Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/161

106 have to say on Zeno's subtle paradoxes in disproof of motion, and also his position that opposite predicates or attributes cannot attach to the same subject, I shall now offer a short summary of the Eleatic philosophy. The general scope and substance of the Eleatic philosophy may be summed up under the following heads:—First, the Eleatic philosophers assumed Being, and nothing but Being, as their universal, their truth for all reason; this with them was the , or the real. Secondly, they denied or discarded the opposite of this,  or , the not-Being. Thirdly, they denied this on the ground that the same thought or the same thing could not contain or consist of opposite determinations or contrary predicates. Fourthly, the consequence was, that there was no diversity, no plurality, no difference, no life, no generation, and no decay; in short, no change or movement in the universe, according to them; nothing but a dead and unvarying uniformity, a stagnant fixedness, more inanimate than nonentity itself. Being, according to Parmenides, was strictly synonymous with the permanent. Hence his conclusion followed at once: the world of Being is the world of permanence. In the world of permanence there is and can be no change, otherwise the permanent would not be the permanent; therefore, in the world of Being there is and can be no change. Or it may be put in this way, the world of Being excludes not-Being; not-Being is essential to change; therefore, the world of Being excludes change. To