Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/29

ON THE INTERPRETATION OF PLATO'S PARMENIDES. 13 "external". The demonstration that the same reality has as its predicates both rest and motion means then for Plato in the Parmenides not, as it might for a disciple of Hegel, that at the same time and in the same relation both are true of the same object, but only that the one is as real of the same subject at one time as the other is at another. The common reality is qualified by both predicates not as pos- sessing them both at once and in inextricable combination, but as being bound to manifest sometimes one, sometimes the other. It might perhaps be questioned whether one or two of the demonstrations of 2, notably the proof that unity, even when considered in abstraction from reality, of itself involves the existence of a plurality of numbers, and the establishment of the intimate connexion between iden- tity and difference, at p. 147, do not imply a closer union of opposites than the third hypothesis seems to contemplate ; but in that case we can hardly do more, in the face of Plato's explicit declaration, than credit him with the dis^ covery of a principle which reaches further than he was aware. 1 And if we will remember that ovaia for him in this dialogue sometimes has the special sense of present reality (141 E, 152 A), we can see that even a Hegelian may up to a certain point admit his contention. For, as far as present appearance goes, it is clear that only one of the contrary predicates can make itself felt at the same time. The other may be there, but it is at best concealed and implicit and must wait for a favourable opportunity to take its turn of ascendency e.g., space may be both continuous and discrete, the same object both in motion and at rest, both one and many ; but at any given moment what asserts itself as present perceived reality will be one side of the antithesis only ; the other side which is not forced upon our notice by present perception is after all only latent, and has to be discovered by subsequent re- flexion. So that there is real force in Plato's contention that opposites, in whatever way they may co-exist, can only- make their equal reality felt by taking it in turns to domi- nate experience that is, by transition from the one to the other in time. In the case of the ultimate relation between unity and plurality indeed we should be led, if we followed 1 The Hegelian would not improve his position by an appeal to the well-known encomium oil Heracleitus, Soph., 242 E. For all that that passage asserts is that the transition from unity to plurality with which hypothesis 3 deals is perpetually taking place. Soph., pp. 255-56 (on Kivr]<ris and o-rao-i?), are fully in accord with the Parmenides and Republic.