which he attributes to the opinions of others, who
deny his opinions. I am not equally sure that we can disprove the truth
of immediate states of feeling. But this leads us to the doctrine of
the universal flux, about which a battle-royal is always going on in the
cities of Ionia. 'Yes; the Ephesians are downright mad about the
flux; they cannot stop to argue with you, but are in perpetual motion,
obedient to their text-books. Their restlessness is beyond expression,
and if you ask any of them a question, they will not answer, but dart at
you some unintelligible saying, and another and another, making no way
either with themselves or with others; for nothing is fixed in them
or their ideas,--they are at war with fixed principles.' I suppose,
Theodorus, that you have never seen them in time of peace, when they
discourse at leisure to their disciples? 'Disciples! they have none;
they are a set of uneducated fanatics, and each of them says of the
other that they have no knowledge. We must trust to ourselves, and not
to them for the solution of the problem.' Well, the doctrine is old,
being derived from the poets, who speak in a figure of Oceanus and
Tethys; the truth was once concealed, but is now revealed by the
superior wisdom of a later generation, and made intelligible to the
cobbler, who, on hearing that all is in motion, and not some things
only, as he ignorantly fancied, may be expected to fall down and worship
his teachers. And the opposite doctrine must not be forgotten:--

'Alone being remains unmoved which is the name for all,'

as Parmenides affirms. Thus we are in the midst of the fray; both
parties are dragging us to their side; and we are not certain which of
them are in the right; and if neither, then we shall be in a ridiculous
position, having to set up our own opinion against ancient and famous
men.

Let us first approach the river-gods, or patrons of the flux.

When they speak of motion, must they not include two kinds of motion,
change of place and change of nature?--And all things must be supposed
to have both kinds of motion; for if not, the same things would be at
rest and in motion, which is contrary to their theory. And did we not
say, that all sensations arise thus: they move about between the agent
and patient together with a perception, and the patient ceases to be a
perceiving power and becomes a percipient, and the agent a quale instead
of a quality; but neither has any absolute exis