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STRANGER: And is being the same as one, and do you apply two names to the same thing?
THEAETETUS: What will be their answer, Stranger?
STRANGER: It is clear, Theaetetus, that he who asserts the unity of being will find a difficulty in answering this or any other question.
THEAETETUS: Why so?
STRANGER: To admit of two names, and to affirm that there is nothing but unity, is surely ridiculous?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And equally irrational to admit that a name is anything?
THEAETETUS: How so?
STRANGER: To distinguish the name from the thing, implies duality.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And yet he who identifies the name with the thing will be compelled to say that it is the name of nothing, or if he says that it is the name of something, even then the name will only be the name of a name, and of nothing else.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And the one will turn out to be only one of one, and being absolute unity, will represent a mere name.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: And would they say that the whole is other than the one that is, or the same with it?
THEAETETUS: To be sure they would, and they actually say so.
STRANGER: If being is a whole, as Parmenides sings,—
'Every way like unto the fullness of a well-rounded sphere, Evenly balanced from the centre on every side, And must needs be neither greater nor less in any way, Neither on this side nor on that—'
then being has a centre and extremes, and, having these, must also have parts.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: Yet that which has parts may have the attribute of unity in all the parts, and in this way being all and a whole, may be one?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: But that of which this is the condition cannot be absolute unity?
THEAETETUS: Why not?
STRANGER: Because, according to right reason, that which is truly one must be affirmed to be absolutely indivisible.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: But this indivisible, if made up of many parts, will contradict reason.
THEAETETUS: I understand.
STRANGER: Shall we say that being is one and a whole, because it has the attribute of unity? Or shall we say that being is not a whole at all?
THEAETETUS: That is a hard alternative to offer.
STRANGER: Most true; for being, having in a certain sense the attribute of one, is yet proved not to be the same as one, and the all is therefore more than one.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And yet if being be not a whole, through having the attribute of unity, and there be such a thing as an absolute whole, being lacks something of its own nature?
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: Upon this view, again, being, having a defect of being, will become not-being?
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And, again, the all becomes more than one, for being and the whole will each have their separate nature.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: But if the whole does not exist at all, all the previous difficulties remain the same, and there will be the further difficulty, that besides having no being, being can never have come into being.
THEAETETUS: Why so?
STRANGER: Because that which comes into being always comes into being as a whole, so that he who does not give whole a place among beings, cannot speak either of essence or generation as existing.
THEAETETUS: Yes, that certainly appears to be true.
STRANGER: Again; how can that which is not a whole have any quantity? For that which is of a certain quantity must necessarily be the whole of that quantity.
THEAETETUS: Exactly.
STRANGER: And there will be innumerable other points, each of them causing infinite trouble to him who says that being is either one or two.
THEAETETUS: The difficulties which are dawning upon us prove this; for one objection connects with another, and they are always involving what has preceded in a greater and worse perplexity.
STRANGER: We are far from having exhausted the more exact thinkers who treat of being and not-being. But let us be content to leave them, and proceed to view those who speak less precisely; and we shall find as the result of all, that the nature of being is quite as difficult to comprehend as that of not-being.
THEAETETUS: Then now we will go to the others.
STRANGER: There appears to be a sort of war of Giants and Gods going on amongst them; they are fighting with one another about the nature of essence.
THEAETETUS: How is that?
STRANGER: Some of them are dragging down all things from heaven and from the unseen to earth, and they literally grasp in their hands rocks and oaks; of these they lay hold, and obstinately maintain, that the things only which can be touched or handled have being or essence, because they define being and body as one, and if any one else says that what is not a body exists they altogether despise him, and will hear of nothing but body.
THEAETETUS: I have often met with such men, and terrible fellows they are.
STRANGER: And that is the reason why their opponents cautiously defend themselves from above, out of an unseen world, mightily contending that true essence consists of certain intelligible and incorporeal ideas; the bodies of the materialists, which by them are maintained to be the very truth, they break up into little bits by their arguments, and affirm them to be, not essence, but generation and motion. Between the two armies, Theaetetus, there is always an endless conflict raging concerning these matters.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: Let us ask each party in turn, to give an account of that which they call essence.
THEAETETUS: How shall we get it out of them?
STRANGER: With those who make being to consist in ideas, there will be less difficulty, for they are civil people enough; but there will be very great difficulty, or rather an absolute impossibility, in getting an opinion out of those who drag everything down to matter. Shall I tell you what we must do?
THEAETETUS: What?
STRANGER: Let us, if we can, really improve them; but if this is not possible, let us imagine them to be better than they are, and more willing to answer in accordance with the rules of argument, and then their opinion will be more worth having; for that which better men acknowledge has more weight than that which is acknowledged by inferior men. Moreover we are no respecters of persons, but seekers after truth.
THEAETETUS: Very good.
