hought, a concept. Being is not here, it is not there. It is
not in any place or time. It is not to be found by the senses. It is
to be found only in reason. {48} We form the idea of Being by the
process of abstraction. For example, we see this desk. Our entire
knowledge of the desk consists in our knowledge of its qualities. It
is square, brown, hard, odourless, etc. Now suppose we successively
strip off these qualities in thought--its colour, its size, its shape.
We shall ultimately be left with nothing at all except its mere being.
We can no longer say of it that it is hard, square, etc. We can only
say "it is." As Parmenides said, Being is not divisible, movable; it
is not here nor there, then nor now. It simply "is." This is the
Eleatic notion of Being, and it is a pure concept. It may be compared
to such an idea as "whiteness." We cannot see "whiteness." We see
white things, but not "whiteness" itself. What, then, is "whiteness"?
It is a concept, that is to say, not a particular thing, but a general
idea, which we form by abstraction, by considering the quality which
all white things have in common, and neglecting the qualities in which
they differ. Just so, if we consider the common character of all
objects in the universe, and neglect their differences, we shall find
that what they all have in common is simply "being." Being then is a
general idea, or concept. It is a thought, and not a thing.
Parmenides, therefore, actually placed the absolute reality of things
in an idea, in a thought, though he may have conceived it in a
material and sensuous way. Now the cardinal thesis of idealism is
precisely this, that the absolute reality, of which the world is a
manifestation, consists in thought, in concepts. Parmenides, on this
view, was an idealist.

Moreover, Parmenides has clearly made the distinction between sense
and reason. True Being is not known to {49} the senses, but only to
reason, and this distinction is an essential feature of all idealism.
Materialism is precisely the view that reality is to be found in the
world of sense. But the proposition of Parmenides is the exact
opposite of this, namely, that reality is to be found only in reason.
Again, there begins to appear for the first time in Parmenides the
distinction between reality and appearance. Parmenides, of course,
would not have used these terms, which have been adopted in modern
times. But the thought which they express is unmistakably there. This