Page:A History of Ancient Greek Literature.djvu/180

 IS6 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE The 'offences' appear to be, as in Anaximander, the self-assertive pride of particular things claiming to Be when they only Become and Pass, claiming to be Them- selves when they are only a transition of something else into something else. Heraclitus speaks with a twofold pride — as one who has found truth, and as a noble- man. He would have concurred entirely in Nietzsche's contempt for "shopkeepers, cows, Christians, women, Englishmen, and other democrats." The Milesians are as dirt to him ; so are his fellow-citizens and mankind generally. He condescends to mention Pythagoras, Xenophanes, and Hecata3us with Hesiod, as instances of the truth that " much learning teaches not wisdom!' Parmenides of Elea answers Heraclitus ; he finds no solution of any difficulty in Heraclitus's flow ; there is nothing there but Becoming and Ceasing, and he wants to know what IS — in the sense, for instance, that 2X2 is 4, absolutely and eternally, though Parmenides would not admit our popular distinction between abstract and concrete. What is, is ; what is not, is not, ovk can, does not exist. Therefore there is no Change or Becoming, because that would be passage from Not-being to Being, and there is no Not-being. Equally, there is no empty space ; therefore no motion. Also there is only One Thing ; if there were more, there would have to be Not- being between them. He goes on to show that the One Thing is spherical and finite, and of course divine. It is matter, solid ; but it is also Thought, for " Thought and that of which it is thought are the same!' What then about the world we know, which has ob- viously a great many things in it ? Parmenides answers orientally : it is only deceit, what an Indian calls Maya,