of the first Demonstration, and the double affirmative of the second.

Review of the successive pairs of Demonstrations or Antinomies in each, the first proves the Neither, the second proves the Both.

The theory here laid down in the third Demonstration respecting this extra-temporal point — the Suddenly — deserves all the more attention, because it applies not merely to the first and second Demonstration which precede it, but also to the fourth and fifth, the sixth and seventh, the eighth and ninth, which follow it. I have already observed, that the first and second Demonstration form a corresponding pair, branching off from the same root or hypothetical proposition (at least the same in terms), respecting the subject Unum; and destined to prove, one the Neither, the other the Both, of several different predicates. So also the fourth and fifth form a pair applying to the subject Cætera; and destined to prove, that from 102the same hypothetical root — Si Unum est — we can deduce the Neither as well as the Both, of various predicates of Cætera. When we pass on to the four last Demonstrations, we find that in all four, the hypothesis Si Unum non est is substituted for that of Si Unum est: but the parallel couples, with the corresponding purpose, are still kept up. The sixth and seventh apply to the subject Unum, and demonstrate respecting that subject (proceeding from the hypothesis Si Unum non est) first the Both, then the Neither, of various predicates: the eighth and ninth arrive at the same result, respecting the subject Cætera. And a sentence at the close sums up in few words the result of all the four pairs (1-2, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9, that is, of all the Demonstrations excepting the third) — the Neither and the Both respecting all of them.

The third Demonstration is mediatorial but not satisfactory — The hypothesis of the Sudden or Instantaneous found no favour.

To understand these nine Demonstrations properly, therefore, we ought to consider eight among them (1-2, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9) as four Antinomies, or couples establishing dialectic contradictions: and the third as a mediator satisfactory between the couples — announced as if it reconciled the contradictions of the first Antinomy, and capable of being adapted, in the same character with certain modifications, to the second, third, and fourth Antinomy. Whether it reconciles them successfully — in other words, whether the third Demonstration will itself hold good — is a different question. It will be found to involve the singular and paradoxical (Plato’s own phrase) doctrine of the extra-temporal Suddenly — conceiving Time as a Discretum and not a Continuum. This doctrine is intended by Plato here as a means of rendering the fact of change logically conceivable and explicable. He first states briefly the difficulty (which we know to have been largely insisted on by Diodorus Kronus and other Megarics) of logically explaining the fact of change — and then enunciates this doctrine as the solution. We plainly see that it did not satisfy others — for the puzzle continued to be a puzzle long after — and that it did not even satisfy Plato, except at the time when he composed the Parmenides — since neither the doctrine itself (the extra-temporal break or transition) nor the very peculiar phrase in which it is embodied (τὸ ἐξαίφνης, ἄτοπός τις φύσις) occur in any of his other dialogues. If the doctrine were really tenable, it would have been of use in dialectic, and as such, would have 103been called in to remove the theoretical difficulties raised among dialectical disputants, respecting time and motion. Yet Plato does not again advert to it, either in Sophistes or Timæus, in both of which there is special demand for it.94 Aristotle, while he adopts a doctrine like it (yet without employing the peculiar phrase τὸ ἐξαίφνης) to explain qualitative change, does not admit the same either as to quantitative change, or as to local motion, or as to generation and destruction.95 The doctrine served the purpose of the Platonic Parmenides, as ingenious, original, and provocative to intellectual effort: but it did not acquire any permanent footing in Grecian dialectics.

The two last Antinomies, or four last Demonstrations, have, in common, for their point of departure, the negative proposition, Si Unum non est: and are likewise put together in parallel couples (6-7, 8-9), a Demonstration and a Counter-Demonstration — a Both and a Neither: first with reference to the subject Unum — next with reference to the subject Cætera.

Review of the two last Antinomies. Demonstrations VI. and VII.

Si Unum est — Si Unum non est. Even from such a proposition as the first of these, we might have thought it difficult to deduce any string of consequences — which Plato has already done: from such a proposition as the second, not merely difficult, but impossible. Nevertheless the ingenious dialectic of Plato accomplishes the task, and elicits from each proposition a Both, and a Neither, respecting several predicates of Unum as well as of Cætera. When you say Unum non est (so argues the Platonic Parmenides in Demonstration 6), you deny existence respecting Unum: but the proposition Unum non est, is distinguishable from Magnitudo non est — Parvitudo non est — and such like: propositions wherein the subject is different, though the predicate is the same: so that 104Unum non Ens is still a Something knowable, and distinguishable from other things — a logical subject of which various other predicates may be affirmed, though the predicate of existence cannot be affirmed.96 It is both like and unlike, equal and unequal — like and equal to itself unlike and unequal to other things.97 These its predicates being all true, are also real existences: so that Unum partakes quodam modo in existence: though Unum be non-Ens, nevertheless, Unum non-Ens est. Partaking thus both of non-existence and of existence, it changes: it both moves and is at rest: it is generated and destroyed, yet is also neither generated nor destroyed.98

