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THEAETETUS: That is not far from the truth.
STRANGER: And we must not quarrel with this result, since it is of the nature of classes to have communion with one another; and if any one denies our present statement [viz., that being is not, etc.], let him first argue with our former conclusion [i.e., respecting the communion of ideas], and then he may proceed to argue with what follows.
THEAETETUS: Nothing can be fairer.
STRANGER: Let me ask you to consider a further question.
THEAETETUS: What question?
STRANGER: When we speak of not-being, we speak, I suppose, not of something opposed to being, but only different.
THEAETETUS: What do you mean?
STRANGER: When we speak of something as not great, does the expression seem to you to imply what is little any more than what is equal?
THEAETETUS: Certainly not.
STRANGER: The negative particles, ou and me, when prefixed to words, do not imply opposition, but only difference from the words, or more correctly from the things represented by the words, which follow them.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: There is another point to be considered, if you do not object.
THEAETETUS: What is it?
STRANGER: The nature of the other appears to me to be divided into fractions like knowledge.
THEAETETUS: How so?
STRANGER: Knowledge, like the other, is one; and yet the various parts of knowledge have each of them their own particular name, and hence there are many arts and kinds of knowledge.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: And is not the case the same with the parts of the other, which is also one?
THEAETETUS: Very likely; but will you tell me how?
STRANGER: There is some part of the other which is opposed to the beautiful?
THEAETETUS: There is.
STRANGER: Shall we say that this has or has not a name?
THEAETETUS: It has; for whatever we call not-beautiful is other than the beautiful, not than something else.
STRANGER: And now tell me another thing.
THEAETETUS: What?
STRANGER: Is the not-beautiful anything but this—an existence parted off from a certain kind of existence, and again from another point of view opposed to an existing something?
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: Then the not-beautiful turns out to be the opposition of being to being?
THEAETETUS: Very true.
STRANGER: But upon this view, is the beautiful a more real and the not-beautiful a less real existence?
THEAETETUS: Not at all.
STRANGER: And the not-great may be said to exist, equally with the great?
THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: And, in the same way, the just must be placed in the same category with the not-just—the one cannot be said to have any more existence than the other.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: The same may be said of other things; seeing that the nature of the other has a real existence, the parts of this nature must equally be supposed to exist.
THEAETETUS: Of course.
STRANGER: Then, as would appear, the opposition of a part of the other, and of a part of being, to one another, is, if I may venture to say so, as truly essence as being itself, and implies not the opposite of being, but only what is other than being.
THEAETETUS: Beyond question.
STRANGER: What then shall we call it?
THEAETETUS: Clearly, not-being; and this is the very nature for which the Sophist compelled us to search.
STRANGER: And has not this, as you were saying, as real an existence as any other class? May I not say with confidence that not-being has an assured existence, and a nature of its own? Just as the great was found to be great and the beautiful beautiful, and the not-great not-great, and the not-beautiful not-beautiful, in the same manner not-being has been found to be and is not-being, and is to be reckoned one among the many classes of being. Do you, Theaetetus, still feel any doubt of this?
THEAETETUS: None whatever.
STRANGER: Do you observe that our scepticism has carried us beyond the range of Parmenides' prohibition?
THEAETETUS: In what?
STRANGER: We have advanced to a further point, and shown him more than he forbad us to investigate.
THEAETETUS: How is that?
STRANGER: Why, because he says—
'Not-being never is, and do thou keep thy thoughts from this way of enquiry.'
THEAETETUS: Yes, he says so.
STRANGER: Whereas, we have not only proved that things which are not are, but we have shown what form of being not-being is; for we have shown that the nature of the other is, and is distributed over all things in their relations to one another, and whatever part of the other is contrasted with being, this is precisely what we have ventured to call not-being.
THEAETETUS: And surely, Stranger, we were quite right.
STRANGER: Let not any one say, then, that while affirming the opposition of not-being to being, we still assert the being of not-being; for as to whether there is an opposite of being, to that enquiry we have long said good-bye—it may or may not be, and may or may not be capable of definition. But as touching our present account of not-being, let a man either convince us of error, or, so long as he cannot, he too must say, as we are saying, that there is a communion of classes, and that being, and difference or other, traverse all things and mutually interpenetrate, so that the other partakes of being, and by reason of this participation is, and yet is not that of which it partakes, but other, and being other than being, it is clearly a necessity that not-being should be. And again, being, through partaking of the other, becomes a class other than the remaining classes, and being other than all of them, is not each one of them, and is not all the rest, so that undoubtedly there are thousands upon thousands of cases in which being is not, and all other things, whether regarded individually or collectively, in many respects are, and in many respects are not.
THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: And he who is sceptical of this contradiction, must think how he can find something better to say; or if he sees a puzzle, and his pleasure is to drag words this way and that, the argument will prove to him, that he is not making a worthy use of his faculties; for there is no charm in such puzzles, and there is no difficulty in detecting them; but we can tell him of something else the pursuit of which is noble and also difficult.
THEAETETUS: What is it?
STRANGER: A thing of which I have already spoken;—letting alone these puzzles as involving no difficulty, he should be able to follow and criticize in detail every argument, and when a man says that the same is in a manner other, or that other is the same, to understand and refute him from his own point of view, and in the same respect in which he asserts either of these affections. But to show that somehow and in some sense the same is other, or the other same, or the great small, or the like unlike; and to delight in always bringing forward such contradictions, is no real refutation, but is clearly the new-born babe of some one who is only beginning to approach the problem of being.
