to absolute truth and being, and particular
knowledge to particular truth and being.' Clearly.' 'And there is a
subjective knowledge which is of subjective truth, having many kinds,
general and particular. But the ideas themselves are not subjective, and
therefore are not within our ken.' 'They are not.' 'Then the beautiful
and the good in their own nature are unknown to us?' 'It would seem so.'
'There is a worse consequence yet.' 'What is that?' 'I think we must
admit that absolute knowledge is the most exact knowledge, which we must
therefore attribute to God. But then see what follows: God, having
this exact knowledge, can have no knowledge of human things, as we
have divided the two spheres, and forbidden any passing from one to the
other:--the gods have knowledge and authority in their world only, as
we have in ours.' 'Yet, surely, to deprive God of knowledge is
monstrous.'--'These are some of the difficulties which are involved
in the assumption of absolute ideas; the learner will find them nearly
impossible to understand, and the teacher who has to impart them will
require superhuman ability; there will always be a suspicion, either
that they have no existence, or are beyond human knowledge.' 'There I
agree with you,' said Socrates. 'Yet if these difficulties induce you
to give up universal ideas, what becomes of the mind? and where are the
reasoning and reflecting powers? philosophy is at an end.' 'I certainly
do not see my way.' 'I think,' said Parmenides, 'that this arises out
of your attempting to define abstractions, such as the good and
the beautiful and the just, before you have had sufficient previous
training; I noticed your deficiency when you were talking with
Aristoteles, the day before yesterday. Your enthusiasm is a wonderful
gift; but I fear that unless you discipline yourself by dialectic
while you are young, truth will elude your grasp.' 'And what kind of
discipline would you recommend?' 'The training which you heard Zeno
practising; at the same time, I admire your saying to him that you did
not care to consider the difficulty in reference to visible objects,
but only in relation to ideas.' 'Yes; because I think that in visible
objects you may easily show any number of inconsistent consequences.'
'Yes; and you should consider, not only the consequences which follow
from a given hypothesis, but the consequences also which follow from the
denial of the hypothesis. For example, what follows from the