word might have several senses, which
shaded off into one another, and were not capable of being comprehended
in a single notion. There is no trace of this reflection in Plato.
But neither is there any reason to think, even if the reflection had
occurred to him, that he would have been deterred from carrying on the
war with weapons fair or unfair against the outlaw Sophist.

III. The puzzle about 'Not-being' appears to us to be one of the most
unreal difficulties of ancient philosophy. We cannot understand the
attitude of mind which could imagine that falsehood had no existence, if
reality was denied to Not-being: How could such a question arise at
all, much less become of serious importance? The answer to this, and to
nearly all other difficulties of early Greek philosophy, is to be sought
for in the history of ideas, and the answer is only unsatisfactory
because our knowledge is defective. In the passage from the world
of sense and imagination and common language to that of opinion and
reflection the human mind was exposed to many dangers, and often

'Found no end in wandering mazes lost.'

On the other hand, the discovery of abstractions was the great source
of all mental improvement in after ages. It was the pushing aside of
the old, the revelation of the new. But each one of the company of
abstractions, if we may speak in the metaphorical language of Plato,
became in turn the tyrant of the mind, the dominant idea, which would
allow no other to have a share in the throne. This is especially true of
the Eleatic philosophy: while the absoluteness of Being was asserted
in every form of language, the sensible world and all the phenomena of
experience were comprehended under Not-being. Nor was any difficulty or
perplexity thus created, so long as the mind, lost in the contemplation
of Being, asked no more questions, and never thought of applying the
categories of Being or Not-being to mind or opinion or practical life.

But the negative as well as the positive idea had sunk deep into the
intellect of man. The effect of the paradoxes of Zeno extended far
beyond the Eleatic circle. And now an unforeseen consequence began to
arise. If the Many were not, if all things were names of the One, and
nothing could be predicated of any other thing, how could truth be
distinguished from falsehood? The Eleatic philosopher would have
replied that Being is alone true. But mankind had got beyond his barren
abstractions: they we