Page - 775 - in The Complete Plato

either? THEAETETUS: Clearly, neither has any share in either; for if they say anything else, they will contradict themselves. STRANGER: I understand; but they will allow that if to know is active, then, of course, to be known is passive. And on this view being, in so far as it is known, is acted upon by knowledge, and is therefore in motion; for that which is in a state of rest cannot be acted upon, as we affirm. THEAETETUS: True. STRANGER: And, O heavens, can we ever be made to believe that motion and life and soul and mind are not present with perfect being? Can we imagine that being is devoid of life and mind, and exists in awful unmeaningness an everlasting fixture? THEAETETUS: That would be a dreadful thing to admit, Stranger. STRANGER: But shall we say that has mind and not life? THEAETETUS: How is that possible? STRANGER: Or shall we say that both inhere in perfect being, but that it has no soul which contains them? THEAETETUS: And in what other way can it contain them? STRANGER: Or that being has mind and life and soul, but although endowed with soul remains absolutely unmoved? THEAETETUS: All three suppositions appear to me to be irrational. STRANGER: Under being, then, we must include motion, and that which is moved. THEAETETUS: Certainly. STRANGER: Then, Theaetetus, our inference is, that if there is no motion, neither is there any mind anywhere, or about anything or belonging to any one. THEAETETUS: Quite true. STRANGER: And yet this equally follows, if we grant that all things are in motion—upon this view too mind has no existence. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: Do you think that sameness of condition and mode and subject could ever exist without a principle of rest? THEAETETUS: Certainly not. 775