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 40 PHILOSOPHICAL AND OTHER ESSAYS that doctrine would be beyond the scope of physics: proper". This very definite statement from the fore-- most scientific philosopher of ancient times is a clear indication of the fact that Parmenides' philosophy has. only a conceptual or ontological meaning, and not a. naturalistic or materialistic one. Then again, in explaining the nature of unity and plurality from the standpoint of Parmenides, Aristotle lays down that: Parmenides regarded the world as a rational unity, while the plurality that one meets with in the world is to be regarded as merely sensible, and therefore, as only apparent: "of necessity he thinks that Being is one, and that there is nothing else......and being compelled to account for phenomena, he assumes that things are one from the standpoint of reason, and many from the standpoint of sense." 47 The only meaning that we could assign to this statement about Parmenides is that according to him the essential nature of the world is to be regarded as rational, conceptual, ontological, which allows no scope for ultimate mate- rialistic existence. There is no alternative except to find in Parmenides' identification of Thought and Being a vision of the later ontological argument, which has exercised a potent influence on the whole course of thought. We definitely agree with Prof. A. C. Fraser when he says that the later ontological argument was itself anticipated in the τὸ αὐτὸ νοεῖν τε καὶ εἶναι attributed to Parmenides.48

10. Parmenides and Shankaracharya.-It is very significant that Herr Garbe, following a suggestion, 46. Arist. Phys. i cc. 2 f. ( Vide Adamson p. 34 also). 47. Arist. Meta. i. 5. 986 b 32. 48. Fraser, Philosophy of Theism, p. 223.