Having thus deduced from the fundamental principle this string of Both opposite predicates, the Platonic Parmenides reverts (in Demonstration 7) to the same principium (Si Unum non est) to deduce by another train of reasoning the Neither of these predicates. When you say that Unum non est, you must mean that it does not partake of existence in any way — absolutely and without reserve. It therefore neither acquires nor loses existence: it is neither generated nor destroyed: it is neither in motion nor at rest: it partakes of nothing existent: it is neither equal nor unequal — neither like nor unlike — neither great nor little — neither this, nor that: neither the object of perception, nor of knowledge, nor of opinion, nor of naming, nor of debate.99

Demonstration VII. is founded upon the genuine doctrine of Parmenides.

These two last counter-demonstrations (6 and 7), forming the third Antinomy, deserve attention in this respect — That the seventh is founded upon the genuine Parmenidean or Eleatic doctrine about Non-Ens, as not merely having no attributes, but as being unknowable, unperceivable, unnameable: while the sixth is founded upon a different apprehension of Non-Ens, which is explained and defended by Plato in the Sophistes, as a substitute for, and refutation of, the Eleatic doctrine.100 According to 105Number 7, when you deny, of Unum, the predicate existence, you deny of it also all other predicates: and the name Unum is left without any subject to apply to. This is the Eleatic dogma. Unum having been declared to be Non-Ens, is (like Non-Ens) neither knowable nor nameable. According to Number 6, the proposition Unum est non-Ens, does not carry with it any such consequences. Existence is only one predicate, which may be denied of the subject Unum, but which, when denied, does not lead to the denial of all other predicates — nor, therefore, to the loss of the subject itself. Unum still remains Unum, knowable, and different from other things. Upon this first premiss are built up several other affirmations; so that we thus arrive circuitously at the affirmation of existence, in a certain way: Unum, though non-existent, does nevertheless exist quodam modo. This coincides with that which the Eleatic stranger seeks to prove in the Sophistes, against Parmenides.

Demonstrations VI. and VII. considered — Unwarrantable steps in the reasoning — The fundamental premiss differently interpreted, though the same in words.

If we compare the two foregoing counter-demonstrations (7 and 6), we shall see that the negative results of the seventh follow properly enough from the assumed premisses: but that the affirmative results of the sixth are not obtained without very unwarrantable jumps in the reasoning, besides its extreme subtlety. But apart from this defect, we farther remark that here also (as in Numbers 1 and 2) the fundamental principle assumed is in terms the same, in signification materially different. The signification of Unum non est, as it is construed in Number 7, is the natural one, belonging to the words: but as construed in Number 6, the meaning of the predicate is altogether effaced (as it had been before in Number 1): we cannot tell what it is which is really denied about Unum. As, in Number 1, the proposition Unum est is so construed as to affirm nothing except Unum est Unum — so in Number 7, the proposition Unum non est is so construed as to deny nothing except Unum non est Unum, yet conveying along with such denial a farther affirmation — Unum non est Unum, sed tamen est aliquid scibile, differens ab aliis.101 Here this aliquid scibile is assumed as a 106substratum underlying Unum, and remaining even when Unum is taken away: contrary to the opinion — that Unum was a separate nature and the fundamental Subject of all — which Aristotle announces as having been held by Plato.102 There must be always some meaning (the Platonic Parmenides argues) attached to the word Unum, even when you talk of Unum non Ens: and that meaning is equivalent to Aliquid scibile, differens ab aliis. From this he proceeds to evolve, step by step, though often in a manner obscure and inconclusive, his series of contradictory affirmations respecting Unum.

The last couple of Demonstrations — 8 and 9 — composing the fourth Antinomy, are in some respects the most ingenious and singular of all the nine. Si Unum non est, what is true about Cætera? The eighth demonstrates the Both of the affirmative predicates, the ninth proves the Neither.

Demonstrations VIII. and IX. — Analysis of Demonstration VIII.

