and Marie Louise, daughter of Charles IV., king of Spain). The new duke, unwilling to yield to the wishes of his people for greater political liberty, was soon compelled to take flight, and the duchy was for a time ruled by a provisional government and by Charles Albert of Sardinia; but in April 1849 Baron d’Aspre with 15,000 Austrians took possession of Parma, and the ducal government was restored under Austrian protection. Charles II. (who had in 1820 married Theresa, daughter of Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia) abdicated in favour of his son Charles III., on the 14th of March, 1849. On the assassination of Charles III. in 1854, his widow, Marie Louise (daughter of Ferdinand, prince of Artois and duke of Berry), became regent for her son Robert. In 1860 his possessions were formally incorporated with the new kingdom of Italy.
The duchy of Parma in 1849 had an area of 2376 sq. m. divided into five provinces—Borgo San Donnino, Valditaro, Parma, Lunigiana Parmense and Piacenza. Its population in 1851 was 497,343. Under Marie Louise (1815–1847) the territory of Guastalla (50 sq. m.) formed part of the duchy, but it was transferred in 1847 to Modena in exchange for the communes of Bagnone, Filattiera, &c., which went to constitute the Lunigiana Parmense.
See Affó, Storia di Parma (1792–1795); Scarabelli, Storia dei ducati di Parma, Piacenza, e Guastalla (1858); Buttafuoco, Dizion. corogr. dei ducati, &c. (1853); Mou. hist, ad provincias parmensem et placentinam pertinentia (1855, &c.); L. Testi, Parma (Bergamo, 1905).
PARMENIDES OF ELEA (Velia) in Italy, Greek philosopher. According to Diogenes Laertius he was “in his prime” 504–500 B.C., and would thus seem to have been born about 539. Plato
indeed (Parmenides, 127 B) makes Socrates see and hear Parmenides when the latter was about sixty-five years of age, in which
case he cannot have been born before 519; but in the absence of
evidence that any such meeting took place this may be regarded
as one of Plato’s anachronisms. However this may be, Parmenides
was a contemporary, probably a younger contemporary, of
Heraclitus, with whom the first succession of physicists ended,
while Empedocles and Anaxagoras, with whom the second
succession of physicists began, were very much his juniors.
Belonging, it is said, to a rich and distinguished family, Parmenides
attached himself, at any rate for a time, to the aristocratic
society or brotherhood which Pythagoras had established at
Croton; and accordingly one part of his system, the physical
part, is apparently Pythagorean. To Xenophanes, the founder
of Eleaticism—whom he must have known, even if he was never
in any strict sense of the word his disciple—Parmenides was,
perhaps, more deeply indebted, as the theological speculations of
that thinker unquestionably suggested to him the theory of
Being and Not-Being, of the One and the Many, by which he
sought to reconcile Ionian “monism,” or rather “henism,” with
Italiote dualism. Tradition relates that Parmenides framed laws
for the Eleates, who each year took an oath to observe them.
Parmenides embodied his tenets in a short poem, called Nature, of which fragments, amounting in all to about 160 lines, have been preserved in the writings of Sextus Empiricus, Simplicius and others. It is traditionally divided into three parts—the “Proem,” “Truth” (τὰ πρὸς ἀλήθειαν), and “Opinion” (τὰ πρὸς δόξαν). In “Truth,” starting from the formula “the Ent (or existent) is, the Nonent (or non-existent) is not,” Parmenides attempted to distinguish between the unity or universal element of nature and its variety or particularity, insisting upon the reality of its unity, which is therefore the object of knowledge, and upon the unreality of its variety, which is therefore the object, not of knowledge, but of opinion. In “Opinion” he propounded a theory of the world of seeming and its development, pointing out however that, in accordance with the principles already laid down, these cosmological speculations do not pretend to anything more than probability. In spite of the contemptuous remarks of Cicero and Plutarch about Parmenides’s versification. Nature is not without literary merit. The introduction, though rugged, is forcible and picturesque; and the rest of the poem is written in a simple and effective style suitable to the subject.
