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if the contradiction in this doctrine were to be removed, then also the distinction between perfect and imperfect existence must be destroyed, and thus Plato would have started from a manifestly false statement of his own doctrine. And moreover, that something is here meant which he actually intends to refute, must be obvious to every reader of any penetration, from the whole tone of the argument,-from this giant-combat, and this defence from the region of the invisible*. It is moreover easy to see that he has in view a perfectly well-known doctrine. Now we know Parmenides to have assumed the possibility of such an imperfect existence, and a world of appearance separate from perfect existence and in opposition to it, and thus, that man has communication with the one by means of perception, with the other by reason, would also be Parmenidean enough. If then we are to risk a guess as to why Parmenides is nevertheless not mentioned at all here, and it is entirely separated from the criticism upon his doctrines, we might say that in this part Plato had not so much Parmenides in his mind as other philosophers, against whom also he disputes elsewhere without naming them, I mean the original and first Megarians. For these men in many particulars, as the ancients testify, approximated to Plato, under whose influence and co-operation their school had first formed itself, and thus, if we are to give as much liberty to critical combination as in this province it is

* P. 246.

Καὶ μὴν ἔοικέ γε ἐν αὐτοῖς οἷον γιγαντομαχία τις εἶναι διὰ τὴν ἀμφισβήτησιν περὶ τῆς οὐσίας πρὸς ἀλλήλους.

Οἱ μὲν εἰς γῆν ἐξ οὐρανῶν καὶ τῶν ἀοράτου πάντα ἕλκουσι . . .

κ.τ.λ.

certainly necessary to do, traces are not wanting, that even without the province of regular dialectics, they adopted much out of the Eleatic system, and of this I should be inclined to account this passage also as an instance, unless some one can give a better founded explanation. As opponents of the materialistic empirics, of Democritus and Aristippus, for Plato has certainly in his mind the latter also of the two, these philosophers might be most especially noticed. Again, no less difficulty may seem to attend the explanation of what precedes, whom, for instance, Plato means by those who look upon the existent as involving multiplicity, and in particular as double or triple, since so many have equal pretensions to be considered, and then again when we come to examine accurately, nothing is perfectly satisfactory. At first the reader may probably be quite at a loss to know to what the argument is to be referred; but as soon as he remembers that in the language of our dialogue Plato could not otherwise denote what Aristotle calls the setting up of these principles, references and allusions pour in in clouds. Least of all, however, will the appearance and tone of the whole passage allow us to surmise the existence of an allusion here to any thing abstruse, and advanced only by a few less-known individuals. And quite as little, certainly, to the Pythagoreans, although it might otherwise be said of them, most appropriately, that their existence is threefold, divided into the finite, the indefinite and the privative, but as no reference to this school occurs anywhere else in the whole dialogue, it is not probable that it was intended to be alluded to in this passage; but as Aristotle also at the beginning of his books on Physics says of all those who assume

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the existence of a fundamental matter and two opposite functions, that they set up these principles, so also Plato has here especially in view the old Ionic philosophers. This seems also to receive confirmation from the circumstance of his separating those who assume a threefold from those who assume only a twofold existence, though he does this but very slightly and superficially. For it is precisely among the Ionians that so vague a description may be supposed to have existed, according as the fundamental matter was given, simple and independent of the functions, or conceived to be itself comprehended under the functions, as seems to have been the notion of Anaximander. It is only to the philosopher just named, that as far as we know the idea of the combat of the parts of the threefold existence with one another would apply. Should, however, this view appear still to be liable to much suspicion, as may perhaps be the case, we are on the other hand the more certain as to the later Ionic and Sicilian Muses*, that by them, Heraclitus and Empedocles are intended. Upon this point we have not only the express testimony of Simplicius, but the comparison of our passages, as well with what we know of the two men from other sources, as also with the way in which Plato expresses himself about them elsewhere is sufficient to establish the fact. Quite as undeniable, as Tennemann also has already observed, are the allusions to Antisthenes, where those philosophers are spoken of who do not admit the possibility of any community or connexion between ideas, but would take every thing independently and for itself, or who maintain the proposition that a false assertion enunciates

* P. 242. C.

nothing. These polemics cannot fail to force themselves upon the notice of those readers who have already accompanied us in the prosecution of them through several dialogues.

A more intimate relation between the Sophist and the Parmenides on the one side, and the Timæus on the other, is indicated not only externally by the more passive condition of Socrates in these three dialogues, but must also be of itself clear to every one, from the close connection in the subject-matter, even though it should be considered preliminarily, in a negative point of view alone. Hence it is natural to start the question, whether by a comparison of the three it may not be discovered from the dialogues themselves which of them was the latest and which the earliest. With respect then to the Timæus no doubt can arise as to its being the latest of these three works; but between the Sophist and Parmenides critics have certainly hesitated, and, as we have already remarked in the Introduction to that dialogue, have considered the last named as the later of the two. Now, disinclined as I am to refer by anticipation to what is to come, I would ask any one who knows the Timæus, whether the foundation of the Timæus is not laid perfectly and dialectically by the way in which here, in the Sophist, the existent is brought down within the sphere of opposites, as well as by the discussion which occurs here upon the subjects of identity and diversity, and whether it is not clear that our dialogue generally comes much nearer to the Timæus than the Parmenides does? This, however, is intended to be said preliminarily only, in order to show generally the point from which the question is to be viewed. But let the

reader only compare the Sophist and Parmenides with one another, and observe whether anything whatever resembling an announcement of the dialogue named after the latter philosopher is to be found in the manner in which in the former Socrates appeals to his conversation with him; or whether, on the contrary, it is not manifest that the notice marking the age of the interlocutors is there introduced with reference to and in justification of this dialogue, so that the whole passage has the appearance of being intended to bring the Parmenides to the recollection of the reader. If we compare further the particular corresponding passages, as for instance that about unity and totality, we shall unquestionably recognize in the Sophist a surer hand, and a more enlarged method. And we may even find Parmenides appears to

the key to all that in the have a double sense, in the way in which essential existence, and existence in another sense, by participation that is, and so also the originally existent and existence in the sphere of contradictions are here kept separate so that it would be strange to have already given the solution here, and then to have set the riddle afterwards in the Parmenides. Above all, however, let the reader but look to the first part of the Parmenides, and the problematical character of the expressions there as to the existence of ideas, and then consider whether this character could have found place, after the distinction had been so clearly referred to in the Theætetus, between knowledge and conception, and that between mere conception and appearance had been further subjoined here in the Sophist.

* Ρ. 237. Παισὶν ἡμῖν οὖσιν,

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