Si Unum non est (is the argument of the eighth), Cætera must nevertheless somehow still be Cætera: otherwise you could not talk about Cætera.103 (This is an argument like that in Demonstration 6: What is talked about must exist, somehow.) But if Cætera can be named and talked about, they must be different from something, — and from something, which is also different from them. What can this Something be? Not certainly Unum: for Unum, by the Hypothesis, does not exist, and cannot therefore be the term of comparison. Cætera therefore must be different among themselves and from each other. But they cannot be compared with each other by units: for Unum does not exist. They must therefore be compared with each other by heaps or multitudes: each of which will appear at first sight to be an unit, though it be not an unit in reality. There will be numbers of such heaps, each in appearance one, though not in reality:104 numbers odd and even, great and little, in appearance: heaps appearing to be greater and less than each other, and equal to each other, though not being really so. Each of these heaps will appear to have a beginning, middle, and end, yet will not really have any such: 107for whenever you grasp any one of them in your thoughts, there will appear another beginning before the beginning,105 another end after the end, another centre more centrical than the centre, — minima ever decreasing because you cannot reach any stable unit. Each will be a heap without any unity; looking like one, at a distance, — but when you come near, each a boundless and countless multitude. They will thus appear one and many, like and unlike, equal and unequal, at rest and moving, separate and coalescing: in short, invested with an indefinite number of opposite attributes.106

Demonstration VIII. is very subtle and Zenonian.

This Demonstration 8, with its strange and subtle chain of inferences, purporting to rest upon the admission of Cætera without Unum, brings out the antithesis of the Apparent and the Real, which had not been noticed in the preceding demonstrations. Demonstration 8 is in its character Zenonian. It probably coincides with the proof which Zeno is reported (in the earlier half of this dialogue) to have given against the existence of any real Multa. If you assume Multa (Zeno argued), they must be both like and unlike, and invested with many other opposite attributes; but this is impossible; therefore the assumption is untrue.107 Those against whom Zeno reasoned, contended for real Multa, and against a real Unum. Zeno probably showed, and our eighth Demonstration here shows also, — that Multa under this supposition are nothing real, but an assemblage of indefinite, ever-variable, contradictory appearances: an Ἄπειρον, Infinite, or Chaos: an object not real and absolute, but relative and variable according to the point of view of the subject.

Demonstration IX. Neither following Both.

To the eighth Demonstration, ingenious as it is, succeeds a countervailing reversal in the ninth: the Neither following the Both. The fundamental supposition is in terms the same. Si Unum non est, what is to become108 of Cætera? Cætera are not Unum: yet neither are they Multa: for if there were any Multa, Unum would be included in them. If none of the Multa were Unum, all of them would be nothing at all, and there would be no Multa. If therefore Unum be not included in Cætera, Cætera would be neither Unum nor Multa: nor would they appear to be either Unum or Multa: for Cætera can have no possible communion with Non-Entia: nor can any of the Non-Entia be present along with any of Cætera — since Non-Entia have no parts. We cannot therefore conceive or represent to ourselves Non-Ens as along with or belonging to Cætera. Therefore, Si Unum non est, nothing among Cætera is conceived either as Unum or as Multa: for to conceive Multa without Unum is impossible. It thus appears, Si Unum non est, that Cætera neither are Unum nor Multa. Nor are they conceived either as Unum or Multa — either as like or as unlike — either as the same or as different — either as in contact or as apart. — In short, all those attributes which in the last preceding Demonstration were shown to belong to them in appearance, are now shown not to belong to them either in appearance or in reality.108

Concluding words of the Parmenides — Declaration that he has demonstrated the Both and the Neither of many different propositions.

Here we find ourselves at the close of the Parmenides. Plato announces his purpose to be, to elicit contradictory conclusions, by different trains of reasoning, out of the same fundamental assumption.109 He declares, in the concluding words, that — on the hypothesis of Unum est, as well as on that of Unum non est — he has succeeded in demonstrating the Both and the Neither of many distinct propositions, respecting Unum and respecting Cætera.

Comparison of the conclusion of the Parmenides to an enigma of the Republic. Difference. The constructor of the enigma adapted its conditions to a foreknown solution. Plato did not.

The close of the Parmenides, as it stands here, may be fairly compared to the enigma announced by Plato in his Republic — “A man and no man, struck and did not 109strike, with a stone and no stone, a bird and no bird, sitting upon wood and no wood”.110 This is an enigma, propounded for youthful auditors to guess: stimulating their curiosity, and tasking their intelligence to find it out. As far as I can see, the puzzling antinomies in the Parmenides have no other purpose. They drag back the forward and youthful Sokrates from affirmative dogmatism to negative doubt and embarrassment. There is however this difference between the enigma in the Republic, and the Antinomies in the Parmenides. The constructor of the enigma had certainly a preconceived solution to which he adapted the conditions of his problem: whereas we have no sufficient ground for asserting that the author of the Antinomies had any such solution present or operative in his mind. How much of truth Plato may himself have recognised, or may have wished others to recognise, in them, we have no means of determining. We find in them many equivocal propositions and unwarranted inferences — much blending of truth with error, intentionally or unintentionally. The veteran Parmenides imposes the severance of the two, as a lesson, upon his youthful hearers Sokrates and Aristoteles.

[END OF CHAPTER XXVII]

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