Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/337

P A R P A R 315 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 2-376 square miles, divided into five provinces Borgo San Donnino, Valditaro, Parma, Lunigiana Parmense, and Piacenza. Its population in 1851 was 497,343. Under Marie Louise (1815-47) the territory of Guastalla (50 square miles) formed part of the duchy, but it was transferred in 1847 to Modena in exchange for the communes of Bagnone, Filattiem, &c. , which went to constitute the Lunigiana Parmense. Parma has given birth to Sforza Pallavicino, Mazzola (Parmigiaiio) the painter, Antclami the architect, and Toschi the engraver. Guicciardini, the historian, was governor of the city under Leo X. See AfM, Storia di Parma, 1792-95 ; Searabelli, Storia dci ducati di Parma, Piacenza, e Guastalla, 1808; Buttafuoco, Dizion. corogr. dei ducati, <fcc., 18.53; Moii. hist, ad provincial Par mensem et Placentinam pertinentia, 1805, <fec. ; Uglielli, Italia Sacra, vol. ii. PAKMENIDES OF ELBA, the most notable of the philosophers of the Eleatic succession, is said by Diogenes Laertius (presumably on the authority of Apollodorus) to have been " in his prime " in Olymp. 69 ( = 504-500 B.C.); whence it would appear that he was born about 539. Plato indeed (Parmenides, 127 B; compare Thextetus, 183 E, Sophist, 217 C) makes Socrates, who was born 470 or 469, 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, it is reasonable to regard this as one of Plato s many anachronisms. However this may be, Parmenides was a contemporary, perhaps a somewhat younger contemporary, of Heraclitus, with whom the first succession of physicists ended ; while Anaxagoras and Empedocles, with whom the second succession of physicists began, as well as Protagoras, the earliest of those humanists whose rejection of physical research prepared the way for the Platonic metaphysic, were very decidedly 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 with Italiote dualism. Tradition relates that Parmenides framed laws for the Eleate.s, who each year took an oath to observe them. Parmenides embodied his tenets in a short poem called Natiire, of which fragments, amounting in all to about a hundred and sixty lines, have been preserved in the writings of Sextus Empiricus, Simplicius, and others. Nature is traditionally divided into three parts the "Proem," "Truth" (TO. Trpos dXr/^etav), and "Opinion" {TO. Trpos So^ai/). In "Truth," starting from the formula " the Ent (or existent) is, the Xonent (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 pro pounded a theory of the world of seeming and its develop ment, pointing out, however, that, in accordance with the principles already laid down, these cosmological specula tions 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 sub ject. It is, however, a summary rather than an exposi tion, and its brevity sometimes leads to obscurity. Partly for this reason, but partly also in consequence of the mutilations and the corruptions of the text, the interpreta tion of the system which Nature represents early became a matter of controversy. " 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 confidence, 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 trans formed 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 Beruays points out in the RJieinischcs Museum, vii. 114 sq., 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 Xonent, 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 Konent ; it is imperishable, for it cannot pass into the Xonent ; it is whole, indivisible, continuous, for nothing exists to break its continuity in space ; it is unchang- able [for nothing exists to break its continuity in time] ; it is per fect, 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 there fore a sphere, exactly balanced ; it is identical with thought [i.e., it is the object, and the sole object, of thought as opposed to I sensation, sensation being concerned with variety and change]. As then the Ent is one, invariable, and immutable, all plurality, i variety, and mutation belong to the Konent. Whence it follows j that all the states and processes which we commonly recognize generation and destruction, being and not-being [predicated of things], change of place, alteration of colour, and the like arc ! no more than empty words. "Opinion," The investigation of the Ent [i.e., the existent unity, I extended throughout space and enduring throughout time, which j reason discovers beneath the variety and the mutability of things] being now complete, it remains in "Opinion" to describe the plu rality 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 [or earth], which is dark, thick, heavy. Of these elements [which, according to Aristotle, were, or rather were analogous to, the Ent and the Konent re spectively] 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 genera tion 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 I or spheres composed of the two primary elements and of combina tions of them, the whole system being directed by an unnamed goddess established at its centre. Kext came a theory of animal development. This again was followed by a psychology, which made mind depend upon bodily structure, thought [as well as sensation, which was conceived to differ from thought only in respect of its object] being 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 tilings to which men have given distinguishing names." In the truism " the Ent is, the Nonent is not," ov eo-ri, /j.r] ov OVK eo-rt, Parmenides breaks with his predecessors, the physicists of the Ionian succession. Asking them selves AVhat is the material universe ? they had replied respectively It is water, it is yuera^v TI, it is air, it is fire. Thus, while their question meant, or ought to have meant,