Page:Works of Plato his first fifty-five dialogues (Taylor 1804) (Vol 3 of 5) (IA Vol3worksofplato00plat).pdf/207

THE PARMENIDES. Each, therefore, of other things ought to appear infinite and bounded, and one and many, if the one is not, and other things besides the one have a subsistence. It ought to be so. Will they, therefore, appear to be similars and dissimilars? But how? Since to him who beholds others at a distance, involved as it were in shadow, they all appear to be one, they will seem to suffer same and to be similar. Entirely so. But to him who approaches nearer they will appear to be many and different, and different from and dissimilar to themselves, through the phantasm of diversity. It is so. The heaps, therefore, will necessarily appear to be similar and dissimilar to themselves, and to each other. Entirely so. Will they not also be the same and different from each other, and in contact with, and separate from, themselves, and moved with all possible motions, and every way abiding: likewise generated and corrupted, and neither of these, and all of this kind, which may be easily enumerated, if, though the one is not, the many have a subsistence? All this is most true.

Once more, therefore, returning again to the beginning, let us relate what ought to happen to things different from the one, if the one is not. relate. Does it not, therefore, follow that others are not the one ? How should it not be so ? Nor yet are they many ; for, in the many, the one also would be inherent. For, if none of these is one, all are nothing ; so that neither can there be many. True. The one, therefore, not being inherent in others, others are neither many nor one. They are not. Nor will they appear either to be one or many. Why not ? Because others cannot in any respect have any communication with things which are not, nor can anything of non-beings be present with others; for no part subsists with non-beings. True. Neither, therefore, is there any opinion of that which is not, inherent in others, nor any phantasm ; nor can that which is not become in any respect the subject of opinion to others. It cannot. The one, therefore, if it is not, cannot by opinion be conceived to be any certain one of others, nor yet many ; for it is impossible to form an opinion of many without the one. It is impossible. If the one, therefore, is not, neither have others any subsistence ; nor can the one or the many be conceived by opinion. It does not appear that they can. Neither, therefore, do similars nor dissimilars subsist. They do not. Nor same nor different, nor things in contact, nor such