Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/138

Rh 7. Another predicate of unity is permanence. The unity which is God is also the permanent and unchangeable, that is to say, it is exempt from generation and corruption. It cannot be born or produced, for that which is produced proceeds either from that which is the same as itself, or from that which is not the same as itself. But the permanent cannot proceed out of what is the same as itself; because this being already the permanent, cannot produce or give rise to the permanent. Neither can the permanent proceed out of what is not the same as itself; for this would be the production of the positive out of the negative—the generation of Being out of not-Being, and a violation of the Eleatic axiom, Ex nihilo nihil fit. Or, more shortly stated, the reasoning of Xenophanes is this: What is, or the permanent, cannot arise out of what is, or the permanent, because the two are identical. Again, what is, or the permanent, cannot arise out of what is not, or the non-permanent, because what is cannot spring from what is not Nonentity has no power of generation. The one permanent and unchangeable, the unity in all things, or, according to Xenophanes, God, this principle is from everlasting to everlasting. This is the ground of all, the ultimately and absolutely real. This alone is the certain and the true.

8. Such being the primary position of Xenophanes and the Eleatics, a question arises in regard to the other member of the fundamental antithesis of