Proem.—In the “Proem” the poet describes his journey from darkness to light. Borne in a whirling chariot, and attended by the daughters of the sun, he reaches a temple sacred to an unnamed goddess (variously identified by the commentators with Nature, Wisdom or Themis), by whom the rest of the poem is spoken. He must learn all things, she tells him, both truth, which is certain, and human opinions; for, though in human opinions there can be no"true faith, " they must be studied notwithstanding for what they are worth.
Truth.—“Truth” begins with the declaration of Parmenides’s principle in opposition to the principles of his predecessors. There are three ways of research, and three ways only. Of these, one asserts the non-existence of the existent and the existence of the non-existent [i.e. Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes suppose the single element which they respectively postulate to be transformed into the various sorts of matter which they discover in the world around them, thus assuming the non-existence of that which is elemental and the existence of that which is non-elemental]; another, pursued by “restless” persons, whose “road returns upon itself.” assumes that a thing “is and is not,” “is the same and not the same” [an obvious reference, as Bernays points out in the Rheinisches Museum, vii. 114 seq., to Heraclitus, the philosopher of flux]. These are ways of error, because they confound existence and non-existence. In contrast to them the way of truth starts from the proposition that " the Ent is, the Nonent is not.”
On the strength of the fundamental distinction between the Ent and the Nonent, the goddess next announces certain characteristics of the former. The Ent is uncreated, for it cannot be derived either from the Ent or from the Nonent; it is imperishable, for it cannot pass into the Nonent; it is whole, indivisible, continuous, for nothing exists to break its continuity in space; it is unchangeable [for nothing exists to break its continuity in time]; it is perfect, for there is nothing which it can want; it never was, nor will be, but only is; it is evenly extended in every direction, and therefore a sphere, exactly balanced; it is identical with thought [i.e. it is the object, and the sole object, of thought as opposed to sensation, sensation being concerned with variety and change].
As then the Ent is one, invariable and immutable, all plurality, variety and mutation belong to the Nonent. Whence it follows that all things to which men attribute reality, generation and destruction, being and not-being, change of place, alteration of colour are no more than empty words.
Opinion.—The investigation of the Ent [i.e. the existent unity, extended throughout space and enduring throughout time, which reason discovers beneath the variety and the mutability of things] being now complete, it remains in “Opinion” to describe the plurality of things, not as they are, for they are not, but as they seem to be. In the phenomenal world then, there are, it has been thought [and Parmenides accepts the theory, which appears to be of Pythagorean origin], two primary elements—namely, fire, which is gentle, thin, homogeneous, and night, which is dark, thick, heavy. Of these elements [which, according to Aristotle, were, or rather were analogous to, the Ent and the Nonent respectively] all things consist, and from them they derive their several characteristics. The foundation for a cosmology having thus been laid in dualism, the poem went on to describe the generation of “earth and sun, and moon and air that is common to all, and the milky way, and furthest Olympus, and the glowing stars”; but the scanty fragments which have survived suffice only to show that Parmenides regarded the universe as a series of concentric rings or spheres composed of the two primary elements and of combinations of them, the whole system being directed by an unnamed goddess established at its centre. Next came a theory of animal development. This again was followed by a psychology, which made thought [as well as sensation, which was conceived to differ from thought only in respect of its object] depend upon the excess of the one or the other of the two constituent elements, fire and night. “Such, opinion tells us, was the generation, such is the present existence, such will be the end, of those things to which men have given distinguishing names.”
In the truism “the Ent is, the Nonent is not,” ὄν ἔστι, μὴ ὄν οὐκ ἔστι, Parmenides breaks with his predecessors, the physicists of the Ionian succession. Asking themselves—What is the material universe, they had replied respectively—It is water. It is μεταξύ τι, It is air. It is fire. Thus, while their question meant, or ought to have meant. What is the single element which underlies the apparent plurality of the material world? their answers, Parmenides conceived, by attributing to the selected element various and varying qualities, reintroduced the plurality which the question sought to eliminate. If we would discover that which is common to all things at all times, we must, he submitted, exclude the differences of things, whether simultaneous or successive. Hence, whereas his predecessors had confounded that which is universally existent with that which is not universally existent, he proposed to distinguish carefully between that which is universally existent and that which is
