eak of alternation only. Whether they are
right or not, who can say? But one thing we can say--that they went on
their way without much caring whether we understood them or not. For
tell me, Theaetetus, do you understand what they mean by their assertion
of unity, or by their combinations and separations of two or more
principles? I used to think, when I was young, that I knew all about
not-being, and now I am in great difficulties even about being.

Let us proceed first to the examination of being. Turning to the dualist
philosophers, we say to them: Is being a third element besides hot and
cold? or do you identify one or both of the two elements with being?
At any rate, you can hardly avoid resolving them into one. Let us next
interrogate the patrons of the one. To them we say: Are being and one
two different names for the same thing? But how can there be two names
when there is nothing but one? Or you may identify them; but then the
name will be either the name of nothing or of itself, i.e. of a name.
Again, the notion of being is conceived of as a whole--in the words
of Parmenides, 'like every way unto a rounded sphere.' And a whole has
parts; but that which has parts is not one, for unity has no parts. Is
being, then, one, because the parts of being are one, or shall we say
that being is not a whole? In the former case, one is made up of parts;
and in the latter there is still plurality, viz. being, and a whole
which is apart from being. And being, if not all things, lacks something
of the nature of being, and becomes not-being. Nor can being ever have
come into existence, for nothing comes into existence except as a whole;
nor can being have number, for that which has number is a whole or sum
of number. These are a few of the difficulties which are accumulating
one upon another in the consideration of being.

We may proceed now to the less exact sort of philosophers. Some of
them drag down everything to earth, and carry on a war like that of the
giants, grasping rocks and oaks in their hands. Their adversaries defend
themselves warily from an invisible world, and reduce the substances
of their opponents to the minutest fractions, until they are lost in
generation and flux. The latter sort are civil people enough; but the
materialists are rude and ignorant of dialectics; they must be taught
how to argue before they can answer. Yet, for the sake of the argument,
we may assume them to be better than they are, and abl