Sophist

Theaet. No.

Str. Well, then, will either of them be, if it has no share in being?

Theaet. It will not.

Str. See how by this admission everything is overturned at once, as it seems—the doctrine of those who advocate universal motion, that of the partisans of unity and rest, and that of the men who teach that all existing things are distributed into invariable and everlasting kinds. For all of these make use of being as an attribute. One party says that the universe is in motion, another that it is at rest.

Theaet. Exactly.

Str. And further, all who teach that things combine at one time and separate at another, whether infinite elements combine in unity and are derived from unity or finite elements separate and then unite, regardless of whether they say that these changes take place successively or without interruption, would be talking nonsense in all these doctrines, if there is no intermingling.

Theaet. Quite right.

Str. Then, too, the very men who forbid us to call anything by another name because it participates in the effect produced by another, would be made most especially ridiculous by this doctrine.

Theaet. How so?

Str. Because they are obliged in speaking of anything to use the expressions to be, apart, from the rest, by itself, and countless others; they are powerless to keep away from them or avoid working them into their discourse; and therefore there is no need of others to refute them, but, as the saying goes, their enemy and future opponent is of their own household whom they always carry about with them as they go, giving forth speech from within them, like the wonderful Eurycles. [*](Eurycles was a ventriloquist and soothsayer of the fifth century, cf. Aristoph. Wasps 1019)

Theaet. That is a remarkably accurate illustration

Str. But what if we ascribe to all things the power of participation in one another?

Theaet. Even I can dispose of that assumption.

Str. How?

Theaet. Because motion itself would be wholly at rest, and rest in turn would itself be in motion, if these two could be joined with one another.

Str. But surely this at least is most absolutely impossible, that motion be at rest and rest be in motion?

Theaet. Of course.

Str. Then only the third possibility is left.

Theaet. Yes.

Str. And certainly one of these three must be true; either all things will mingle with one another, or none will do so, or some will and others will not.

Theaet. Of course.

Str. And certainly the first two were found to be impossible.

Theaet. Yes.

Str. Then everybody who wishes to answer correctly will adopt the remaining one of the three possibilities.

Theaet. Precisely.