Page - 483 - in The Complete Plato

admitted before—that out of the greater came the less and out of the less the greater, and that opposites were simply generated from opposites; but now this principle seems to be utterly denied. Socrates inclined his head to the speaker and listened. I like your courage, he said, in reminding us of this. But you do not observe that there is a difference in the two cases. For then we were speaking of opposites in the concrete, and now of the essential opposite which, as is affirmed, neither in us nor in nature can ever be at variance with itself: then, my friend, we were speaking of things in which opposites are inherent and which are called after them, but now about the opposites which are inherent in them and which give their name to them; and these essential opposites will never, as we maintain, admit of generation into or out of one another. At the same time, turning to Cebes, he said: Are you at all disconcerted, Cebes, at our friend’s objection? No, I do not feel so, said Cebes; and yet I cannot deny that I am often disturbed by objections. Then we are agreed after all, said Socrates, that the opposite will never in any case be opposed to itself? To that we are quite agreed, he replied. Yet once more let me ask you to consider the question from another point of view, and see whether you agree with me:—There is a thing which you term heat, and another thing which you term cold? Certainly. But are they the same as fire and snow? Most assuredly not. Heat is a thing different from fire, and cold is not the same with snow? Yes. And yet you will surely admit, that when snow, as was before said, is under the influence of heat, they will not remain snow and heat; but at the advance of the heat, the snow will either retire or perish? Very true, he replied. And the fire too at the advance of the cold will either retire or perish; and when the fire is under the influence of the cold, they will not remain as before, fire and cold. That is true, he said. And in some cases the name of the idea is not only attached to the idea in 483