Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/152

Rh no motion, no change anywhere, nothing but a dead immovable uniformity. The many is identical with not-Being; there is no not-Being, therefore there is no many, but only one. The changeable is identical with not-Being; there is no not-Being, therefore there is no changeable, but only an unvarying permanent. The universe, according to reason, is evidently in a quandary. Mere Being can never change, because there is nothing to change it. But may not Being be added to Being, and may not change be the result of the synthesis? No, there cannot be a synthesis of only one element. Being added to Being is merely a repetition of one and the same factor, and nothing can come of that, nothing can emerge in the shape of a new product. The universe of the Eleatics having been reduced to one homogeneous element, Being namely—i.e., the universal without the particular—has in it no change, no variety, no life; it is mere stagnant undiversified unity. That is the difficulty which the Eleatics have to face when they maintain that there is no not-Being at all.

22. Suppose then, again, Parmenides to admit that, in some sense or other, not-Being exists. The question is, in what sense? It is difficult to see that this can be admitted in any sense without running into a contradiction. The admission, however, if allowable, would save the phenomena of the material universe. So much may be conceded. For, suppose it were urged against Parmenides that, in