Page - 765 - in The Complete Plato

arise. STRANGER: There is not; but the Sophist will deny these statements. And indeed how can any rational man assent to them, when the very expressions which we have just used were before acknowledged by us to be unutterable, unspeakable, indescribable, unthinkable? Do you see his point, Theaetetus? THEAETETUS: Of course he will say that we are contradicting ourselves when we hazard the assertion, that falsehood exists in opinion and in words; for in maintaining this, we are compelled over and over again to assert being of not-being, which we admitted just now to be an utter impossibility. STRANGER: How well you remember! And now it is high time to hold a consultation as to what we ought to do about the Sophist; for if we persist in looking for him in the class of false workers and magicians, you see that the handles for objection and the difficulties which will arise are very numerous and obvious. THEAETETUS: They are indeed. STRANGER: We have gone through but a very small portion of them, and they are really infinite. THEAETETUS: If that is the case, we cannot possibly catch the Sophist. STRANGER: Shall we then be so faint-hearted as to give him up? THEAETETUS: Certainly not, I should say, if we can get the slightest hold upon him. STRANGER: Will you then forgive me, and, as your words imply, not be altogether displeased if I flinch a little from the grasp of such a sturdy argument? THEAETETUS: To be sure I will. STRANGER: I have a yet more urgent request to make. THEAETETUS: Which is—? STRANGER: That you will promise not to regard me as a parricide. THEAETETUS: And why? STRANGER: Because, in self-defence, I must test the philosophy of my father Parmenides, and try to prove by main force that in a certain sense not- being is, and that being, on the other hand, is not. THEAETETUS: Some attempt of the kind is clearly needed. STRANGER: Yes, a blind man, as they say, might see that, and, unless 765