Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/182

Rh say, each state is not. Each change, we may say, dies in being born, each state is and is not. Yet again we are under the necessity of saying, omnia fiunt per saltum, for we are compelled to hold that each of these states is, is a definite state, otherwise there could be no succession. Now the conception of Becoming is that in which these two opposite determinations of Being and not-Being are conciliated and made one; and we can now understand how the universe, if a process, should at once be and not be. We may not be satisfied with this doctrine, which represents the universe as an existing fluxion, or as a fluxionary existence, that is, as a process, the two essential moments of which are Being and not-Being. We may not agree with this doctrine, but II think that we should now have made some approach towards understanding it, and that we have thus overtaken to some extent the duty incumbent on the historian of philosophy, which is to impart insight rather, than to produce conviction.

22. The conception of the curved line, or circle, as generated by the moving point, affords perhaps another good illustration of Becoming, as involving opposite determinations, that is to say, as made up of the two constituents Being and not-Being. The circle is generated by the motion of a point which is continually changing its direction. That statement, I believe, would be accepted by mathematicians. Now, simple as this statement seems, it is utterly