Sophist

Str. But for heaven’s sake, shall we let ourselves easily be persuaded that motion and life and soul and mind are really not present to absolute being, that it neither lives nor thinks, but awful and holy, devoid of mind, is fixed and immovable?

Theaet. That would be a shocking admission to make, Stranger.

Str. But shall we say that it has mind, but not life?

Theaet. How can we?

Str. But do we say that both of these exist in it, and yet go on to say that it does not possess them in a soul?

Theaet. But how else can it possess them?

Str. Then shall we say that it has mind and life and soul, but, although endowed with soul, is absolutely immovable?

Theaet. All those things seem to me absurd.

Str. And it must be conceded that motion and that which is moved exist.

Theaet. Of course.

Str. Then the result is, Theaetetus, that if there is no motion, there is no mind in anyone about anything anywhere.

Theaet. Exactly.

Str. And on the other hand, if we admit that all things are in flux and motion, we shall remove mind itself from the number of existing things by this theory also.

Theaet. How so?

Str. Do you think that sameness of quality or nature or relations could ever come into existence without the state of rest?

Theaet. Not at all.

Str. What then? Without these can you see how mind could exist or come into existence anywhere?

Theaet. By no means.

Str. And yet we certainly must contend by every argument against him who does away with knowledge or reason or mind and then makes any dogmatic assertion about anything.

Theaet. Certainly.

Str. Then the philosopher, who pays the highest honor to these things, must necessarily, as it seems, because of them refuse to accept the theory of those who say the universe is at rest, whether as a unity or in many forms, and must also refuse utterly to listen to those who say that being is universal motion; he must quote the children’s prayer, all things immovable and in motion, and must say that being and the universe consist of both.

Theaet. Very true.

Str. Do we not, then, seem to have attained at last a pretty good definition of being?

Theaet. Certainly.

Str. But dear me, Theaetetus! I think we are now going to discover the difficulty of the inquiry about being.

Theaet. What is this again? What do you mean?

Str. My dear fellow, don’t you see that we are now densely ignorant about it, but think that we are saying something worth while?

Theaet. I think so, at any rate, and I do not at all understand what hidden error we have fallen into.