like--is
that your position?

Just so, said Zeno.

And if the unlike cannot be like, or the like unlike, then according to
you, being could not be many; for this would involve an impossibility.
In all that you say have you any other purpose except to disprove the
being of the many? and is not each division of your treatise intended to
furnish a separate proof of this, there being in all as many proofs of
the not-being of the many as you have composed arguments? Is that your
meaning, or have I misunderstood you?

No, said Zeno; you have correctly understood my general purpose.

I see, Parmenides, said Socrates, that Zeno would like to be not only
one with you in friendship but your second self in his writings too; he
puts what you say in another way, and would fain make believe that he is
telling us something which is new. For you, in your poems, say The All
is one, and of this you adduce excellent proofs; and he on the other
hand says There is no many; and on behalf of this he offers overwhelming
evidence. You affirm unity, he denies plurality. And so you deceive the
world into believing that you are saying different things when really
you are saying much the same. This is a strain of art beyond the reach
of most of us.

Yes, Socrates, said Zeno. But although you are as keen as a Spartan
hound in pursuing the track, you do not fully apprehend the true motive
of the composition, which is not really such an artificial work as you
imagine; for what you speak of was an accident; there was no pretence of
a great purpose; nor any serious intention of deceiving the world.
The truth is, that these writings of mine were meant to protect the
arguments of Parmenides against those who make fun of him and seek to
show the many ridiculous and contradictory results which they suppose
to follow from the affirmation of the one. My answer is addressed to the
partisans of the many, whose attack I return with interest by retorting
upon them that their hypothesis of the being of many, if carried out,
appears to be still more ridiculous than the hypothesis of the being
of one. Zeal for my master led me to write the book in the days of
my youth, but some one stole the copy; and therefore I had no choice
whether it should be published or not; the motive, however, of writing,
was not the ambition of an elder man, but the pugnacity of a young one.
This you do not seem to see, Socrates; though in other respects, as I
was saying, your notion