ess of ingenious verbal
distinction, which in the hands of so-called sophists and others became
a weapon of considerable, if temporary, power.

[109]

IV. MELISSUS.--The fourth and last of the Eleatic philosophers was
Melissus, a native of Samos. His date may be fixed as about 440 B.C.
He took an active part in the politics of his native country, and on
one occasion was commander of the Samian fleet in a victorious
engagement with the Athenians, when Samos was being besieged by
Pericles. He belongs to the Eleatic school in respect of doctrine and
method, but we have no evidence of his ever having resided at Elea, nor
any reference to his connection with the philosophers there, except the
statement that he was a pupil of Parmenides. He developed very fully
what is technically called in the science of Logic [110] the _Dilemma_.
Thus, for example, he begins his treatise _On Existence_ or _On Nature_
thus: "If nothing exists, then there is nothing for us to talk about.
But if there is such a thing as existence it must either come into
being or be ever-existing. If it come into being, it must come from
the existing or the non-existing. Now that anything which exists, {47}
above all, that which is absolutely existent, should come from what is
not, is impossible. Nor can it come from that which is. For then it
would be already, and would not come into being. That which exists,
therefore, comes not into being; it must therefore be ever-existing."

[111]

By similar treatment of other conceivable alternatives he proceeds to
show that as the existent had no beginning so it can have no ending in
time. From this, by a curious transition which Aristotle quotes as an
example of loose reasoning, he concludes that the existent can have no
limit in space [112] either. As being thus unlimited it must be one,
therefore immovable (there being nothing else into which it can move or
change), and therefore always self-identical in extent and character.
It cannot, therefore, have any body, for body has parts and is not
therefore one.

[113]

Being incapable of change one might perhaps conclude that the
absolutely existing being is incapable of any mental activity or
consciousness. We have no authority for assuming that Melissus came to
this conclusion; but there is a curious remark of Aristotle's
respecting this and previous philosophers of the school which certain
critics have [114] made to bear some such interpretation. H