Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/174

Rh that any of its velocities are, or that they have a Being, that is, a continuance. Each of the velocities in the very act of being that velocity vanishes in another velocity, so that we never can say of it that it is that velocity. In the very act of being what it is, it is not what it is. Such is an illustration of what Heraclitus means when he says, .

13. Take another illustration of this conception of Becoming. Suppose yourselves gazing on a gorgeous sunset. The whole western heavens are glowing with roseate hues. But you are aware that within half an hour all these glorious tints will have faded away into a dull ashen grey. You see them even now melting away before your eyes, although your eyes cannot place before you the conclusion which your reason draws. And what conclusion is that? That conclusion is that you never, even for the shortest time that can be named or conceived, see any abiding colour, any colour which truly is. Within the millionth part of a second the whole glory of the painted heavens has undergone an incalculable series of mutations. One shade is supplanted by another with a rapidity which sets all measurement at defiance, not because our power of measurement is limited, but because the process is one to which no measurement applies. Before any one colour has had time to be that colour, it has melted into another colour, and that other colour has, in like manner, melted