Page - 602 - in The Complete Plato

SOCRATES: I am about to speak of a high argument, in which all things are said to be relative; you cannot rightly call anything by any name, such as great or small, heavy or light, for the great will be small and the heavy light— there is no single thing or quality, but out of motion and change and admixture all things are becoming relatively to one another, which ‘becoming’ is by us incorrectly called being, but is really becoming, for nothing ever is, but all things are becoming. Summon all philosophers— Protagoras, Heracleitus, Empedocles, and the rest of them, one after another, and with the exception of Parmenides they will agree with you in this. Summon the great masters of either kind of poetry—Epicharmus, the prince of Comedy, and Homer of Tragedy; when the latter sings of ‘Ocean whence sprang the gods, and mother Tethys,’ does he not mean that all things are the offspring, of flux and motion? THEAETETUS: I think so. SOCRATES: And who could take up arms against such a great army having Homer for its general, and not appear ridiculous? (Compare Cratylus.) THEAETETUS: Who indeed, Socrates? SOCRATES: Yes, Theaetetus; and there are plenty of other proofs which will show that motion is the source of what is called being and becoming, and inactivity of not-being and destruction; for fire and warmth, which are supposed to be the parent and guardian of all other things, are born of movement and of friction, which is a kind of motion;—is not this the origin of fire? THEAETETUS: It is. SOCRATES: And the race of animals is generated in the same way? THEAETETUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And is not the bodily habit spoiled by rest and idleness, but preserved for a long time by motion and exercise? THEAETETUS: True. SOCRATES: And what of the mental habit? Is not the soul informed, and improved, and preserved by study and attention, which are motions; but when at rest, which in the soul only means want of attention and study, is uninformed, and speedily forgets whatever she has learned? THEAETETUS: True. SOCRATES: Then motion is a good, and rest an evil, to the soul as well as to the body? 602