ifferent meanings this 'feast' of
contradictions 'has been provided.'

...

The Parmenides of Plato belongs to a stage of philosophy which has
passed away. At first we read it with a purely antiquarian or historical
interest; and with difficulty throw ourselves back into a state of
the human mind in which Unity and Being occupied the attention of
philosophers. We admire the precision of the language, in which, as in
some curious puzzle, each word is exactly fitted into every other,
and long trains of argument are carried out with a sort of geometrical
accuracy. We doubt whether any abstract notion could stand the searching
cross-examination of Parmenides; and may at last perhaps arrive at the
conclusion that Plato has been using an imaginary method to work out an
unmeaning conclusion. But the truth is, that he is carrying on a process
which is not either useless or unnecessary in any age of philosophy.
We fail to understand him, because we do not realize that the questions
which he is discussing could have had any value or importance. We
suppose them to be like the speculations of some of the Schoolmen,
which end in nothing. But in truth he is trying to get rid of the
stumbling-blocks of thought which beset his contemporaries. Seeing that
the Megarians and Cynics were making knowledge impossible, he takes
their 'catch-words' and analyzes them from every conceivable point of
view. He is criticizing the simplest and most general of our ideas, in
which, as they are the most comprehensive, the danger of error is the
most serious; for, if they remain unexamined, as in a mathematical
demonstration, all that flows from them is affected, and the error
pervades knowledge far and wide. In the beginning of philosophy this
correction of human ideas was even more necessary than in our own
times, because they were more bound up with words; and words when once
presented to the mind exercised a greater power over thought. There is
a natural realism which says, 'Can there be a word devoid of meaning, or
an idea which is an idea of nothing?' In modern times mankind have often
given too great importance to a word or idea. The philosophy of the
ancients was still more in slavery to them, because they had not the
experience of error, which would have placed them above the illusion.

The method of the Parmenides may be compared with the process of
purgation, which Bacon sought to introduce into philosophy. Plato is
warning us against two