Seite - 779 - in The Complete Plato

follow from each of them. STRANGER: Very good, and first let us assume them to say that nothing is capable of participating in anything else in any respect; in that case rest and motion cannot participate in being at all. THEAETETUS: They cannot. STRANGER: But would either of them be if not participating in being? THEAETETUS: No. STRANGER: Then by this admission everything is instantly overturned, as well the doctrine of universal motion as of universal rest, and also the doctrine of those who distribute being into immutable and everlasting kinds; for all these add on a notion of being, some affirming that things ‘are’ truly in motion, and others that they ‘are’ truly at rest. THEAETETUS: Just so. STRANGER: Again, those who would at one time compound, and at another resolve all things, whether making them into one and out of one creating infinity, or dividing them into finite elements, and forming compounds out of these; whether they suppose the processes of creation to be successive or continuous, would be talking nonsense in all this if there were no admixture. THEAETETUS: True. STRANGER: Most ridiculous of all will the men themselves be who want to carry out the argument and yet forbid us to call anything, because participating in some affection from another, by the name of that other. THEAETETUS: Why so? STRANGER: Why, because they are compelled to use the words ‘to be,’ ‘apart,’ ‘from others,’ ‘in itself,’ and ten thousand more, which they cannot give up, but must make the connecting links of discourse; and therefore they do not require to be refuted by others, but their enemy, as the saying is, inhabits the same house with them; they are always carrying about with them an adversary, like the wonderful ventriloquist, Eurycles, who out of their own bellies audibly contradicts them. THEAETETUS: Precisely so; a very true and exact illustration. STRANGER: And now, if we suppose that all things have the power of communion with one another—what will follow? THEAETETUS: Even I can solve that riddle. 779