Parmenides

Ceph. True. And is there not also a time when it assumes being and when it gives it up? How can it sometimes have and sometimes not have the same thing, unless it receives it at some time and again loses it? There is no other way at all. But would you not say that receiving existence is generation or becoming? Yes. And losing existence is destruction? Certainly. The one, then, as it appears, since it receives and loses existence, is generated and destroyed. Inevitably. And being one and many and being generated and destroyed, when it becomes one its existence as many is destroyed, and when it becomes many its existence as one is destroyed, is it not? Certainly. And in becoming one and many, must it not be separated and combined? Inevitably. And when it becomes like and unlike, it must be assimilated and dissimilated? Yes. And when it becomes greater and smaller and equal, it must be increased and diminished and equalized? Yes. And when being in motion it comes to rest, and when being at rest it changes to motion, it must itself be in no time at all. How is that? It is impossible for it to be previously at rest and afterwards in motion, or previously in motion and afterwards at rest, without changing. Of course. And there is no time in which anything can be at once neither in motion nor at rest. No, there is none. And certainly it cannot change without changing. I should say not. Then when does it change? For it does not change when it is at rest or when it is in motion or when it is in time. No, it does not. Does this strange thing, then, exist, in which it would be at the moment when it changes? What sort of thing is that? The instant. For the instant seems to indicate a something from which there is a change in one direction or the other. For it does not change from rest while it is still at rest, nor from motion while it is still moving; but there is this strange instantaneous nature, something interposed between motion and rest, not existing in any time, and into this and out from this that which is in motion changes into rest and that which is at rest changes into motion. Yes, that must be so. Then the one, if it is at rest and in motion, must change in each direction; for that is the only way in which it can do both. But in changing, it changes instantaneously, and when it changes it can be in no time, and at that instant it will be neither in motion nor at rest. No.