Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/42

 26 A. E. TAYLOR : not only does not lead to the reversal of the positive results there established, but actually demands their affirmation. We are next to see what the opposite interpretation of the negative judgment involves, and once more to learn that on the view which treats unity and diversity, being and not-being, as incompatibles the content of knowledge and existence vanishes into nothing. Hypothesis 1 (163 B-164 B). " The One" does not exist : what folios ? We now understand our premiss in an absolute sense. " There is no such thing as the One." And the con- sequences which now become necessary can be rapidly and easily traced. When we say " A is not," we mean to deny A's reality. That is, we mean to deny its existence not with qualifications but absolutely and in toto. The non-existent A is to be = nothing. And of course the merely non-existent can neither enter upon a reality which is irreconcilable with its own utter nothingness, nor renounce an existence which, it has never possessed, so that becoming and decay are alike impossible for the non-existent One. And what neither begins nor ceases to be in any sense undergoes no change and no motion. Therefore, change and motion must be denied of the non-existent One. But it is equally im- possible to attribute to it rest or self-maintenance. For rest, as we saw in connexion with the first hypothesis, means remaining "in the same place," or "in the same re- lations ". But how can that which is merely and utterly unreal be in any "place," or stand in any "relations"? And finally, to cut a long story short, we may say directly that none of the predicates which are enjoyed by real things can belong to the One, " if it does not exist" ; for to possess any predicate would be, so far, to be real and to exist. It has therefore neither (a) quantitative nor (6) qualitative relations to itself nor to anything else. From which we can at once infer (164 A) that nothing else has any relations with it. And the ultimate conclusion is once more, as in hypo- thesis 1, that the One is the merely unreal and unknowable. " There is neither science, belief, sense-perception, discourse, nor name " of the One, unless the One is real. And so we see, though Plato does not express!} 7 call our attention to this delicate piece of iron} 7, that whether you say the One is the absolute and only reality (hypothesis 1), or that it is the merely unreal (hypothesis 7), it is all one ; in either case your adhesion to the principle of Identity, which led you to assert in hypothesis 1 that " what is One can be nothing but One," and in hypothesis 7 " what is unreal in any sense is unreal through and through," compels you