Page:Early Greek philosophy by John Burnet, 3rd edition, 1920.djvu/339

Rh proposition; but, of course, his belief was not founded on that. His whole conception of reality made it necessary for him to regard it as eternal. It would be more serious if Aristotle were right in believing, as he seems to have done, that Melissos inferred that what is must be infinite in space, because it had neither beginning nor end in time. As, however, we have the fragment which Aristotle interprets in this way (fr. 2), we are quite entitled to understand it for ourselves, and I cannot see anything to justify Aristotle's assumption that the expression "without limit" means without limit in space.

167. Melissos did indeed differ from Parmenides in holding that reality was spatially as well as temporally infinite; but he gave an excellent reason for this belief, and had no need to support it by such an extraordinary argument. What he said was that, if it were limited, it would be limited by empty space. This we know from Aristotle himself, and it marks a real advance upon Parmenides. He had thought it possible to regard reality as a finite sphere, but it would have been difficult for him to work out this view in detail. He would have had to say there was nothing outside the sphere; but no one knew better than he that there is no