Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/153

98 sensible existence with not-Being, he had annihilated the former, his answer would be; No: I do indeed identify sensible existence, or the material world, with not-Being; but then I hold that not-Being has a sort of existence (spurious enough, I grant you, but still a sort of existence), and therefore the material universe, which is identical with not-Being, has a sort of spurious existence. That answer, I say, would be sufficient to save the material world and its phenomena from the logical extinction which would overtake them under the other alternative. In conceding this, however, I am not sure, on second thoughts, that I have not conceded too much. Let us investigate a little more closely this spurious kind of existence which, under one interpretation of his system, Parmenides attributes to the presentations of sense. It will be found, I think, that this kind of existence, instead of being merely spurious, is contradictory, and is obtained in defiance of all the laws of logical thinking. We must revert for a moment to the fundamental antithesis of Being and not-Being. In his search after unity Parmenides found Being. This he constituted into a world by itself, a world apart. This is the one. But there is also the not-one or the many, and this is not-Being. But if the one or Being be constituted into a world by itself, the many or not-Being must likewise be constituted into a world by itself; you cannot isolate one thing from another without isolating that other from the first. But what happens when the world of not-Being